10 Count Cornish Cross from Hoover Hatchery (via Tractor Supply)

[Jack and Sara]

Day 2: everything seem good. Very active when not sleeping. They love soaked feed.

Day 2 Weigh In (total weight. 10 birds) = 22 oz

 

[Jack and Sara]

Week 1: all 10 chicks are still doing great. They are getting big fast

Week 1 weigh in (total weight, 10 birds) = 72.6 oz

 

[Jack and Sara]

Week 2: All are doing great. They are getting big fast.

Week 2 weigh in: 18.6 oz average weight. Weights between 14 oz and 20 oz

Total weight of 10 birds = 11.6 lbs

 

[nicalandia]

Such Impressive birds.

 

[Jack and Sara]

Week 3: They are getting hug. All in good health as far as we can see. Planning on building a chicken tractor today to start moving towards getting them out of the kitchen and on grass/dirt . We have been keeping track of their feed. I plan to share that info too. First guess, we have 4 Cockrell (41 oz to 43.2 oz), 2 pullets (28 oz and 30 oz) and 4 that I think might be either smaller Cockrell or larger pullets (36.5 oz to 38.5)

Week 3 weigh in: 37.6 oz average weight. Weights between 28 oz and 43.2 oz

Total weight of 10 birds = 23.5 lbs

(Will post picture hopefully in chicken tractor)

 

[Jack and Sara]

Week 4: Started winging them to go outside (little later than we wanted). Still very active and are fully feathered. Our Easter egg "Blonde" is determine to peck her way into the chicken tractor and let em know who's boss (we think she is getting ready to lay and has been a bit onry). All is well and they are doing great.

Week 4 weigh in: 56.8 oz average weight. Weights between 45.5 oz and 64.2 oz

Total weight of 10 birds = 35.5 lbs

[Pardon the yellow zip ties, waiting on a hog ring pliers to finish up the chicken tractor]

 

[nicalandia]

Thanks for sharing

 

[Jack and Sara]

Week 7 (from this Saturday): Birds are doing great. Seem to be growing faster than anticipated [see below note]. We gave them access to food 24/7 for first two weeks and have been 12 hours on/off since. We ended up with seven cockerel (males) and 3 pullets (females).

Week 7: Total weight = 84.2 lbs Average weight = 8.4 lbs/bird

Cockerel Avg weight = 9.0 lbs (expected weight 7.4-7.9 lbs, depending on the chart)

Pullet Avg weight = 7.0 lbs (expected weight 6.3-6.7 lbs, depending on the chart)

Note: The age of the chicks referenced throughout this thread are from our delivery date, the chicks were around 1-3 days old when received (i would guess 1/2 day because they were noticeable smaller than our first batch that was 3 days old). This does skew the numbers ever so slightly when compared to the expect weights, but our weights are still better than "expected" based on charts you can find from hatcheries.

 

[Jack and Sara]

Week 10: processing day (12/24). Could not be happier with the results. Will definitely be using Hoover Hatchery (via TSC) in the future.

Week 10 Total Live Weight: 117.8 lbs (largest = 13.6 lbs. Smallest = 9.0 lbs)

Week 10 Total Cleaned Weight: 88.2 lbs (largest = 10.3 lbs. Smallest = 6.9 lbs)

As previously mentioned, this was our second time raising and processing our own meat birds. First batch was 4 birds (cornish cross as well, however we kept one to be a layer because she had such a great personality, Chicken Little laid her first egg at 7 months a few days ago ). We let them go 11 weeks and our largest cleaned bird was 5.5 lbs. Not quite sure why this batch was so much larger but we are not complaining. Another note is that our first batch of meats birds had a good amount of fat in the cavity, this batch had almost none.

The processing is still a bit emotional for us but we know that we are taking great care of the birds (to the best of our ability), giving them love their entire lives and providing for our family. 10 great weeks and one bad day.

I hope this thread has been helpful and that our experience can help anyone on the fence to go for it.

Merry Christmas and God bless.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Those are great weights, particularly for birds of reasonable fat content. Thank you for seeing this thru to the end.

If you have any thoughts in the coming weeks as to what may have affected final weights and fat content over the first batch (apart from simply a different batch of birds), I'd be interested. My own TSC Cx two years ago were very disappointing - but as they free ranged more than a bit, reductions in weight gain, rate, final rate, and increased toughness were all to be expected.