Do you get more meat from one large chicken or two small chickens?

Mojisola

geordie_joe wrote: »

I thought that too, and it is sometimes but not others.

For example, a value chicken is £2.48 per Kilo. A 1kg chicken costs £2.48 and 3 kg costs £7.44.

But for similar type larger birds, where no smaller one is on sale to compare, the price per kilo is around £1 more.

I think this is because it costs more to feed/rear a chicken the bigger it gets. i.e. it takes a certain amount of food to get a chicken from hatching to weighing 1kg, but it would take a lot more food to get that chicken from 1kg to 2kg, and even more to get it up to 3kg.

The average intensively reared chicken is killed at 5-6 weeks, weighing around 2kg before being prepared for sale so the farmer has a "harvest" every 6 weeks.

Bigger birds will have not only eaten more food but used the space for several more weeks and have to be priced accordingly to give the farmer an equivalent return.

compmad1

The bigger the chicken the less it is per kilo at Aldi.

teamgb

3 x 1.70kg chickens for £10 at Farmfoods.

norabatty_2

Well, I couldn't stand the curiosity any longer so I went to Mr S last night to pick up a large chicken for £6. They had a 2 for £10 deal so I ended up getting two. The large chickens were labelled as weighing 2kgs. You could also get 3 small chickens for £10. They were labelled as weighing 1.35kg each.

So, for £10 you could get small chickens weighing a combined weight of 4.05kg or large chickens with a combined weight of 4kg.

The first of the large chickens is currently in the slow cooker. After removing all packaging and string, I weighed the chicken - 2.55kg! It definitely feels like it is twice the size of the normal small chickens I get from Mr T (never bought chickens before from Mr S) and has practically filled my 6L slow cooker. I never weighed the small chickens from Mr T myself, as each one is individually weight labelled so I'm guessing they were correct whereas the ones in Mr S are all labelled as being 1.35kg so I'm guessing there is big variation with this.

It will be another few hours before my chicken is ready for dissecting but at this stage, I'm guessing it is more economical to get big chickens than small ones. Will be interesting to see how the proportions work out. From small chickens, I usually get approximately 600g of edible chicken from a 1.4kg chicken, so around 43%.

meg72

teamgb wrote: »

3 x 1.70kg chickens for £10 at Farmfoods.

Thanks thats pretty good I think, 5.10 kg of chicken

geordie_joe

meg72 wrote: »

Thanks thats pretty good I think, 5.10 kg of chicken

But the question we all want answered, and the whole purpose of this thread is....... how much of it will be chicken and how much will be bones?

Doc_N

norabatty wrote: »

Well, I couldn't stand the curiosity any longer so I went to Mr S last night to pick up a large chicken for £6. They had a 2 for £10 deal so I ended up getting two. The large chickens were labelled as weighing 2kgs. You could also get 3 small chickens for £10. They were labelled as weighing 1.35kg each.............

A B.Sc. in Chickenomics awaits - a genuine and original piece of research for which we're all awaiting the results with baited breath.

There's a lot riding on this - we need your results!

fizzytrinket

Yep,this thread has got a lot of views.

norabatty_2

Sorry for keeping you waiting folks. DH hogged the computer for most of the evening :mad:

Anyway, drumroll please: My 2.55kg chicken produced an underwhelming 1.08kg of edible cooked chicken. This ratio works out at 42.4%, which is ridiculously close to my usual 43% for small chickens. It would appear, from my first large chicken anyway, that the proportions of edible chicken to bones/fat/skin in small and large chickens are pretty much exactly the same (from my limited research!).

By the way, I have just weighed my other large chicken, labelled as weighing 2kg, from Mr S. It is still in all its original packaging as I won't cook it for another few days yet. It weighs 2.32kg, again considerably heavier than the labelled 2kg.

The good news from all of my hard work and research is that I have the equivalent of 21 sandwich fillings to keep us going for lunch and dinners over the next few days. This chicken cost me £5. On Mr T website, the equivalent in cooked chicken would cost £18!

geordie_joe

norabatty wrote: »

It would appear, from my first large chicken anyway, that the proportions of edible chicken to bones/fat/skin in small and large chickens are pretty much exactly the same (from my limited research!).

Thank you for that, you have answered a question many people have pondered over for years.

I predict that you will now become an internet legend, the leading authority on how much meat do you get from a chicken.

Whenever people discuss what has more meat two small or one large chicken, you and your post will be quoted and linked to as being the definitive answer.