Chicken and Dumplings

I made a wonderfully delicious dinner Monday night. What made it fantastic was the fact that the chicken was from my own back yard.
At the end of the school year I was gifted 10 chicks from a local kindergarten class. They had hatched them in incubators during the school year and watched as they turned from cute little fluff balls to ugly pullets. Well I was hoping that we would have a 50/50 chance of males to females. I really wanted a few more laying chickens. We have 2 little silky bantams that lay about an egg a day but not enough to feed my family. I just want enough to completely fill my families needs and then be able to give a dozen away to my parents when they come into town. So i am guessing 5 chickens would be great.

Saturday morning I woke up to a rooster call outside my window. Four of the chickens decided that it was their day to crow. My husband and I caught all of them and quickly got them into the freezer. We had already had 3 crowing earlier in the week and had a small roasted bird for each of us for dinner.

I am really disappointed that I don't have more hens. We now have the 2 bantams, one red chicken that really looks like a hen and two more black and white that I am expecting to crow any morning.

The chicken and dumplings turned out delicious the little roosters don't have a lot of meat on them and the flavor is really light. If you like a lot of chicken flavor you need to wait until they are older but our neighbors would be a little upset with us if we had a rooster for very long.

I have 2 in the freezer still and haven't decided what to do with them yet. I need to get the cookbook.