All My Mistral Gris Died

Thats right it was butcher day, so I thought I would share my thoughts on them for anyone thinking of getting some. Remember this is just my experience with them. You may remember from a previous post I only had 18 left out of my 150. These chickens were full free range with feed available 24/7.
I was impressed with the carcase, it came out white and clean. The birds were plump and averaged 7 1/2 pounds, at 23 weeks. They had shorter legs which were really plump. Each one had almost a cup of fat internally, really big hearts and huge gizards(which I ate First) compared to regular broilers. May be why they live longer.
I will point out here that my third love is eating chickens, so I let them rest for 3 day in the cooler then roasted one up for a feast. One of my biggest disapointment when I bit into it, it tasted just like a store bought broiler. Yes it had really nice dark meat and was very tender, but all that work just for very little flavor.
I will go back to REAL heritage chickens with real CHICKEN flavor.
I was telling a friend about them and said I was going to feed the rest to my dogs,( yes they were that disapointing to ME) they suggested a trade, they went and bought dog food and I traded the chickens for dog food, I was that disapointed in them.
As a side note these chickens were the most expensive I have ever had, at just over 50$ a chicken or 6.5$ per pound no labour included for raising of butchering. That price would have been less had I not lost so many.

So correct me if I'm wrong ...........but isn't it what the eat that determines the taste of the flesh ? I had a butcher for a friend and that is what he always said ,you could see it on the color of the meat/fat as to what it had been feed the most .He gave me a whole cow cracass one time because the owner didn't want it thinking it was sick after he had butchered it /all the fat was yellow......corn feed mostly ,but try as my friend did the person thought it was sick and refused to eat it ,left it outside at the shop ?.......ended up as bear bait .

Lazyfarmer, I am sorry to hear about your disappointing results. I have a friend who recently raised some dual purpose birds and is so angry at the work, time and cost they required only to have, as you say, meat he considers dog food.

The tricky thing here is your idea of what 'store bought broiler' is. What meat we each prefer to eat is such a personal thing, and very hard to decribe through typing. I am having a hard time picturing what you mean when you say they taste like store bought broiler.

We raise and eat a Cobb. (that's what the local hatchery calls them, they come from Arkansas). While I cannot say how differently they taste from store chicken, I can certainly tell you how differently they feel from store chicken. My birds feel solid. Store chicken feels weak and sad. Even eating a store chicken makes me sad, sad for the chicken for whom death was probably a blessing.

In all fairness, I do not eat wild game because it tastes like...wild game. I like my meat mild and inoffensive. Therefore I don't want my chickens to be pungent, strong flavoured or gamey in anyway. I find duck and goose highly suspicious meat. Perhaps what you seek can't be acheieved in a chicken. Maybe you're more of a pheasant eater?

I think what you feed a chicken can determine the taste, but not to a large degree, only a minor degree. And as Prairie Dog points out, feed determines fat colour. I think taste is affected by feed, breed, age, living conditions and death conditions. There is a LOT to consider to get an animal to taste the way you want...for a reasonable amount of investment. Thanks for your honest review.

You are more likely to have yellow fat on beef if it has been grass fed. I should know, ate enough of it in Aus and don't like it very much. I say 'yuck' to yellow fat!

Coopslave is right that's why 2 months before butcher I bring them in to a smaller area with no grass and feed hay, chop. Grass fed beef yuck yellow fat is right!

Oh boy, that doesn't sound very good to me. I actually and personally, do not mind the non-taste or mild taste of store bought chickens. Really. I don't. I also really do like the taste of the buckeyes, cochin and buff orpington cockerels that I have free ranged and eaten. I like both actually. I can't imagine that there could be a chicken taste that I would only consider to be dog food worthy. Really. But that is just my personal opinion. I love KFC chicken, I don't mind that it is soft and kind of mushy, but then that is just me. I love it.

I have traded a couple of cockerels for a processed white meat bird that has been free ranged on grass and stuff. The gal free ranged the birds on grass for the past while until they were old enough for processing, they also were fed plenty of purchased bagged food too. I am going to do a taster test with my family with one of my chosen big buff orpington cockerels and hers at a family dinner soon. That will be just fun to see how the taste and texture differs. I will be interested in this outcome.

You must be very disappointed. You lost a whole whack of stock and spent a good deal of money. But now you know, right. YOu have good choices to make when growing out further birds for your dinner table. Interesting to hear the results. Have a great day and with great health, CynthiaM.

That is quite a shame you are so disappointed, LF. I seem to recall you had a cooling issue in the chicks and that may have led to many early demises.

I have just slaughtered a few of those Cornish bantams you hefted over here. There was lots of meat on a little frame...for a bantam. They had delicious flavour and were chewy, but not tough. They were definitely not mushy. They took a long time to get to an eating size, so I would only recommend them if you actually want a small chicken. I like them because I am breeding the Cornish to show and the cull birds are big enough to eat.

Sorry to hear you're not happy with the MG's. I raised Freedom Rangers this year and am happy with them. They neve cost me any where near the cost you incurred. Next year I'm hoping to raise some MG's along side the Freedom Rangers and do a comparison.

triplejfarms wrote:Coopslave is right that's why 2 months before butcher I bring them in to a smaller area with no grass and feed hay, chop. Grass fed beef yuck yellow fat is right!

.............? grass feed beef is what Alberta has isn't it ? Grass / hay all in the same family ,never heard of such a thing ? Corn will change the color that I know but grass makes it yellow ??

prairie dog wrote:

triplejfarms wrote:Coopslave is right that's why 2 months before butcher I bring them in to a smaller area with no grass and feed hay, chop. Grass fed beef yuck yellow fat is right!

.............? grass feed beef is what Alberta has isn't it ? Grass / hay all in the same family ,never heard of such a thing ? Corn will change the color that I know but grass makes it yellow ??

I have to agree with PD on this one, i haven't heard of grass making yellow fat just corn. We grass fed our beef and the fat was white, although we would never do that again as the beefs flavor was not something my family likes.

Oh by the way I have customers that request their meat birds have that yummy yellow fat! So i guess "to each their own"

How disappointing for you. Guess we all learn hard lessons farming. It sucks it was such a costly lesson.
As for eating grass fed vs grain fed beef, you may want to reconsider the taste for the nutrition. Grain fed animals convert much of the omega fats from beneficial omega 3 to the less desirable omega 6. Whenever possible I get my beef straight from the field. Plus you reduce the chance of the animal's food being GM in nature.
Out of curiosity, did you use the same butcher? We have found a difference in how the meat is cut affecting the way it cooks and tastes. This would not create a difference in fat color though.

yup suprised you have not heard of it??, we lock them in for the last month or so so the steak gets the more marble look and less yellow fat ....other than that our cows get all the grass they want and chop,....mind you we rasie the holstien boys up to eat, they are more lean and less fatty than others so that makes a difference ........... if you google it you will find all kinds of answers. here is some

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Australia has mostly grass finished beef and the fat is yellow. They don't feed alot of corn there to feedlot beef either. There is many other alternatives, but I imagine some areas may fed some of it but it is not a staple like NA.

Because in most areas cattle can be fed strickly on grass to finish, much of what you get in the grocery stores down there is grass fed. Yellow fat is seen alot. I don't even really like the creamy sort of colour that alot of it has. I do like the white fat better. I like the flavour of the meat better as well. It is all personal choice I guess.

I am looking forward to having a look at those links tripleJ, like I say, mine is just from personal experience in the beef industry in Aus.

I don't know ? never seen it except after to much corn ( which I like on chicken,yellow skined chickens ....yum )and have never heard of this before this posting ? Can't see how grass would change the color of the fat ,and hay is a grass as well so every cow on pasture should have yellow fat ?? .............I don't know ????????

yea i dont feed corn to the cows only oats, barley chopped as they cant properly digest corn so i dont feed it..., this i found on a site to help answer your question

The reason I finish steers is to change the flavor and the color of the fat; 4 to 6 weeks is all that’s needed. Cattle taken directly from the pasture and slaughter will have a yellowish colored fat. This yellow fat is what gives the meat a wild, gamey, more natural taste. This “natural taste” is not what we are accustomed to with mass-produced supermarket beef. So some consumers are disappointed by the flavor of grass-fed beef.

Feeding dry hay removes the moisture absorbed into the muscles from the “wet grasses” the steer has been feeding on. This extra moisture is a carrier of the grassy flavoring. By feeding a combination of fresh water, grain and hay, the flavor will be closer to what consumers want; the color of the fat will turn to white, and the flavor won’t be as strong as just straight grass-fed beef.

and here s the website [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

same thing we do they explain it well.

prairie dog wrote:I don't know ? never seen it except after to much corn ( which I like on chicken,yellow skined chickens ....yum )and have never heard of this before this posting ? Can't see how grass would change the color of the fat ,and hay is a grass as well so every cow on pasture should have yellow fat ?? .............I don't know ????????

Have a look at the second link tripleJ posted. It explains it pretty well.