Meat flock size

[hobgoodacres]

I was wondering what the recommendations are for the number of hens and roosters I should purchase to supply plenty of meat for a family of six?

 

[waddles99]

As the cost of everything is ridiculous now, we will have to learn to like it.

If you are trying to raise your own birds to save money, forget it. If you are trying to raise your own birds because you want better tasting meat that you know was raised well, then go right ahead.

 

[Ridgerunner]

As you can easily tell, there are a lot of different ways to go about it. To start with nothing is more efficient than getting the Cornish X. You have to buy the chicks, so that is not self-sufficient. Some people pasture them and get some relief on buying feed for them. I haven’t done it myself but I suspect they still buy a lot of feed. To me, being self-sufficient means the least amount of money I have to spend. Your definition may be different. If you are buying practically all they will eat, Cornish X is probably the best way to go.

To get the quantity of meat you are talking about you are going to need a big operation. You might want to look into rabbits, they might be a better fit for you. Or at least raise both chickens and rabbits. You’re almost looking at a commercial type operation. Five chickens a week for 52 weeks is 260 chickens. That’s a lot. You said you may be twice that.

For that number of chickens you cannot rely on broody hens to hatch enough for you unless you have a huge number of chickens. Then you have to house them and feed them or provide a really big pasture. Predators are a big risk to an operation like that. Even if you pasture you’ll probably buy a lot of feed, especially in the winter, depending on where you live.

Half the chicks you hatch will be female. For me that means half the chickens I eat are female. They will not be nearly as big as cockerels so you’ll probably need to cook them in a way to stretch the meat. When Mom served fried chicken some of the pieces on the platter were neck, back, liver, and gizzard, all well breaded. Chicken and dumplings and stews are a great way to really stretch a chicken.

To get that many chickens I think you have to have an incubator and raise them yourself. Incubators come in different sizes so you basically decide how many chickens you need then decide how big an incubator you need and how often you need to set eggs. Then decide how big of a flock will you need to fill it as often as you want to hatch. I suggest you store the eggs for hatching no longer than one week. With my hens and their frequency of lay, I can normally fill a 42 egg incubator in a week with eight hens. If one goes broody or stops laying for some other reason, I may not be able to totally fill it. Then in the off-season you may hardly get any eggs. If you have a big enough freezer or can the meat you can maybe grow enough during the summer to handle winter.

How much this costs will depend a lot on how much you have to buy feed. Initial set-up costs for housing may be really high. I have no idea how much you can pasture or raise feed for them yourself and I don’t know your predator pressure.

How many and what kind of chickens to get? I’ve never raised Rangers or any like that so I don’t know how well they survive and reproduce. You might want to give them a try. I certainly agree, the dual purpose chickens you get form a hatchery are nothing like the Delaware, New Hampshire, an some strains of White Rock that were the backbone of the chicken meat industry before the Cornish X took over in the 1950’s. Still a lot of people base their meat flocks on these birds. They are fairly good at surviving and reproducing and can forage for a lot of their feed if you have good quality forage. But they certainly don’t grow very fast and aren’t as efficient in converting feed to meat if you are buying or even growing most of their feed.

So what if the Rangers are hybrid and won’t breed true? Their offspring will still have great meat qualities, they just won’t be as consistent as their parents. Just select the best as breeding stock and in a few generations you have a flock that becomes more consistent and better meets your goals.

A standard model on small farms worldwide for thousands of years is to keep your own breeding stock for maybe 4 to 5 generations, then bring in a new rooster to increase genetic diversity. If you find a lot of flaws when you start inbreeding you may need to get rid of your stock and start over, but most people can work with this four to five generation model. Just keep your best breeders and eat the rest. Don’t get sentimental about a bird with deficiencies and keep it for breeding.

It’s hard to know what to tell you. You are looking at a much bigger operation than my 40 to 45 chickens for the table a year. Good luck!

 

[duluthralphie]

I just found this thread.

I love to hear about people wanting to raise their own meaties!

I raise lots of meaties a year.

I buy CX's, I raise them slowly. I do not feed them high protein feed after the first few days.

I have them free ranging at 3 weeks. I only feed them what they can eat twice a day for 15 minutes at a time. I also raise them longer. I raise them 13 weeks so I get bigger birds. I have no leg issues. I use to have leg issues, heart and kidney problems (ascites) when I raised them according to hatchery instructions.
These problems surfaced around 6-7 weeks.

I also have adult CX's that give me an egg a day. I have a CX/Dixie rainbow cross rooster I use as a broiler daddy. They are over a year old now. I have been trying to raise my own meaties. It is not a perfect system and costs me more per chick with feed costs and incubating them than buying them from a hatchery.

My roosters are 11-13 pounds dressed at processing the girls go 8-10 pounds. Last year I spent $7.80 per chick to get them to that size. I raise 70-100 at a time.




The above two pictures are my breeding stock CX's in their breeding pen and coop.



Above is my half breed rooster, my broiler Daddy. His daddy was full CX.


Here are my CX's free ranging last fall, with a turkey hen mothering one.



EDITED TO ADD: I do not feed them in the mornings when they are around 4 weeks old. I force them to free range and only feed them at night. If you feed them in the morning some will be lazy and not search for bugs and seeds.

 

[blucoondawg]

It is going to depend on how often you eat chicken and how much you eat per meal, then decide if you want to raise them all at once or in a couple different batches. If you eat chicken once or twice a week with 6 people eating per meal it will be a substantial amount of birds, splitting into multiple batches will save you freezer space

 

[hobgoodacres]

With 3 of the kids being younger; we eat chicken several times a week 5-10 times per week. The other kid is a teenage boy, so we eat a fair amount each meal. I'm looking a few batches a year. I'm wanting to get a self-sustaining flock going; so I'm also not sure how many batches I can get each year.

 

[hobgoodacres]

I guess I should say, I need a lot of guidance in how many to purchase, how often to have them hatch, when and how to select replacement roosters and hens to breed more, etc.

 

[blucoondawg]

Have you raised chickens in the past and are you aware of the difference in flavor, texture, carcass size and proportion between modern grocery store chicken and a dual purpose or slower growing meat bird?
I only ask because there is a substantial difference between the 2 and if you think you want the proportion, size, flavor of the modern grocery store chicken it will be next to impossible to get a self sustaining flock going. If you are ok with a slower growth rate, more flavor, chewier texture due to the older age to butcher and less breast meat then being self sustaining is achievable.

 

[hobgoodacres]

Although it has been a long time since I've eating a farm raised bird, I'm aware there is a difference in the two. As the cost of everything is ridiculous now, we will have to learn to like it. We're just not sure how large of a flock to start with.

 

[blucoondawg]

Well first you will need to decide what kind of chicken to raise, since meat is your goal I would suggest using one of the slower meat hybrids like the rainbow or red ranger. It will give a bird with a faster growth rate than the regular laying birds. The rainbows lay a decent amount of eggs too. They're hybrids so they won't breed true you will have to select your breeding birds of the best meat bird traits and eat the rest and after a few generations you should have a decent meat line.
The old time dual purpose breeds aren't the same as they used to be when dealing with hatcheries, the modern versions are smaller and will lay well but have went down hill as far as meat goes, you could use them but it would take a while to breed them back to a decent carcass size, if you go that route you would be better off to get some decent breeding stock from a breeder who has already worked towards improving their line.
As for numbers you can get as many as you feel comfortable with or have room for, by the sound of it you won't have any problem using the meat. The slow meat birds will take around 12 weeks to grow out so factor that in, then you will want to keep a couple of the best fastest growth roosters and some hens for your breeding and eat the rest. Your first few batches will likely come from the hatchery since it will obviously take a awhile for your breeding stock to mature. You will likely need an incubator too.