100 cockerels feed amount

[fishman65]

I was wanting to get 100 cockerel chicks and raise for meat. I like to raise them for the freezer. I would like to know what the weekly and monthly feed requirements would be? Would 50# a week be enough for 100 chicks. or would i need more??? how much more. I would butcher at 20-24 weeks. They will be a heavy breed bird.

 

[fishman65]

bump

 

[blueskylen]

we raised 65 cornish X last year for 8 weeks and used approx 700 - 750lb of 23 % protien feed - probably close to 85 lb per week. i imagine it would be about the same to raise heavy breeds to 11 or 12 weeks. I also added about 15 lbs of soybean meal the last 3 weeks to up the protien a bit

 

[Pineywoods Peepers]

Definitely gonna need more. My 51 Freedom Ranger chicks who turned 3 weeks old today have put away a 50 # bag of food in the past week! From what I've heard Cornish crosses eat even more than FR's. Can't comment past that because this is only my first batch of meaties.

 

[KatyTheChickenLady]

I have 88 right now, at three weeks old they are eating a 50 lb sack every 2 days!!!

 

[EGGTASKTIC]

Fishman65

That is a long time to carry birds for the freezer. I wish I would have kept better records but I had freedom rangers last year that were carried to 12 weeks. I can tell you that they were mighty expensive compared to the Cornish x. If memory servers me I was putting almost 100 lbs of food a week into 37 birds. These dressed at about 8 lbs.

IMO you would be better suited to go with the Cornish X and shorten down to an 8 week grow out. You will end up with more meat in the freezer. This will leave a little more in the wallet too. I have had some heavy breed roos that I butchered at 5 to 6 mos old and there is not
much meat there- I use them for a pot of noodle soup most of the time. I try to avoid this now and buy layer peeps that can be color sexed.

As far as your original post, you would probably need 100lbs to get you to about 3 weeks old ( depending on waste). Then a few weeks at 50lbs and after 8 weeks I am going to say 100 to 150 a week. If you let the range around it may help reduce the feed bill but they will be lucky to make 5 lbs a 20 weeks. Just a ton of variables on the mix. The cold weather turns my layers into eating machines 40 hens will use about 75lbs a week.

Hope the above helps.

 

[fishman65]

eggtasktic,
I was going to try and sell some of the roosters at 20 weeks to help offset the cost of raising them. that way my overall cost will be low. If I was going to just raise for freezer i would choose one of the 8 week x's. I was planning on freezing about 50-60 and selling the rest. Plus it is way cheaper to buy 100 heavy breed cockerels (100 for 29.99) than cornish of freedom rangers. thank you for the responses.

 

[EGGTASKTIC]

Got ya- makes some sense to me. If you have the market for that product I can see why you would want to fill that niche. good luck.