# Grocery store chicken vs home raised



## Shygal (May 26, 2003)

I know the differences in the taste and texture, and moral reasons for raising your own, but there is one thing I dont understand.

When Perdue raises the roasters, I read on here that they are the cornish x chickens. When people raise them at home, a lot raise the cornish x chickens.

What is it about 8 weeks at home, that makes them taste so much different and have different texture, than 8 weeks raised in a commercial chicken farm?
Is it the feed? Do they do something in processing the birds? (other than putting them in chlorine :shocked: )

Why is there such a difference, after 8 weeks of life either home or in the commercial barns? Not everyone lets their home raised chickens free range, they might be in a run, but can that make so much difference?


----------



## wally (Oct 9, 2007)

I am just guessing but I would think it could be two factors. Perhaps the commercial growers are raising a different cross breed than what we purchase. The other factor may be the feed. I have a friend who grows broilers for one of the national companies. The company delivers 50,000 chicks at a time and also provides all the feed to raise to maturity. All my friend provides is care and water. When the broilers are mature the company sends in people to crate the animals for shipping. Perhaps LazyJ could share his thoughts on this.


----------



## DayBird (Jul 26, 2004)

I think everything contributes some to the differences. 

Broiler house chicks are overcrowded while homegrown chicks, even if caged, hopefully will be given room to move around more than they could if raised in teh broiler house.

Broiler house chicks have little to no access to sunshine or really fresh air. Hopefully, again, the homegrown chicks get to experience some of that even if while "tractored."

And the food will, of course, make a huge difference. Our homegrown meat birds may not get moved every single day, although we do try, but the broiler house chicks only get the same thing day after day after day. We toss table scraps to our meat birds as they're available and make sure to give them some sweet potatoes or pumpkins (again, as available) at least once each week as I really prefer the yellow skin, especially for a roaster.

And for the biggest reason, is what you've already noted, the treatment of the birds both before and after harvesting. We treat the birds kindly and with respect. And while I do use the garden hose with "city water" while harvesting, I've never dunked them into a vat of nasty, highly chlorinated water. I've never butchered a chicken that was dead before harvesting or sick in any way.


----------



## chickenista (Mar 24, 2007)

I think it has to do with the amount of movement and muscle use.
Homeraised birds use their muscles more and have a denser muscles for it.

Also.. store bought birds are injected with stuff upon butcher.
When you cook a storebought bird you get all of this clear liquid running out of the meat. That was put into the meat. It will usually say on the package that it is ?% added with water with salt and other natural blahblahblah..
And I have found that the storebought birds are ...spongy. Squishy. (garck!) 
It is the injected stuff. It adds to the overall weight that you pay for at the store and it is almost like the meat is. (garck again) 'pre-digested'. 

The standard serving size of a storebought bird is one breast, whether bone in or boneless. When we started raising our own (heritage breed roos only get eaten here) I served up a whole breast to each of us and dug in.
We could not do it. Try as we might, we couldn't eat the entire breast. I think I managed 1/3 of one before I was stuffed. That is because the meat was 'real' dense muscle tissue.
The breast were not the thick, plumped up, spongy meat that you get at the store.

So.. in theory.. though farm fresh meat is more expensive per pound, you get more 'meat' per pound. The meat is denser, lasts longer with more leftovers. 
At least with heritage breeds..


----------



## Horseyrider (Aug 8, 2010)

I still feel there's a big difference in flavor between the Cornish birds and the heritage birds, even when both are home raised. The heritage birds have a richer, chickeny flavor. The Cornish ones taste flat to me. 

But the home raised Cornish vs commercial Cornish is a big leap, too. The texture of the meat is improved when they can move more. What the industry calls "tender," I call mushy. Together with the flat, bland flavor, and the disgusting sodium solution (almost 20% in some brands), well, if that's all that's offered, I find I don't much like chicken.


----------



## MO_cows (Aug 14, 2010)

First off, the cornish X birds that the industry uses are not the same genetics you are getting from the hatchery. The big companies have bred special lines of their own. 

The feed and growing conditions are different and the way they are processed is different. Or is anybody out there injecting their birds with that "special solution"??

One big difference is in the livers. Livers from store bought chickens tend to be smaller and darker. The livers from the homegrown birds we get are bigger and pinker. I think that says a lot about the health of the bird before harvesting.


----------



## fffarmergirl (Oct 9, 2008)

We raise the Cornish Xs and I really don't think the meat is that different right after you butcher them, but we don't dip them in any bleach when we wash them and we freeze them immediately - they don't sit on the shelf for days growing bacteria. They're more sanitary. Plus they live better lives, I think.

We've eaten the heritage breeds before, too, and they definitely have more flavor. They just take so long to get to size. The freedom rangers are a nice in between. Delicious and they grow a lot faster than the heritage breeds, though not as fast as the Cornish Xs. 

The reason we don't raise all freedom rangers is that they are more mobile and less content in chicken tractors. We wouldn't feel right tractoring them but we don't want to run the risk of free-ranging meat chickens.


----------



## suelandress (May 10, 2002)

chickenista said:


> I .
> 
> The standard serving size of a storebought bird is one breast, whether bone in or boneless. When we started raising our own (heritage breed roos only get eaten here) I served up a whole breast to each of us and dug in.
> We could not do it. Try as we might, we couldn't eat the entire breast. I think I managed 1/3 of one before I was stuffed. That is because the meat was 'real' dense muscle tissue.
> ...


I've had the same experience with pasture raised/grass fed beef. Putting away a pound steak is impossible...and we were quite capable of eating a pound of restaurant steak. 
Makes you wonder if we'd all eat a lot less meat if it was properly raised.


----------



## Blue Yonder (Jan 28, 2008)

The same difference in the eggs from the chickens in your backyard are vastly different in taste and texture than those in the store...that's the difference in home raised CX if it is done right.

Sure, if you pen your birds, feed medicated feed followed by commercially designed broiler feeds on a continuous feeder situation then you get much the same product as the broiler houses, just a smaller volume. 

These CX were raised with my free range layer flock and fed once a day, just like the rest of the birds. They also foraged, moved and lived in the fresh air and sunlight....you can bet what you bank that my CX were primo eats with the whole "chickeny" flavor and texture fully intact!

These little chicks were slipped under a foster mom at night and awakened to a warm, loving mom who watched over them until they could be on their own. They lived in a normal social setting with a flock of 30 layer DP breeds, ate wholesome foods and clean forage that hadn't been gleaned from an 8x8 ft. space of grass that had already been soiled by their own feces...they had an acre of fresh grass to forage upon. They had fresh water, feed and fresh country air...and lived and died at the same place. 














































Some of the birds awaiting processing...calmly waiting in the fresh air in a still situation~not racing down the highway crammed into open air trucks with thousands of others, feathers flying, to be grabbed, thrown, jammed into this place or that one before they are manhandled into death.










Yes...the way you feed them, raise them and even process them makes them have a different flavor and texture than store bought.


----------



## Sonshine (Jul 27, 2007)

The ones you get in the store are raised in huge chicken houses and they are packed in them. Each day they have to go in and remove dead chickens that have been smothered due to over crowding. They never see the light of day. The feed has stuff in it that makes them grow fast, although I don't remember how long it is from chick to butchering them, but I know it's quick. Where I lived in Alabama we had several neighbors that raised the chickens on contract. The smell was horrendous! I'm sure their feed and the way they are raised has a lot to do with it. Same thing with eggs. I had a friend that worked at sorting the eggs and I would fill in for her on occassion. These hens don't have any way to move around. They sit and lay eggs, that fall down on a conveyer belt that takes them to those who separate them.


----------

