The First Taste of Our Own Home Grown Chicken

I didn’t grow up necessarily as a farm kid. Yet I was a farm girl because in middle school every day when that bell rang for us to leave I was waiting for a big old van with the logo Pickett Fences farm to take me to my sanctuary.

I have loved farm animals and the country since I was a young girl.  My mom has always been one to not venture past beef and chicken. And even with chicken she only eats the breast. She would get very disgusted when my uncle offered her a venison dog.

Then there’s me her daughter. Who married a hunter and raised pigs for meat. And here I am now starting a farm and adding in animals that can bring a purpose to my family- many times that purpose is food.

Yet I knew when we bought these 11 baby chicks they were already tagged as our meat birds. I knew giving them this purpose from the beginning would make it easier when their time on the farm came to an end just five months later.

And shortly after we would be enjoying our first ever backyard chicken. Now let me just tell you this isn’t one of my informative posts as this is a farm rambling but you really do not want to cull your chicken and then eat it later that night or even the next day. The meat needs a resting period so to speak.

So it was three days from the day it was butchered to the day we sat it on its chair as my three-year-old daughter called it and roasted it.

We beer canned that chicken with a nice Labatt Blue. Since it is a free range bird it’s a bit smaller 4-5 lb. average then your supermarket store so it only needed an hour roasting time give or take.

We brought the bird inside and let it rest for 10 minutes as I placed the pieces of meat on each plate for my family an overwhelming sense of pride hit.

We sat down at the table and we all picked a piece of chicken with our forks and raised them to the middle of the table in a cheering fashion.

The squeamish mother wanted to emerge for a minute, then the other part of me said Tas- you raised this. And within minutes I was gushing about the taste.

It was truly delicious. Not a tough piece of meat at all. I was instantly in love. So was my husband. Each bit I felt happier. I knew exactly what was in that bird. Everything it consumed. I knew it lived the life it was meant to. I knew that I was feeding my children guilt free.

It tasted very similar to turkey in a way. Since our first chicken we have had plenty more and there is no reason to want a store bought chicken over home raised.

 

We took it a step further- okay my husband did and fried the chicken feet. This was thanks to Dave Ramsey on Masterchef showing us the way.

My daughter was a champ. They both said” Not Bad”. I couldn’t do it. Maybe next time.

 

Real Quick:

I don’t think it is an acquired taste. I do know that from the two types of chickens we had Wyandotte and Black Australorps the taste was different. Black Australops were much similar to a store chicken. Where the Wyandotte was similar to Turkey.

We are not free-ranging out meat birds this year so I am curious to see if there will be a difference in taste. We are also attempting to raise 35 meat birds.

What do you think?

Do you notice a difference in store bought chicken compared to backyard raised chicken?