Recent content by sfchixn

The owl was back again this morning. I usually don't get up this early!

Yup, many sites will sell you sexed CX. I guess people prefer the males in this case since they grow larger -- and as opposed to layers, the male CX will cost more. I don't have any coop in the tractor/pen since the CX prefer to sleep on the ground. I pull the pens to fresh ground daily so...

I have 6x6 tractors (more manageable for one person) and put 12-15 per tractor. At 12 it puts me at 3 sf per bird. At 15, less than 3 but more than 2 sf per bird :D For me its more about the number of birds in my tractors. I've only ever done straight run CX so always have a mix of...

Oh wow, I just read the blog post by the chicken vet! The common method used by many (cutting the neck to bleed out method) is unhumane! That's how I've been doing it :hit https://the-chicken-chick.com/how-to-humanely-euthanize-chicken-by-dr/

The meat chicks seem to generate so much of their own heat that if you have the means to keep them dry and secure and have source of power for the heat plates, this can be done relatively easily!

Well, last night a Great Horned Owl tried to get at the chicks. I put a camera inside the tractor which detected some sound strange sounds around 5am. I went out to investigate and a Great Horned Owl took off from the nearby structure. All chicks were safe, however, and it was down to the low...

Got the chicks outside and installed their huddle boxes (2 x 50 chick plate brooders in some fruit boxes and covered by heavy canvas tarp).

Will do. Looks like I'm sort of a Guinea pig but happy to try it and see if its worth doing again at this time next year!

No it is not our first time, but it is our first time in the cold. We did two batches last year, harvesting in May and August (2020). We had really great results but the temperatures were mild when we moved them out at three weeks and there were no concerns at all except for some high daytime...

Thanks for your response, Tr3hugger. We're in the Central Coast of California -- where would I update that for my profile?

Central Coast California

We have 50 meat chicks in the brooder and they are growing fast. Considering moving them outside at 2.5-3 weeks age -- which is about 1 week away (they are nearly 2 weeks old now). I've started dialing down the brooder temp and they are thriving at 65-75 degrees F currently. (So much for 95...

We wound up ordering this cover crop from Deer Creek: https://www.deercreekseed.com/free-range-sheep-hog-pasture-mix

Purely Poultry offers free shipping. https://www.purelypoultry.com/cornish-cross-broiler-p-207.html

I’ve done the 24h feeding and had a lot of losses. It might depend on the strain of CX you are raising.