As per reader request: IT'S CANNING TIME

Do you see the size of the white chicken? She's the same age as the two next to her.
This chic is 7 weeks old at the time of the picture and ready for the dinner table or canning. The breed of chicken is Cornish Rock. They are a crossbreed produced to grow fast and large.
Our husband calls them Raptors because they are aggressive eaters. It's kind of scary when you have 35 of them come running to you at feeding time.
Between 7 and 12 weeks they are called fryers, because their meat is tender enough to go from the coop to the frying pan. After that they get tougher. Which is where canning comes in.

Butchering meat is a fact of life that if you live as we do, you must come to terms with. I hate it but I do it. The most I can kill at one time seems to be five a week. I managed to get 15 in the freezer while they were still fryers. 10 I canned, 5 I plan to sell to a friend and 5 I plan on breeding with my Road Island Red Rooster just to see what we might come up with.

Since I'm writing this for a reader who is raising chickens I'll start with the butchering. I'm not from the school of chop their head of and watch them run around until they drop..too much blood for me..yuck
When I'm ready to cull I take my chair to the middle of the coop sit down and sprinkle feed all around me, the chickens come and peck at the feed which makes it easy for me to just reach down and grab a chicken by the throat, I then break it's neck. Just turn it's head until you hear it snap.(very easy)then I lay the chicken on the ground and step on it's neck until it stops moving.About 2 to 3 minutes. After I culled all the chickens I want I hang them by their feet from the cloths line(tie feet together). Then using a very sharp knife I cut off their heads and let the blood drain out of them for about 30 minutes. This is the most bloodless way of doing it I've found.

Next I skin them..We don't eat the skin and I hate to pluck. If you cut the wing off right at the elbow it makes it much easier to skin. After skinning and gutting them take them in the house and wash them really really well.
Now depending on what you want to use the chicken for you will either throw them in a big pot and cook them or you will debone them and cold pack them into jars to pressure can.

If you want a firmer chicken, say for chicken salad you will want to debone the chicken and pack them raw into sterilized jars. Cook the bones with onion skin and all carrots and celery. Use this stock to fill the jars of raw chicken up to but not into the neck of the jar. Put lids and rings on and pressure can for 20 minutes at 15lbs of pressure. Most recipes say 40 min. to an hour but this is overkill and the chicken will turn out mushy. In my 30 plus years of canning I've never made anyone sick.

If you don't care how firm you chicken is then cook the chicken first with the same type of veggies until it's just ready to fall off the bone. Cool, pick off the bone, pack into jars, use stock to fill to just under the neck of jars put lids and rings on and pressure can for 15mins. at 15 lbs pressure.

Now what do you do with all those bones and veggies? If you have extra jars then pack the jars with the bones, veggies, little scrapes of meat and stock then pressure can the same as above..the bones will turn to mush. If you don't have the jars just pressure cook everything for 15 mins.then cool and freeze it. The dogs, cats or critters will love the extra protein from time to time. You're such a good mommy..lol.. Waste Not Want Not