When it comes to beef I'm particular about cut and quality, often opting to pay more for at least choice or even prime for steaks on occasion. I can easily taste and see the difference in quality. But when it comes to chicken I usually just grab the pack of huge boneless breasts and call it a day. Granted, most often these are used in recipes where the chicken isn't really meant to stand on its own. Sometimes I'll grill them alone but they don't really shine on their own. Would it help to get better quality chicken, especially for grilling or roasting? We also raise chickens but mostly use them for eggs. Would it be worth having a few of these processed ($5 to process at our local meat market)?

I would imagine there is a difference but never really thought about it until your post. We often get eggs from someone who raises chickens and there is a difference, size, color, taste, and she'll toughness.

With store bought chickens they are all raised in the same environment, eat the same food, and from a specific breed, from the same hatchery, Just about every aspect of thier life is controlled. Plus they are a small animal so even a 5% difference in fat or muscle is a very small number.

With beef it's about the fat (marbling) and what they eat. You can taste a difference in grain fed and so on. But again not a lot of differences in chickens.

You will have to do a blind taste test and let us know.

I made the mistake of purchasing an air chilled chicken from central market one day. I roasted it, and my wife said it was the best roast chicken she'd ever had. I thought it was better, but I'm not sure it was $10 better. I'll do it again, but I will make sure they are on sale first.

Yes but you aren't going to get it in a normal grocery store or even most butcher shops.

A heritage chicken is fantastic. But the don't grow nearly as fast and the difference between white and dark meat is pretty dramatic.

Then you start getting in to the age of birds and that opens up a whole other issue.

But yeah the difference between most birds in a grocery store is how much brine they are packed with

I talked to a chicken farmer from Shiner a month or two ago. He said that Tyson wanted his chickens harvested at 34 days old.

That surprised me that they were that young.

willie wonka said:

---

I talked to a chicken farmer from Shiner a month or two ago. He said that Tyson wanted his chickens harvested at 34 days old.

That surprised me that they were that young.

---

they want them to grow big fast and have zero flavor.

I try to buy higher quality chicken when fixing Cordon Bleu, and generally try to buy whole vs. pieces.

Where I have really noticed the difference is store-bought quail vs wild, and store-bought turkey vs. wild.

Maybe brine-free chicken is the next big market for grocery stores.

I wonder if it's worth raising my own. I can get a 10 pack of broiler chicks from Tractor Supply that will grow to harvest size in 6 to 8 weeks for $20. At $5 to process that comes to about $7 a bird before any supplemental feeding.

We started with 4 a few years ago. She gave them names. The kids would hold them and she would take pics. Flash forward today and we have 5 times that many and she views them purely as egg machines and doesn't care when one gets picked off by a predator.

Ya, the $5 processing is a steal.

Yes, Chicken off the shelf in Georgia at the Publix is way better than the off the shelf at HEBs in Texas. I find the chicken here to be tougher and more grisly than other places. Which is strange since we have locally raised poultry. To get chicken as good as off the shelf in Georgia we go to a butcher or Halaal shop.

Bo Darville said:

---

I wonder if it's worth raising my own. I can get a 10 pack of broiler chicks from Tractor Supply that will grow to harvest size in 6 to 8 weeks for $20. At $5 to process that comes to about $7 a bird before any supplemental feeding.

---

You can probably expect some of them to die, because chickens are really dumb.

superunknown said:

---

Bo Darville said:

---

I wonder if it's worth raising my own. I can get a 10 pack of broiler chicks from Tractor Supply that will grow to harvest size in 6 to 8 weeks for $20. At $5 to process that comes to about $7 a bird before any supplemental feeding.

---

You can probably expect some of them to die, because chickens are really dumb.

---

Used to work at a feed store, can confirm. The movie Moana got it mostly right, except for the fact that chickens are also cannibalistic.

We have egg laying chickens and have none of them die just cus. A few from my dogs getting them and one the feed store gave us for free cus they thought it would die anyways. Otherwise all ours live forever. Never tried meat chickens but I don't think my wife and 2 little girls would be able to handle it

superunknown said:

---

fav13andac1)c said:

---

superunknown said:

---

Bo Darville said:

---

I wonder if it's worth raising my own. I can get a 10 pack of broiler chicks from Tractor Supply that will grow to harvest size in 6 to 8 weeks for $20. At $5 to process that comes to about $7 a bird before any supplemental feeding.

---

You can probably expect some of them to die, because chickens are really dumb.

---

Used to work at a feed store, can confirm. The movie Moana got it mostly right, except for the fact that chickens are also cannibalistic.

---

I wanted him to find that part out on his own.

---

We've had egg laying chickens for four years now with a flock that fluctuates between 20 to 30 birds.

Bo Darville said:

---

I wonder if it's worth raising my own. I can get a 10 pack of broiler chicks from Tractor Supply that will grow to harvest size in 6 to 8 weeks for $20. At $5 to process that comes to about $7 a bird before any supplemental feeding.

---

A cleaver chop to the neck, a big pot of boiling water and a sharp knife are all that's needed for processing. You might not want youngsters of today around . Grandma showed us how but that was back in the late 50's when everybody wasn't so sensitive.

Rattler12 said:

---

Bo Darville said:

---

I wonder if it's worth raising my own. I can get a 10 pack of broiler chicks from Tractor Supply that will grow to harvest size in 6 to 8 weeks for $20. At $5 to process that comes to about $7 a bird before any supplemental feeding.

---

A cleaver chop to the neck, a big pot of boiling water and a sharp knife are all that's needed for processing. You might not want youngsters of today around . Grandma showed us how but that was back in the late 50's when everybody wasn't so sensitive.

---

I always get a big laugh out of the different ways people do it. My grandfather would grab the chicken by the neck, swing it around his head like a lasso, until the body would go flying off with him still holding the head.

My grandmother would take a broom, and lay it across the chicken's neck and stand on the broomstick.

My Dad used a hatchet.

Killing the chicken is the easy part. I will gladly pay somebody $5 to not have to pluck a chicken.

And they never peck through each other's skulls to feast on the goo inside?