Try not to feel bad about it. Leg problems are so wide spread with CX, it's a bit of a freak thing that it would turn out to be an infection.
I do know what you mean about being sad afterwards. When you let your meaties live so long, they really start to feel part of your flock and are...
Crispy, roasted chicken skin is just about one of the most delicious things ever. It beats out bacon for me. When my husband BBQ a chicken, I almost ask for the chicken back first -- which he thinks is well and truly bizarre. But a back is basically all crispy skin. Not the best thing in...
Handsome boy!
All my meaties are finally gone. The last 8, we used to make sausage and then we boiled all the bones down and picked the bones totally clean and canned that meat for the dogs (it was pretty low-quality meat at the end). We ended up with 45 lbs of sausage (15 lbs each of...
About a third to a half of my CX's diet is a combination of sprouted grains (barley, wheat and sunflower seeds) and old garden produce. I kind of throw it around their yard to provide "forage" since I live in a semi-desert and I can't do all that cool pasture raised stuff. I had not thought...
That was my thought as well. Before I got my CX -- and found this thread -- I read so many articles talking about these huge, disgusting CX birds dropping over dead at 7 weeks old.
Those slow broilers don't sounds very economical, JR. Thanks for sharing your experience with them. At 11 weeks, my CX ranged from 5.5 to 7.75 lbs.
We still have 8 of our meat chickens left that will be 13 weeks old in a couple of days. These are going to be turned into sausage, so we...
I love the toad pictures. Some day I'd like to have the space to try a breeding program.
5 more meaties went to freezer camp, plus we ended up butchering our little 1 1/2 old EE who had been born right here in our coop. It was a sad day for me. We knew the hen was not doing well. We had...
That's a long neck!
Question for you cold weather folks. It's supposed to get into the 20s at night with snow this week, which is unusual for where I live. The shed I have for my meaties to sleep in at night is not insulated -- it's just plywood. I'm assuming they will be just fine as fully...
The ducklings are adorable. It's on our wish list to build a pond and raise ducks. But, it is probably at least two years out, however. Next up is build a pen for some pigs.
Well, my husband and I put on our game face this morning and there are now 6 chickens resting in the fridge. The...
So tomorrow is the day to process the first 6 or 7 of my meaties. They are 9 1/2 weeks and some of the roosters are getting a bit aggressive and they are more crowded then I like them to be in their shed at night. I should be used to it by now, but it still remains a heartbreaking task for...
Your meaties are adorable DK!
I need to get some more pictures taken. My guys are over 5 weeks old now and looking very much like big birds. They still like to roost and are very spry. I'm thinking my decision to put them on 16% protein flock raiser (fermented) after 2 weeks was a good one...
I let it rest 48 hours in the fridge, before I bagged it and froze it. I don't know if it counts as additional rest time, but it spent another 2 days defrosting in the fridge.
I love all the chicken pictures. Holm, your rooster is absolutely gorgeous.
My meat chicken horizons are expanding. Last night, we made fried chicken with one of the 15 week old cockerels we processed a few weeks ago. It was a sussex-ameracuna cross and dressed out at 2 1/2 lbs. We had...
I wish I had a happy ending to report like Fire Ant Farm, but my little, runty chick was dead this morning. When I checked on her before I went to bed she looked very listless, so I was sad, but not surprised, that she didn't make it through the night.
Thanks everyone, for all your...