Interesting, never thought about using a battery. I need to go out and do some looking and see if the light would be far enough away from chickens to not cause a problem. My tractor has a fairly low ceiling height. I was thinking about building a permenant coop as the free ranging is working very well for me. So I do not move the coop often anyway. But I was hoping to wait another year or so.....the battery idea would be a great temporary solution. I wish I could get up the courage to raise up some meat birds and butcher a couple of times a year. I really enjoy gardening and providing clean healthy food for my family. Why did you decide to stop? Was your cost more than the store bought? For some reason I would feel better about butchering cornish because they are going that route anyway.....butchering dual purpose seems like it would be more sustainable and cost effective however. What do you do with your hens after 3 years if you do not butcher?
If your coop is small, you only need a 60 watt light bulb to do some good.
We did the math on the Cornish X, and they worked out to over $12 per bird! When you add that cost to the fact that butchering is NOT FUN AT ALL, we stopped doing it. It just wasn't worth it to us. We sold the majority of birds for $15/each and had a long waiting list, but we just hated the butchering so much that the less than $3 profit per bird just didn't cover out time. And we decided we disliked the butchering so much, and the high cost of the meat so much, that we decided not to do any for our familiy, either. If there was a place around me that would butcher for me, I would think about raising some meat birds again despite the cost--I'd get the cost down by hatching some sex linked birds and eating the males instead of ordering Cornish X. They just tasted so good, and I felt good about eating them since they were allowed to free-range and had a happy, if short, life.
After three years we put the hens on Craigslist. We usually get $5-$10 per hen. I've given away a couple that looked rough or weren't laying, but usually manage to get some money from them.