You should give it a try, it’s a little work but not much for the peace of mind that you know exactly how you raised them. I’ve been raising chickens for about 5 years. I keep anywhere from 15-25 chickens, one rooster the rest hens. I raise Plymouth Barred Rock chickens, there decent dual purpose birds, decent egg layers and get to a decent weight for butchering, a bit on the small side compared to Cornish Cross, which are the large store birds.

I hatch my own replacements, keep the best and eat the rest. I’ve been trying to go with a 2 year cycle, where I cull all chickens 2 years old and older, if I gave one a reprieve, that’s where they usually max out on egg production it falls after that. So I end up with a range of ages in my flock from chick, to yearling, to mature 2-3 year old hens/rooster. The new hatching I grow them to about 16 weeks on 20% protein feed, I might go to 30% to see if I get better growth, then cull the ones I don’t want to keep. Those butchered at the 16 week I label them as fryers, they more tender and can be grilled of fried, older ones I label a stew birds.If you use high heat on old birds they get tough and chewy, not fun to eat. Made a mistake of letting a few roosters get to about 6 mounts old and butchered them, then grilled them up. They were still tough and chewy at that young age but that might be more due to their hormones kicking in.

Stew birds I break it down into individual parts and cook low and slow in a slower cooker for 6-8 hours with onions, carrots, garlic, parsley, thyme, black peppercorns, bay leafs and a splash of vinegar. Remove meat from bones and shredded chicken in all kinds of meals. I return the bones to the slow cooker and cook overnight adding water if needed to make homemade chicken broth.

Here’s a walk through tutorial for the butchering process if your interested.