24 processed today

[anthonyjames]

Well I normally don't raise CX but had some birds picked off from owls or hawks and thought I would need some extra's to fill orders 25 CX. Well turned out I had 5 extra from the original batch and lost 1 CX on arrival. I processed my CX at 7 weeks.

Smallest 3.8 lbs
Largest 7.92 lbs
Avg 6.34 lbs

When putting the weights and prices on these I was amazed but at the same time disappointed. While these are fast growers and I moved the pen 2 times per day every day they were just full of crap all over them and the stentch of them during scalding made me whish I had mask. But all in all I brought them home gave the dog some livers and hearts. Gave 2 people that helped me each two birds of their choice. So I came home with 20 birds.

4 (The largest) are being dropped off by a mexican family I know and they are making mole (chocolate), homemade salsa and they are getting all the feet as well.

6 were sold today and the remainders will be gone tomorrow already.

Now getting ready for my last batch in November. Just had my 150 Rangers arrive on Friday. 2 DOA. All the others are spunky as could be. They will all be processed the week before T-Day with the 12 turkeys BBB that I have sold already.

 

[HennyJenny]

My neighbor and I did 17 today and I'm so tired I could drop. You have my total admiration. I have 8 turkeys to do in November but I'm glad no CXs until spring. We had the same problem with ours and the stench from the scalding water. Ours were all able to walk - just mostly choosing not to despite being outside and moved daily. Good luck with your rangers! Are you going to process all of those yourself?

Jenny

 

[anthonyjames]

hennyjenny,

I having a plucker that does 6 birds in 45 seconds or so saves valuable time. It took longer to set up and clean up than do process the birds with one friend. 90 minutes to process and a total 4 hours to set up, clean up, bag and weigh.

I will be processing the others as well. If it is just my friend and I again we will process 20 - 30 a day and knock them out in a week and I can have people pick them up same day then. But depending on time I do have an appt already pre-set for the 16th of November for the Rangers and Turkeys just in case something happens to fill all orders on time.

 

[sonew123]

Quote:
were these straight run??? why at 7 weeks and not longer? Mine will be 8 week when they are going to be procssed but I want to hold out around 10 for another week or two...

 

[HennyJenny]

Quote:
We were just saying we didn't mind plucking them - but you're right - the plucker would have meant a couple less hours on our feet. Maybe I'll spend the winter making a plucker

It took us a total of about four hours to do all 17.

Ours were about 8 weeks old and with all the fat in the body cavity we're wondering if we didn't feed them for one week too long. They were all between 4.5 and 7.5 lbs but we decided in the spring we would do a check bird at around 6 weeks and see if we wanted to feed the additional two weeks. We drug it out mostly because it was blistering hot here the last two weekends and it was easier to nurse them through the heat than it was for us to butcher in the heat

 

[anthonyjames]

sonew,

They were straight run. I was not counting roos to hens but I think I had 14 roos and 10 hens. And why at 7 weeks. One I did not want to order another batch of feed. I was just about of the 500 lbs of feed I had for them for one and for two some were to the point where they could barely get up to walk to the feeders. And I only brought them feed one time per day. So they had their feed the equivalent of a 5 gallon pail spread out into two 3ft long feeders. And normally when I went to move them at 7pm the feeders were empty and they waited for feed until 5AM the next day. Plus, we have another heat wave coming and felt it was better to do them on a cool morning when I had the time. As next weekend is anniversary, birthday and extended vaca and the week after I am traveling. So this worked out perfect.

jennyhenny,

I weighed the options of making a plucker and ended up purchasing my for $799 and delivered to my door for another $95. It is stainless steel, has 188 fingers so I do use for quail as well, plucks upto 6 fair sized birds though today the most I did was 4 at a time and will do one turkey upto 30lbs or so. I got it from ezpluckers.com