Meatie Experiment: FF 'vs' Crumbles

[jrsckn]

That's awesome, I was planning on playing with excel but haven't had the time, thanks!!!

I was more than surprised with the results. I never expected the CC to be the cheapest and the grain chicks to be the most expensive. I do think I will feed both fermented and dry crumbles in the future. I think the grains just didn't have enough available nutrients for efficient growth. If someone's goal is to slow growth down, thats the way to go but it will probably cost slightly more unless you can find them cheaer than I did. Not to mention I used a variety of grains to see what they would eat; I wonder what would've happened if I stuck with the cheapest I could find.

Overall though, I liked the cleanliness and lack of smell of the FF chicks and I think it is well worth the extra $0.16/lb.

Also remember I free fed all of the chicks, they had food 24/7 for 9.5 weeks and I didn't have one health issue, just food for thought.

 

[Island Roo]

I was not surprised.

The crumbles and cornish x have been developed by the broiler industry to provide the lowest feed conversion in 8 weeks to maximize profit - at the expense of the health of the bird (and human consuming the bird). The crumbles mixed with grains is the furthest of the three groups from the factory formula. It would be a huge challenge for any of us to improve on the feed conversion or optimal cost formula.

On the other hand, it is completely simple to provide a more natural diet, better nutrition and better living conditions. A happier healthier bird. Tastes better too - by a long shot.

 

[siroiszoo]

Haven't had time to read all the posts but wanted to mention my experience:

I hatched 13 Australorp chicks from the incubator. Started them on FF immediately and had the same trouble. They wouldn't eat it. So I gave them CC for the first couple weeks. Then I started pouring FF water, from the buckets of fermented grain for my grown hens, over the CC before giving it to the baby chicks on week 3 (also removed the CC feeder even though they had made enough of a mess to have CC all over the brooder, still). They are devouring the FF. Don't know what it is about the initial few weeks and only wanting dry crumbles. I have been putting AVC in their water every day since they were hatched. Never thought to calculate water intake.

 

[neopolitancrazy]

ummm...I just wanted to ask how you accounted for losing such a large percentage of the CC chicks in the total cost/lb of chicken meat produced. I realize this is a small study, and probably statistically under-powered, but if memory serves me correctly, you lost 50% of your CC chicks, probably due to environmental stress. Those chicks, and the feed they consumed before death, were not free.

 

[jrsckn]

ummm...I just wanted to ask how you accounted for losing such a large percentage of the CC chicks in the total cost/lb of chicken meat produced. I realize this is a small study, and probably statistically under-powered, but if memory serves me correctly, you lost 50% of your CC chicks, probably due to environmental stress. Those chicks, and the feed they consumed before death, were not free.

They were lost due to heat stroke. Wednesdays were my weigh days and it just so happened that I had just weighed them a couple hours before the losses. Since I had the current average weight, I just calculated the cost per bird up until that point and used that cost to carry over to the next week for the remaining birds. Because I had figured it per bird, there wasn't much of an issue because I already had their average individual cost. The following week I just took the average weight gain and divided it by the average feed consumed, calculated cost and added it to the previous week's cost per bird.

There was some error created due to the fact that 8 chicks had access to the feed for 2 hours until 5 of them died but it was so hot, I doubt they ate enough to make much of a difference overall. Also, the average weight would be a source of error as well. I lost the largest bird bringing the true average down but most birds were withn 2 ounces of eachother. When I weighed them that evening they had already showed a couple ounce weight gain so I chose to use the original average from the morning. But, like before, it wouldn't amount to much in the overall experiment and if anything, it would increase the cost with a higher amount of feed consumed with a smaller weight gain for the remaining 3 birds.

I don't believe losing any of the birds had any effect on the overall experiment. At the point of loss, all of the CC weighed more than the other groups and were the cheapest and remained that way for 2.5 weeks until the SFF had a higher average weight but CC always had the lowest $/lb.

 

[neopolitancrazy]

hmm..let me try to rephrase it this way. I think the cost of the "heat loss" chicks should be included in the $/lb calculations. I believe the frailty/nonresilience of the cornish cross birds is an important factor, one which is important to all producers of meat chickens, be they backyard or commercial. I think the CC birds that survived until the end of the study ought to show enough of an advantage in time to slaughter or feed efficiency to pay for the higher losses associated with that management style. So, if you add the costs (purchase, feed, etc,) associated with the "heat loss" CC birds to the costs attributed to the "butchered" CC birds you would have the total costs attributable to raising the CC birds to slaughter. Then if you add the edible pounds of chicken meat from the "heat loss" CCs to the pounds of chicken meat from the slaughtered CCs, you can then determine the true $/lb of your CC meaties. (and the SFF, and the FF+ other stuff)
Do you see what I am trying to ask?
When I add in the feed you attributed to the heat loss chicks, I get an additional 28.985 lbs of feed cost that I feel the CC chicks should have to 'pay for'; I feel losses related to death/disease radically affect the cost per lb of each method of meaty production.
Angela

(btw, I happen to agree that the chicks that died on a very hot day most likely died of heat stress, but without a necropsy, the cause of death is technically undetermined.)

 

[jrsckn]

Well, I have to disagree about the necropsy, it was 110 degrees outside and they were piled on top of eachother, no other cause of death is very likely (especially since I was able to revive a few birds that were overheated and near death). I will admit that it does stand to reason that the fermented feed birds did handle the heat stress better but if I had managed them better, there may not have been any losses. I was not able to provide the same amount of sqft per bird in each cage, nor were they in the same exact amount of sun that day. I tried to keep this experiment as scientific as possible but I had limited financial resources to make it happen. As much as I want to, I can't blame the birds themselves; their deaths were my fault. My main goal was to see how much $ it cost to feed the birds and who was most efficient at processing the feed, if I honestly thought it was the birds themselves, I would've included their weight. I also lost a couple FFC at the same time so then I'd have to include them too. Also, not all the birds were total losses, we were able to process a few of them for ourselves and fed all but 1 or 2 to our dogs. I could've figured the cost of the losses but in the chaos of trying to save the remaining birds and trying to process the dead birds as fast as I could, I failed to get processed weights for one of them, didn't get before weights, and mixed the CC carcasses with the FFC carcasses. They did range from 1.477-2.164lbs processed and skinned though. All in all, I recommend feeding ff. The benefits of the reduced smell, less waste, and better taste outweigh the extra costs which were minimal. It also showed that feeding whole grains is not efficient or cost saving and only slowed the growth down. I do see where you're coming from and would've liked to see the actual costs at that point too, but after pouring over all the data and missing info, I just couldn't make it work with any reliability so I excluded them. My costs were based on feed alone, I have no interest in overall cost because there are a number of variable factors associated with management decisions.

 

[jrsckn]

Just wanted to update on the tase of the fermented feed birds. They are very tender and juicy with good flavor but they to have a tangyness to them. If you roast them, they make horrible chicken sandwiches with the leftovers - mayo or miracle whip - just too "sour"

but other than that I haven't had a problem with the taste!

I've been thinking of re-doing the experiment this spring on a larger scale without the grains chicks and factoring in water consumption, not sure yet though.

 

[bruceh]

i noticed the same thing.

 

[SunnysMama]

I wonder why because mine don't taste sour at all even eating leftovers. My hubby wouldn't eat it at all if it was sour.

Ours has a very rich chicken flavor that everyone that has eaten them LOVES. Seems weird and wonder why the difference!?!