These Cornish X meat birds arrived on our farm on August 3. That makes them 30 days old today. We ordered 40 and got 45 (the hatcheries always give you extra in case there are any losses during or immediately after transport.) We have lost only one so there are 44 out there now.
My wife has Chicken Day on the calendar as September 30. They will be 59 days old at that point and should average between 6 and 7 pounds dressed.
We had a confluence of events that resulted in our cancelling our original order for 60 birds with one hatchery and ordering 40 birds from another hatchery for delivery a week earlier. That means that we lost our slot at the abattoir. We normally have half of the birds done at an abattoir and do half ourselves. We can’t sell the birds we do ourselves so we eat those ones. With the situation this summer we decided not to grow any birds for anyone else this fall and will do all 40 of the birds here on the farm for ourselves.
Butchering day is NOT my favorite day of the year but it is part of farming livestock and it has to be done. We’re likely going to offer a workshop for anyone local who wants to learn how to process chickens on their own property.
I gave their bedding a toss this morning.
Our meaties always have access to outdoors from the time they’re about 3 weeks old. They will continue to go outside right up until the day before they are processed.
Those look like happy birds.
I have a buddy who does chickens for meat and it is a lot of work even when you have someone else do the processing!
He says his price if he were to sell them would be around $30/chicken and thats basically at feed cost these days. He is very small scale like you around 50 birds. His feed bags went from $40 to $140
Raising chickens yourself if you feed them good quality feed it is not cheap. It does give you food security which is a good thing and you can control the quality of the food that you’re eating. We feed a very good quality locally prepared chicken grower. I have the list of ingredients and am comfortable with what we’re feeding them. People who have tasted our chicken say it’s the best chicken they’ve ever eaten.
I dislike chickens and I dislike meat birds more than most chickens but I like having fresh eggs and good quality meat so there is that.
There’s a lot to be said for being self sufficient these days. Best of luck, friend.