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!
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!
