Do you ever have leftover BBQ chook?

[{sarah}]

We always have leftovers, but there are only three of us eating it & Miss J & I don't eat a lot.

[briggsy's girl]

the size of bbq chooks has definitely decreased over the past couple of years (that i've noticed!). i know our local shop decreased the size of the chickens when new owners took over (to increase profit without increasing price) - they're now similar in size to red rooster chickens (which i consider to be on the small size) when they used to be at least a couple of sizes bigger.

i find the only way to get value from a bbq chicken now is to be lucky enough to be at woolworths when they're clearing them out for a few dollars, take them straight home, strip them and freeze the meat for cooking later. otherwise we stick to buying the breast fillets on special and stock up!

[{sarah}]

For those talking about the decrease in size, yep you are exactly right. Bigger sized chickens are much harder to come by, from a purchasing perspective. At work, we struggle to get anything over a size 16 (1.65kg) these days & we buy them in bulk as we're a distributor, so I can understand that the retail seller would have even bigger problems getting them.

[Mak]

Thank goodness it is not just us! Roast chook is pretty much all everyone will eat here and we rarely have leftovers....mind you I am trying to serve up and hide the rest as DH manages to eat it all 'cos it 'tastes good' regardless!!!!

[Astrid]

I wonder if there is a struggle to keep up with demand, so they are not letting them grow as big, or maybe there is a cost reason. A certain weight where they get the most profit per bird.

I don't feel so bad now about us eating a whole bird. Thanks Ladies

[Rouge]

Well that explains it Sarah... We used to get size 18 or 20 chickens growing up. And they were always frozen steggles chooks. I buy fresh chicken so I very rarely look at the weight - bad me! The weird thing is I find Marylands are way too big these days. How bizarre.

So I wonder what constitutes a "large" chicken these days.

[Astrid]

It the joys of the frankenchickens. I notice that the ones we have raised ourselves are a different shape to the store bought ones, the last one fit better into the pot sideways.