Raising Chickens for Meat

[toyotaguy]

Update, have 15 Cornish-X chicks coming into our local feed store on 4/11, will be picking up the 12, or 13th. Check back soon.

[Dubious_Beans]

Post lots of photos for us!
I'm jealous. I'd love to do meat chickens but My Wife just won't have any part of that.
Maybe someday...

[toyotaguy]

Spoke with the feed store this morning, and in addition to our 15 Cornish-X we will be getting 10-15 Red Broilers(AKA Freedom Rangers) the first week of May, I'm very excited to try out these birds as they are supposed to get just as big as the Cornish-X but grow a bit slower and are more active.


http://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/cornish_roaster.html



http://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/red_ranger_broiler.html

[jjojjojoe]

I posted this in the other chicken thread, but just wondering...

Does anyone vaccinate their chickens against salmonella? Commercial egg handling is quite different abroad and it seems that consuming under-cooked eggs is very common and safe because the farms inoculate their chickens. The US does not vaccinate chickens for salmonella thus all the warnings to fully cook eggs.

In Japan, the eggs are kept at room temperature at the grocery store and have two dates: One date to indicate until when it's safe to eat raw and the other date is when to consume by.

How do you guys store/process your eggs?

[toyotaguy]

I dont know what most people do, but we do not vaccinate against anything, we feed our chickens a healthy diet, with the ability to free range in the grass on a regular basis. Our eggs are typically refrigerated but are not washed unless they are dirty, for decades my parents just left the eggs on the kitchen counter and never had an issue.

[toyotaguy]

I picked up our new batch of Cornish-X today, they are 4 days old and were hatched on the 4/10/13. So far they all look happy and healthy.
We will be feeding them Organic Soy Free Chick Starter.
The Chicks cost $2.99 Each = $44.85

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[toyotaguy]

Getting their first taste of grass and worms:

Untitled by toyotaguy1987, on Flickr

Wheat Berries that im sprouting to feed the chickens.

Untitled by toyotaguy1987, on Flickr


Part of my new Chicken Feed Fermentation set up

Untitled by toyotaguy1987, on Flickr


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And last, my dog who is relearning how to behave around chickens instead of the killing them. (Yes she has killed more than 1)

Untitled by toyotaguy1987, on Flickr

[rromeo]

I know you get some from Murry McMurray. Is that where you get them all? If not, do you notice big differences from different hatcheries? Do some lines grow better?
I ask because we got some Pekin ducks last year from Tractor Supply and they were ready for the freezer in two months. In that same time frame, I found somebody on Craigslist advertising 3 month old ducks. We bought them, but they were a bit smaller than our two month olds. Since I didn't know the history of the others I bought, we kept them a month on our feed program, and we ended up with 8 ducks of similar size.
I suppose the CL ducks could have been fed improperly, or she lied about their age.

[toyotaguy]

Originally Posted by rromeo

I know you get some from Murry McMurray. Is that where you get them all? If not, do you notice big differences from different hatcheries? Do some lines grow better?
I ask because we got some Pekin ducks last year from Tractor Supply and they were ready for the freezer in two months. In that same time frame, I found somebody on Craigslist advertising 3 month old ducks. We bought them, but they were a bit smaller than our two month olds. Since I didn't know the history of the others I bought, we kept them a month on our feed program, and we ended up with 8 ducks of similar size.
I suppose the CL ducks could have been fed improperly, or she lied about their age.

We have ordered from Murry McMurry on and off over the years and always with excellent success. This latest batch however we couldnt fill the minimum order of 25 birds so we ordered through one of our local feed stores who orders from Ideal Hatchery. We have raised Cornish-X from the same source last year with good success.

Quality of poultry can vary tremendously from hatchery to hatchery and breeder to breeder, some breed for maximum meat production while others might go for the ideal show qualities. While others are just factories mass producing animals with little regard for quality.

The same can be said for someone selling on CL, if they are trying to breed their own stock and don't know what they are doing each subsequent generation of stock may be hatched with less desirable traits than the previous. This usually has to do with too many generations of inbreeding without bringing in good quality outside stock.

[SFBA]

Anyone need poultry cones? These are used for slaughtering purposes. These are made of stainless steel $30 ea. Feel free to pm for pics.

[Dubious_Beans]

Awww, they're so cute.

I'll be they'll look good in freezer paper in a couple of months.
Wish my wife would let me do meat chickens... sigh.

Originally Posted by toyotaguy

I picked up our new batch of Cornish-X today, they are 4 days old and were hatched on the 4/10/13. So far they all look happy and healthy.


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[8404Calvet]

Tag

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

[toyotaguy]

4/19/13 Just over 1 week old
All are healthy and active, everything looks good, and although we had a couple nights of sub freezing temps they all did just fine with the brooder lamp and each other.

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[Darklyte27]

cute lil peepers

[SFBA]

Originally Posted by toyotaguy

They taste great, much more flavor than supermarket chicken. We have only cooked two so far and will be cooking one tonight. The first one we roasted and it came out a bit tough so tonight we will be roasting at a lower temperature to try to help with the tenderness. The 2nd chicken we cooked we used the crock pot and it came out tender as could be and delicious.

-Roasting this type of birds is a challenge. Presuming these are not broilers (typical Foster farm breed), they are leaner and can get chewy when overcooked. Try bring salted water in a large pot to a boil. If I recall, bring the water to just below boiling point, drop the chicken in for 20 -30 minutes. Shut off the temp and let is stand in hot water for an additional 20-30 minutes. This might need some tweaking.....it's been a while. I have always enjoyed a olive oil, garlic (lightly sauteed), pinch of salt and cilantro dipping sauce. Curries and BBQ dipping sauces are also good.

[rromeo]

So I found somebody Craigslist that was looking for fertile eggs and he would split the hatch. He turned out to live about a mile from us, so we brought over 4 dozen duck eggs. He didn't like 6 from the get go, then got rid of another 6 after a week or so. 30 hatched out
Here are mine. They are Pekins and Pekin/Khaki Campbell mix.


This brings me up to 38 ducks, plus the 15 chickens, 2 geese, and 12 rabbits. The straight Pekins will surely end up in the freezer. We already have 8 that are about a month old, so with these guys, we'll be sitting good for a little bit.
I'm hanging on to the mixes for a little longer to see if we have hens.

[rromeo]

So I found somebody Craigslist that was looking for fertile eggs and he would split the hatch. He turned out to live about a mile from us, so we brought over 4 dozen duck eggs. He didn't like 6 from the get go, then got rid of another 6 after a week or so. 30 hatched out
Here are mine. They are Pekins and Pekin/Khaki Campbell mix.


This brings me up to 38 ducks, plus the 15 chickens, 2 geese, and 12 rabbits. The straight Pekins will surely end up in the freezer. We already have 8 that are about a month old, so with these guys, we'll be sitting good for a little bit.
I'm hanging on to the mixes for a little longer to see if we have hens.

[-aK-]

Toyotaguy,

Most excellent thread!

Question for you: Why do you still buy the chicks? I'm curious as to your reasoning for not breading them yourself. You obviously have the room, skill, and experience.

Is it simply that you don't care to have a rooster around? I know how annoying those bastards are.

Btw, for those that have never had a rooster... they don't crow when the sun rises, like in the cartoons... they crow whenever the liberal they feel like it.

[toyotaguy]

Originally Posted by -aK-

Toyotaguy,

Most excellent thread!

Question for you: Why do you still buy the chicks? I'm curious as to your reasoning for not breading them yourself. You obviously have the room, skill, and experience.

Is it simply that you don't care to have a rooster around? I know how annoying those bastards are.

Btw, for those that have never had a rooster... they don't crow when the sun rises, like in the cartoons... they crow whenever the liberal they feel like it.

We actually have 3 roosters and 25 laying hens at the moment, and we have hatched our own over the years. However hatching good quality laying birds or meat birds has more too it than you might think. While yes you can just hatch muts for a long time and have acceptable results, if you want the best quality stock you have to mix different lines of hens and roosters and not do too much inbreeding as the quality of animals starts to decrease.

The meat chickens we are currently raising are more complicated to bread as they are a 2nd generation cross meaning that you start with 2 pairs of parent stock, 4 different breeds and then cross the offspring of those pairs to get the Cornish-X hybrid which do not reproduce on their own as they typically wont live long enough to reach sexual maturity.

If I had more time eventually I would like to play with breeding my own single generation hybrids for meat production but as it stands I work too much to give that kind of the project the time it would need.

Keeping roosters quiet can be a challenge but if you lock them up at night it helps muffle the noise when they crow at the moon or whatever else they feel like. We don't let ours out until 7:30 or 8:00 am typically so as not to disturb our rental cabin guests.

[toyotaguy]

Originally Posted by rromeo

So I found somebody Craigslist that was looking for fertile eggs and he would split the hatch. He turned out to live about a mile from us, so we brought over 4 dozen duck eggs. He didn't like 6 from the get go, then got rid of another 6 after a week or so. 30 hatched out
Here are mine. They are Pekins and Pekin/Khaki Campbell mix.


This brings me up to 38 ducks, plus the 15 chickens, 2 geese, and 12 rabbits. The straight Pekins will surely end up in the freezer. We already have 8 that are about a month old, so with these guys, we'll be sitting good for a little bit.
I'm hanging on to the mixes for a little longer to see if we have hens.

I really want to do a couple meat ducks this year, and I've read that Pekins are ready for the freezer after 7 weeks so I'm really tempted but I might wait to see what kind of results you end up with.

[toyotaguy]

Originally Posted by SFBA

-Roasting this type of birds is a challenge. Presuming these are not broilers (typical Foster farm breed), they are leaner and can get chewy when overcooked. Try bring salted water in a large pot to a boil. If I recall, bring the water to just below boiling point, drop the chicken in for 20 -30 minutes. Shut off the temp and let is stand in hot water for an additional 20-30 minutes. This might need some tweaking.....it's been a while. I have always enjoyed a olive oil, garlic (lightly sauteed), pinch of salt and cilantro dipping sauce. Curries and BBQ dipping sauces are also good.

Thanks for the tip, we'll give it a try.

[toyotaguy]

4/28/13
2.5 Weeks Old
I moved the chicks into their larger enclosure as they have already outgrown the brooder box. They have more than doubled in size already. They are getting lazy already and wanting to lay down while eating so in their new enclosure I have raised the feeder so that they must stand while eating, a friend of ours mentioned he does this with his and it helps him to avoid leg problems as it forces a certain amount of exercise.

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[toyotaguy]

5/3/13
3 Weeks Old
They weren't being very photogenic as they had just eaten and were napping but you can still see that they are growing tremendously quickly.

Untitled by toyotaguy1987, on Flickr


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[toyotaguy]

5/5
We picked up 15 Freedom Rangers on Saturday, they are 4 days old

Untitled by toyotaguy1987, on Flickr

[Dubious_Beans]

You're gonna have a freezer full by the end of summer.
Awesome !

[toyotaguy]

We lost a Cornish-X last night, the other birds were standing on it and it wasn't breathing well, I isolated it and found it dead this morning. The other 29 meat birds are doing just fine.

[TheSherThang]

Keep the awesome pictures coming.

[toyotaguy]

5/9/13
Freedom Rangers 1 Week Old
Cornish X 4 Weeks Old

Freedom Rangers:

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Cornish X

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I grabbed a random Cornish X and put it in with the Freedom Rangers for size comparisons sake:

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[Dubious_Beans]

Wow, those cornish x get big fast!
They certainly won't win any awards for prettiest chicken variety...

[toyotaguy]

Lost another Cornish-X yesterday, not really sure whats going on with them, but the rest look good, so hopefully whatever is causing their deaths stops now...

[toyotaguy]

Update. Had another death today. That makes 3 Cornish-X dead in 4 days, I have no idea whats happening to them, I have just happened to be in the coop when 2 of them died both did the same thing, flopped around a bunch and then went stiff, very strange.

[Dubious_Beans]

Do you restrict their feeding times?

Go here and scroll down to where it says
"IMPORTANT INFORMATION FOR FEEDING CORNISH CROSS "

http://www.ansteyhatchery.ca/after.html

Maybe they are having heart attacks and croaking?

[toyotaguy]

Originally Posted by Dubious_Beans

Do you restrict their feeding times?

Go here and scroll down to where it says
"IMPORTANT INFORMATION FOR FEEDING CORNISH CROSS "

http://www.ansteyhatchery.ca/after.html

Maybe they are having heart attacks and croaking?

I thought about that, basically I'm doing 14 hours on 10 hours off for feeding as they don't have a light at night anymore. But it is possible they are still over eating.

[Spyguy]

Originally Posted by Dubious_Beans

I built mine up off the ground because we have lots of varmints and rats around here, and also because the ground is steep so at least one side needed to be up on "stilts" anyway.
It's 4' x 8', plus the nesting box that sticks off the right hand side. It's tall enough to stand up in so I can get inside easily for cleaning & such.
I scavenged the old windows and a door out of an old shed. My neighbor gave me all the nice tongue & groove siding for free (score!), and the green and brown paint were leftover from other projects...

I'm no coop expert, but yours looks great! Would it be possible for you to post additional interior and exterior photos to show the layout and construction?

[toyotaguy]

5/15/13
Cornish-X 5 Weeks Old
Freedom Rangers 2 Weeks Old

[Dubious_Beans]

Originally Posted by Spyguy

I'm no coop expert, but yours looks great! Would it be possible for you to post additional interior and exterior photos to show the layout and construction?

Sure, I can post more photos. I've been just crazy stupid busy this week and it may be a few more days before I can come up for air and take photos. Uhhhh... what is it you'd like to see about the construction?

When I got the birds I started a Chickens thread and posted some photos there. That's where I'll post more photos when I take them. So start here and let me know what else you want to see about it:
http://www.calguns.net/calgunforum/s...d.php?t=639141


.

[Dubious_Beans]

Originally Posted by toyotaguy

5/15/13
Cornish-X 5 Weeks Old
Freedom Rangers 2 Weeks Old

They're getting big fast!

No more Cornish X deaths in the last few days?
Hopefully whatever was causing that is done now..

[toyotaguy]

Originally Posted by Dubious_Beans

They're getting big fast!

No more Cornish X deaths in the last few days?
Hopefully whatever was causing that is done now..

My fingers are crossed...

[toyotaguy]

Well I'm totally lost on this now. We had 3 more drop dead overnight last night.. no apparent reason, they all looked good the day before. Ive removed the fermented feed from their pen as that is the only thing I'm doing differently this year from last. I dont think that is causing the problems but at this point what have I got to lose.

[toyotaguy]

5/18/13
Cornish X 5.5 Weeks Old
We lost another yesterday, so today I slaughtered 2 of them that didnt look as alert or active as the others.
Their insides looked normal although the hearts where pretty squishy and soft compared to others I've done so I think whats happening is they are outgrowing their organs and having heart attacks.

The 2 I did weighed in at:
1lb 11.9 oz
2lb 3.7 oz

For 5.5 Weeks those weights are ok, but not great, I'm pretty sure the rest of the birds are much heavier as these two looked smaller and not as healthy.


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