# Every one seems "chewy" or tough...what am I doing wrong?



## calicoty (Mar 10, 2008)

We raised Cornish X this summer. This is our first try with Meat Birds. I got 50 on Memorial Day. Two were accidentally hurt in August, so we quickly butchered them. They were young and it was like eating chicken flavored gum!! I figured they must be too young. 

Then we butchered 12 more in mid September at 13 weeks. Put them into the freezer....two weeks later...yet again...tough and chewy. Decided it was because I'm a novice at butchering. Plus they were still smallish.

So we waited a few more weeks. On Friday, I took 10 of them to the Mennonite Processor in our area. Figured now they are older, someone who knows what they are doing is doing it.....cooked a chicken for dinner that night.....flavorful...but chewy.

ARG!!! What am I doing wrong? My plan was to get another set to raise through the winter for spring butcher, but if they are always tough and my family refuses to eat them...it's not worth the expense. Can you enlighten this Meat Newbie??

Thanks, Rickki (Calicoty)


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## kbshorts (Dec 6, 2005)

Try aging your birds after butchering, give them 24 hours chilled before freezing or cooking. If you are used to those nasty little supermarket chickens you will notice a texture difference in real chicken, it should not be chewy but a little firm. Hang in there, you will get it.

Keith


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## Firefly (Dec 7, 2005)

Most people age them 3-5 days before freezing; or you can cook them _immediately_ after butchering, but I always take so long to get even one bird prepped that rigor sets in before I'm done. The problem is probably rigor mortis. You have to wait for it to take its course, which takes 3-5 days, and then the meat softens again. Try cooking this batch in liquid and use the later ones for roasters. Why are you waiting so long to butcher them, just for size? CX are usually done at 6-8 weeks, but the flavor should be more chickeny the longer you wait.


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## Our Little Farm (Apr 26, 2010)

how many weeks are they when butchered? If you have waited too long. Try cooking them in a crock pot. Slow and long.


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## Cyngbaeld (May 20, 2004)

CornishX should be butchered at 6-10 weeks before they start really feathering out too much. The longer you wait, the tougher the bird will be.

Do let the bird relax prior to freezing or cooking. Grab a leg and try to flex and straighten it. If it isn't fairly floppy, it hasn't relaxed enough. Once rigor sets in the joint will feel stiff, if you can move it at all.


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## mountainlaurel (Mar 5, 2010)

I have been raising our chickens for several years now and that is what we eat. I also noticed that this year they seem more tougher and chewier where as last year they were great. 

Dh wonders if it wasn't because we were in a drought this past summer and the pasture wasn't that great. But he sure had been unhappy with my chickens this year until the one I just baked this past Saturday. I baked it in a covered pan filled with water at 300 degrees for 2--3 hours. It was very tender and good. Like last years chickens. You might try cooking it low and slow and see if that helps any.


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## Our Little Farm (Apr 26, 2010)

I agree....long and slow with plenty of water or broth to keep it moist. You can cook a 4 year old bird like this and still have the most tender falling off the bone meat you could wish for. 
A little butter, italian herbs, garlic on the bird, water in the bottom, covered and cooked long and slow. Mmmmmmm. 

We are butchering this weekend, but we do not raise Cornish x


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## chickenista (Mar 24, 2007)

calicoty said:


> .....cooked a chicken for dinner that night.....flavorful...but chewy.
> QUOTE]
> 
> I know that people say that Granny killed a bird and they ate it an hour later..but I think it was because they had no choice or wait to safely rest the bird.
> ...


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## jwal10 (Jun 5, 2010)

Heat oven at 450 degrees, put bird in and 10 minutes later lower temp to 275, bake until golden brown and internal temp is good. 3+ hours. This seals in the juices and still have a tender, golden bird....James


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## Rickstir (Jun 28, 2006)

We too butcher at 7 weeks or so. Let them cool in the fridge for 24 - 48 hours (sometimes we can't wait 48 hours!). Then freeze. They seem to be perfect size for frying, grilling or whatever.


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## Jay27 (Jan 11, 2010)

I agree with the posters who say the meat needs to age longer. I typically fill a stock pot with water and a little salt and let the bird age in the fridge for 3 or more days. Ducks sit a whole week in a sweet and salty brine.


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## motdaugrnds (Jul 3, 2002)

We also order the Cornish X each year, raising them the 6-8 weeks; then slaughter and freeze. I always like to cook our meat s-l-o-w-l-y (just like they were frozen, which is always with water to keep air out of packages). I never add additional water; and they turn out very juicy.


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## seymojo536 (Sep 14, 2004)

Let's come at this from another angle. Are you sure these were cornish X? Did you get males, females or straight run? You got them on May 31 and didn't butcher any until August? And those were small? And the ones you did in September were still small? Do you remember what they weighed?

From our experience raising these birds, I would be hard pressed to keep one alive for 13 weeks, let alone 16. They would be pushing 12-13 lbs at that age. Ours go to the processor at 8 weeks weighting 8-9 lbs live. 

If these were not females, I suspect your feeding regime was slightly off.

Did these birds free range? Too much exercise will toughen up a bird, requiring a change in your cooking method.

What feed were they getting? How much each day? 
Did they start on a high protein starter feed?
Did you change their feed at any time?

These guys are pretty easy to finish out in less than 2 months with a total outlay of about 20 lbs. of feed per bird. 

Give us some more details and maybe we can help fine tune your program.

Oh, just saw you were from Ohio. There is a poultry clinic the third Saturday in March in Wooster(They also have one at MSU in Feb). If you can make it, it is a very good place to learn all you ever wanted to know about poultry from some of the best in the business. http://www.oardc.osu.edu/


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## Caprice Acres (Mar 6, 2005)

I also agree your birds seem to be oddly small at processing. We did ours at around 12 weeks and thought that was way too long - ended up with HUGE carcasses anywhere frm 5-7lbs dressed weight. We had to wait to 12 weeks because that was the earliest we could find time to do all of them. 


I don't know how everybody manages to find room in fridges to age their birds. We tend to do all of our birds at once (this year was 36 at once) and no way do we have room to age all of them. We don't age them before we freeze or after thawing. We just thaw and cook. Never had a tough bird of any sort, here.


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## wasculywabbits (Nov 15, 2010)

chickenista said:


> calicoty said:
> 
> 
> > .....cooked a chicken for dinner that night.....flavorful...but chewy.
> ...


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## Callieslamb (Feb 27, 2007)

We grew our Cornish crosses out 12 weeks last year and they were the best chickens we had ever eaten - and the biggest!


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## Dieselrider (Jul 8, 2008)

Wow! Interesting. What are you feeding your birds? 

We have done cornish cross and Red Rangers here and have butchered and consumed the same day with no toughness. Also frozen right away and had no tough meat when cooked. Never had any where we have aged the birds. Have cooked some on the grill as well as slow cooker and I cannot ever think of a time when they came out tough. Maybe we ar just all strong chewers lol.

The only time we ever had a tough chicken was an older dual purpose hen. Those we just cook off the bone now and can.

Just thought of something else. You said they were smallish. Perhaps they are not truly Cornish giants. We have had hatcheries switch out birds on us if they ran out of a certain breed. We don't order from them again if they do. Cornish cross super giants should be ready by 8 weeks and be in the 6-8 pound range or better by then. Unless you are not feeding a good ration. Just sayin.


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## calicoty (Mar 10, 2008)

I appreciate all the feedback. We gave them free choice of "grower" crumble (I think 18% protein?) and they were also free ranged. They got garden leftovers, pears, apples, tomatoes, etc. They were straight run. I wanted to get them butchered in August for two reasons, one according to everything I had read, they should be at the right size and two, they were "flipping". Each day it seemed I had another dead bird for no real reason. (plenty of food, water, no preditors, no sign of illness).

I think that maybe they weren't Cornish giants because I expected that they would be ready at the beginning of August, but still at September they were small. (4 pounds maybe) I had a friend that helped butcher (along with her mom) both had raised meat chickens before. They were showing me the "ropes" and said that they were being butchered too early..they weren't big enough. They didn't want to come help again until late October...and by then they were big, and they keep putting me off...so I just took them to the processor.

I'll try the different cooking methods mentioned. I'm trying to decide if I should get another set of 25 from another hatchery to raise through the winter to butcher in the spring...is it a bad idea to grow them in the winter?

Rickki


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## Dazlin (Nov 26, 2007)

I heard that freezing helps tenderize the meat, in a sense that the ice crystals slice and tenderize the meat. My friend does processing, but I cannot say firsthand if this is true.


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## seymojo536 (Sep 14, 2004)

I noticed you said they were straight run. Would you be willing to share which hatchery you got them from? 

You want the male broilers because they will grow much faster/larger than the females.
Broilers are different from layers in that you will pay more for the male broilers unlike the laying breeds where the females are more valuable. 

In my experience, when you order straight run layers, it always seems the males outnumber the females in excess of the 50/50 ratio you would expect. Not that I would accuse any hatchery of slipping in a few extra (read that worthless) males in their straight run batches of layers. I would imagine the converse could hold true in broilers. 
I have always specified all male broilers when I order and it is easy to spot the occasional female that slips in. At 2 weeks old there is a definite difference in the size and shape.

But then, if they were mostly females and they weren't getting adequate protein, it could be very hard to see any differences in them. That would partially explain the low weights.


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## Caprice Acres (Mar 6, 2005)

Our female broilers are still HUGE. Much, much bigger than heritage birds. Most were only slightly smaller than the roosters. Ours were also straight run, still had carcasses between 5-7lbs - mostly females too.


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## Lazy J (Jan 2, 2008)

Butchering Cornish X at 13 weeks is way too late!!!!!!

These birds are designed to be slaughtered at 6 to 8 weeks in commercial settings. They were not designed for the monstrous weights backyard farmers continually attempt.

Jim


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## Firefly (Dec 7, 2005)

Part of the problem is definitely what you're feeding them. Grower crumble is not adequate; they need special meat bird feed with more protein. Then you are also displacing part the crumble with low-protein vegie scraps. I'm sure the birds enjoy it but its the wrong way to get them big! You could do all this if you add extra protein. If you have excess eggs, hard boil and chop them and sprinkle over their feed. Leftover meat, cheese (no mold!), milk, worms, maggots, etc, are good too. Otherwise switch to the high protein feed and use scraps as a little treat only.


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## fixer1958 (Dec 12, 2005)

Seems a little long for cornish.
I butchered some at 8 weeks and some males were 8 1/2-9lbs freezer weight.
I leave them in the fridge for a couple of days before freezing.


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## Rowena (Feb 7, 2008)

Sometimes we age in refrigerator in bag open - not closed but most of the time we leave in an ice bath for 24 hours and we cool the meat down as fast as possible - running cold water from work station hose as much as possible while cleaning and then right into the ice bath.


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