Ramblings of a newbie starting a self-sustaining meat bird flock…

[imacowgirl2]

My housing setup for these birds:

8’x10’ hoop coop, with sides that I will mostly roll up within the next week or so as it gets warm consistently here.

Run is roughly 20’ wide by 15’ long - the whole run is roughly 40’ long but I have about 25’ off that fenced off and only turn them in that part occasionally, with hopes that I may be able to get the grass to survive long(er) term to provide some ranging area for the hens and rooster who are long term occupants.

Water is an 8 gallon vacuum galvanized container…I’m not 100% happy with it because of how hard it if to refill, especially if it doesn’t go empty first, so I’m planning on replacing this with a large trash can with poultry cups. For my layers, I prefer vertical or horizontal nipples, but I just feel like these birds can’t get enough water out of the nipples.

For feed, we are using a 10 foot vinyl gutter, attached to the outside of the run fence, with a piece of vinyl siding attached to the fence above it to provide a partial roof and to keep the layer flock out of the meatbird feed. This has worked really well…the only drawback is that the rooster can’t get his head through the fence due to his large wattle and comb, so I provide him some food in a small dish on the inside of the pen next to where the gutter is.

And a couple pics of the pretty ladies, who are hanging out in the layer hens “free range pen” until I get enough eggs collected to set:

 

[imacowgirl2]

Apparently lost one of the two hens this weekend…they got mixed into the layer flock when I was trying to collect eggs on Friday and I couldn’t get her caught back out before we had to leave town for the weekend. Yesterday I noticed that I didn’t see her, but thought she might just be free ranging somewhere with some of the layers. However, she wasn’t in the coop last night, so unless she has gone broody somewhere, she is likely gone. Unfortunately I think she might be the one of the two that was laying…going to crate the other one and see if I get any eggs because I really need eggs to set for daughters 4-H show.

 

[imacowgirl2]

Apparently lost one of the two hens this weekend…they got mixed into the layer flock when I was trying to collect eggs on Friday and I couldn’t get her caught back out before we had to leave town for the weekend. Yesterday I noticed that I didn’t see her, but thought she might just be free ranging somewhere with some of the layers. However, she wasn’t in the coop last night, so unless she has gone broody somewhere, she is likely gone. Unfortunately I think she might be the one of the two that was laying…going to crate the other one and see if I get any eggs because I really need eggs to set for daughters 4-H show.

The missing hen walked up out of nowhere this morning when my daughter called her laying hens! She has definitely not been in the coop or anywhere in the yard the past 4 days, so no idea where she was. If we didn’t have so much going on today, I’d be tempted to leave her free ranging and try to figure out if she might have a nest somewhere…however, I don’t think I have the tolerance to leave her free ranging roost while we are gone.

Also confirmed, the other hen IS laying eggs…good news all around this morning.

 

[imacowgirl2]

Weights from last night…the young birds will all be 14 weeks on Monday.

Weighing these birds in a zipper top reusable grocery bag is definitely the way to go! Once they are zipped in it’s dark, so they just lay right down and it’s super easy to hang the bag on a fish scale and get a weight.

Also surprised to see that the 7 month old rooster only weighs two pounds more than the young ones…that helps further alleviate lingering fears of keeping the biggest roosters, since it seems they don’t grow a ton more later. He definitely FELT a lot heavier then the young boys according to my daughter who was doing the catching.

 

[imacowgirl2]

Processed three roosters today. They were 14 weeks old today. I kept the three biggest to evaluate for the replacement backup rooster — so I processed the ones that weighed 9.8 lbs, 9.7 lbs, and 9.7 lbs. Processed weights were 6.0 lbs, 5.8 lbs and 5.6 lbs, so right at 60% of live weight.

I also processed the mean Australorp cockerel who used to be the head honcho in the bachelor pad…he processed out at 3.4 lbs.

From start to finish it took me 2 hours 15 mins…once I figured out better how to deal with the wings and cutting the vent off the body cavity, things sped up considerably. And anyone who says older roosters aren’t harder to skin is full of lies…that darn mean rooster took me 45 mins of that time. I was doing it all myself except my son killed them for me — so I was pretty pleased with an average of 15-20 mins per bird, since last time (my first time) took us over 2 hours for 3 birds, and there were two of us.

 

[imacowgirl2]

Plan is to process a few more birds on Friday afternoon and then another 4-5 on Sunday…that should leave me with my 3-4 new hens and hopefully my 1 new rooster, if I’m able to narrow it down by then. That will leave me with just the old replacement rooster and possibly one of my current hens to process. Watching egg laying, because I think one of my hens is consistently laying a double yolk egg (and not very often, at that) — which doesn’t serve my purposes since I can’t incubate those.

 

[FunClucks]

Processed three roosters today. They were 14 weeks old today. I kept the three biggest to evaluate for the replacement backup rooster — so I processed the ones that weighed 9.8 lbs, 9.7 lbs, and 9.7 lbs. Processed weights were 6.0 lbs, 5.8 lbs and 5.6 lbs, so right at 60% of live weight.

I also processed the mean Australorp cockerel who used to be the head honcho in the bachelor pad…he processed out at 3.4 lbs.

From start to finish it took me 2 hours 15 mins…once I figured out better how to deal with the wings and cutting the vent off the body cavity, things sped up considerably. And anyone who says older roosters aren’t harder to skin is full of lies…that darn mean rooster took me 45 mins of that time. I was doing it all myself except my son killed them for me — so I was pretty pleased with an average of 15-20 mins per bird, since last time (my first time) took us over 2 hours for 3 birds, and there were two of us.

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Awesome job!!!

I agree about skinning old roosters, my 9 wk old CX took 2.5 hrs processing time (skinning) from live bird to chicken in my fridge, and my 1 yr old production red rooster took an additional 30-45 minutes. Skinning the old bird was HARD work! But he tasted great after the crockpot. Mixed it with BBQ sauce and it tasted like pork, ate it on a sandwich, and used the broth and stock veggies for some really excellent pea soup.

 

[HenriettaPizzaNolan]

Processed three roosters today. They were 14 weeks old today. I kept the three biggest to evaluate for the replacement backup rooster — so I processed the ones that weighed 9.8 lbs, 9.7 lbs, and 9.7 lbs. Processed weights were 6.0 lbs, 5.8 lbs and 5.6 lbs, so right at 60% of live weight.

I also processed the mean Australorp cockerel who used to be the head honcho in the bachelor pad…he processed out at 3.4 lbs.

From start to finish it took me 2 hours 15 mins…once I figured out better how to deal with the wings and cutting the vent off the body cavity, things sped up considerably. And anyone who says older roosters aren’t harder to skin is full of lies…that darn mean rooster took me 45 mins of that time. I was doing it all myself except my son killed them for me — so I was pretty pleased with an average of 15-20 mins per bird, since last time (my first time) took us over 2 hours for 3 birds, and there were two of us.

View attachment 3480658

Those look so great!! Congrats!

Is it more difficult to pluck older roosters, or do you just have the personal preference of skinning?

 

[imacowgirl2]

Those look so great!! Congrats!

Is it more difficult to pluck older roosters, or do you just have the personal preference of skinning?

I’ve not tried plucking yet at all…I’m typically only doing a handful of birds at a time, and all the setup (and tear down) for plucking would add significant time that I’m not sure is worth it, especially since I pressure cook 100% of my birds.

Also I’m not sure I could handle the smell of wet birds…I’m likely still carrying some trauma from that one time back in the day that my father in law decided we were going to butcher a bunch of old hens…when it was 90 degrees in the shade and I was 8.5 months pregnant. Zero stars, do not recommend!

 

[Molpet]

Those look so great!! Congrats!

Is it more difficult to pluck older roosters, or do you just have the personal preference of skinning?

CX have less feathers than heritage. I prefer heritage but all those feathers plug up my plucker and I have to clean it after 2 to 4 heritage birds