{"id":3330,"date":"2013-07-05T03:00:53","date_gmt":"2013-07-05T07:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/?p=3330"},"modified":"2013-07-05T03:00:53","modified_gmt":"2013-07-05T07:00:53","slug":"q-and-a-tough-chicken-and-pullet-or-cockerel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/2013\/07\/05\/q-and-a-tough-chicken-and-pullet-or-cockerel\/","title":{"rendered":"Q and A: tough chicken and pullet or cockerel"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Tough chicken<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Have you tried the chicken breed light Brahma? I had gotten 25 chicks because of their size, them being slow growing didn&#8217;t matter to me. After about a year we butchered them, but they are so tough and chewy. We let them sit in the frig about 48 hours. Some in cool water, some not. I have tried roasting, slow cooking, barbecue, baked. It makes me want to cry. I am now trying to boil them to can them but I keep checking and the meat is nowhere near falling off and it&#8217;s been an hour. Any ideas of how I can prevent this in the future. Is it the breed?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Stephanie Eckert<\/em><br \/>\n<em>York, North Dakota<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Yes, we had Light Brahmas in Montana and loved them. You usually butcher fryers at about 12 weeks with this breed. At a year, I can understand them getting tough. Instead of frying or roasting them, I&#8217;d stew or can them. Either way, they&#8217;ll turn out tender. You could also pressure cook them to the same end. If you slow cook or stew them, you&#8217;ll cook them for hours, covered, and they will turn out fine. When you simmer the meat to can them, you&#8217;ll also be doing that for several hours. I promise the meat will come off the bone easily. Next year either pick a faster maturing breed for meat such as White Rocks or butcher your Brahmas sooner. &#8212; Jackie<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pullet or cockerel<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>My chickens are about 11 weeks old and one of them has a larger tail and a brighter and bigger comb. I ordered Australorps and Araucana pullets but wonder if perhaps I have gotten a cockerel in the bunch. How can I tell if it isn&#8217;t crowing yet?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Deb Motylinski<\/em><br \/>\n<em>Cadiz, Ohio<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Sounds like you have a cockerel. The boys will have a bigger comb and longer tail than the girls. The cockerels&#8217; tails will also begin to curve downward where the pullets will stick up straight. If you do have a cockerel, he probably will start trying to crow (pretty funny!) at about 12-14 weeks. &#8212; Jackie<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tough chicken Have you tried the chicken breed light Brahma? I had gotten 25 chicks because of their size, them being slow growing didn&#8217;t matter to me. After about a year we butchered them, but they are so tough and chewy. We let them sit in the frig about 48 hours. Some in cool water, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,8,11,13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3330"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3330\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}