cheap chicks to raise for meat. - Page 2

My Golden Comets are so scrawny I wouldn't even bother processing them. They are not dual-purpose birds, really, in the same way that Leghorns aren't. They're bred for incredible egg production, and that's it. 

They ARE amazing layers and mine are excellent foragers, so for anything other than meat I recommend them. 

I raised Black Start Sex Link roos for meat cuz I got them for .15 each.  They took 16 weeks.  The amount of meat was noticeable in the breast area of the Black Star vs. the double breast of a CX.  But as far as wings, legs and thighs they were very comparable.  I wish I would of kept track of the feed cuz they didn't seem to eat as much as my RIR roos are now, which I got for free.  If you can get roos for under a quarter do it and experiment.  The meat is going to be much darker than the CX cuz they move a lot more.  But its fun.

 

Good Luck

DH and I are raising Light Brahma and Dominique roosters for the table. Both are dual purpose birds, and my hens are great layers. We tried several breeds last year, and these two gave us the best results free ranging. The Leghorns we raised didn't have allot of meat on them, but the Doms had awesome breasts, and the LBs were big enough to butcher at three and a half months.

I agree about the guinneas. Also, I've heard that muscovy ducks are bug eating machines.

Try Central Hatchery http://www.centralhatchery.com/pricelist.html in Nebraska. You can get cockerels like Rhode Island Red for $50 per 100. Cornish X are $80 for 100. RIR's will take you about 16 to 20 weeks to get to decent butcher size, but will eat about same amount of the feed Cornish X's will in 8 weeks. I'm raising RIR's from Central right now for meat and will process at 16 weeks. I have 30 and they eat about 12 pounds of feed a day. I also have Cornish X's from Central. They are seven weeks old right now and 50 of them are eating 24 lbs. of feed a day right now. I got the birds together, so they are the same age. You can't beat the prices though.