Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire 25 systematilcally executed in Minnesota.

ClarkM, I didn't know the meat would get tough if the wings could still flap. A big cone seems to keep them from flapping while ya cut their heads off.

Flapping & running around bruises the meat ... doesn't it???

I'm going to control the flapping better on the next round. Even hanging them by the legs and holding as best as the helpers could, caused some broken wings and other bruising. My help was old-school and believed in letting them 'flap' to pump the blood out. I wasn't going to scold free help.

I haven't killed a chicken in 30+ years but after this round I know what to do better. We just butchered whatever hens that were around as available while growing up. These are a whole different game.

I grew up with cows, pigs, chickens and a good sized grain farm. I still have the farm but rent out the acres and do my construction work for a living. The critters are just for fun and fresh food.

Thanks to all of you for the advice and lessons learned.

BTW they scaled at about 5# cleaned and freezer ready on my cheap kitchen scale so +/- a little. We could have let them grow a bit more but the help was available so......

I kept all of the necks, hearts, gizzards and livers (pate) to cook up later. Not a fan of liver but I'll give it a try.

I call the Cornish Cross meat birds "freaks of nature". They are the best tasting, most vile, filthy creatures ever engineered!

Hips will break and hearts will asplode because they grow so fast. We were going o try the red rangers or what ever they are. They grow a little slower and take an extra week or two to make weight and act like real chickens. Not like these lazy things that park at the feeder. Red ranger arrival dates didn't fit with our schedule, so we are left with the freaks of nature.

A frind recalls growing up on the farm in Kansas and he and his brother would whack birds two-at-a-time trying to get the runners to collide. They'd fall over laughing when it would happen.

Randy - I'm going to have to remember the milk jug trick and try that.

My brother welded a big cone for me, but after a few years, I just held the Cornish Cross wings back with my left hand clamping the wings and my right hand clamping the legs.


The big turkeys I would stand on their wings while they were on their backs. Some could launch me into the air when I snipped off their heads.

Cornish Cross chickens are so stupid they can't sit on a perch to sleep. A great horned owl can haul away a lot of them in one night. If the Cornish Cross are kept with smart layer hens, the hens will make noises when the owl is there. I have shot owls out of the trees with stingers and out of the air with a 12 ga.