Best BIG meat birds / least expensive

[1rooroo4u]

I want to get some big meat birds, but I don't want to pay an arm and a leg for them.

I talked to a couple the other day that had some Cornish birds crossed with ****(cannot remember the name) and their birds were 12-15 pounds when they were butchered.

Who is a good reliable source for heavy meat birds?

Thank you for your time!

 

[FunClucks]

Any farm store that sells chicks should eventually get a batch of Cornish Cross meat birds (CX) in that you can buy. Straight CX are hands-down the most efficient and cheapest meat for money invested. You have to buy the chicks from a farm store who gets them from a hatchery, because the parent stock are basically copyrigted(?) (not available for sale to the public) and the chicks are sold as a terminal cross. Any CX cross that someone breeds using CX chick parents will have better livability but less muscle/meat per $ spent on feed than the parent CX bird. CX chicks are some of the cheapest out there in $/chick. My favorite source for CX is Welp Hatchery, you can order for super low $/chick and free shipping with minimum chick order.

As for the size of the birds, you can raise a CX until it's 12-15 lbs, but I wouldn't want to eat it because it would probably be tough. Sounds like they raised them way too long. Raising a CX until 8-10 wks will give you approximately 7-10+ lbs dressed carcass depending on how you do it. Maybe up to 12 lbs. This is a HUGE bird. But the longer you raise them the more you risk them having health issues and dying before you can harvest them. It's often better to harvest a bit sooner, and get more birds in the freezer (more total meat yielded) than to wait extra time for them to grow super big and risk losses of birds just for another lb or so per bird. Do some research on raising meat birds before you jump into raising CX. They are not like raising normal chickens. If you search on this site, there is lots of info on their peculiarities and quirks and how to accommodate them in order to get a great yield.

Good luck!!!

 

[Acre4Me]

CX is the way to go for best and quickest feed to meat conversion.

 

[Acre4Me]

If you want free range style, then you should get chicks marked “Ranger” bc these are bred for a free range type system, giving you a good meat carcass around 14-16 weeks. FWIW, CX do not range well, they run very hot, they drink a ton, and could not save themselves ever- but they get butchered at a young age, so keeping CX in a protected environment is very efficient.

Another option is to find a local breeder or hatchery that sells a dual purpose that actually produces a nice carcass. We have a small hatchery in our area that sells meat CX, but they also sell White Plymouth Rock, and indicate they are reach a good size. We tried this out one year- bought a bunch (specifically males) and grew them for about 16 weeks on meatbird crumble. They were a nice size, not CX size, but really good for most purposes. The downside was the fact that starting around 8-9 weeks, they were very vocal and it became an irritation to hear them, we were glad to say goodbye.

Don’t forget, long term, you can buy a good dual purpose breed (like white Plymouth Rock) and keep selecting for the larger sized ones/or quicker growth to develop a strain that works well for you over time.