Best Meat Bird Order?

[greyfields]

Sex won't matter on the Cornish X. You'll have a slight variation in size at 8 weeks, but you'll barely be able to tell the males from the females. The FCR is same for each. The females just eat at a slower ate of consumption.

I only raise Colored Range Broilers msyelf and process at 9.5 to 10.0 weeks. An extra four weeks doesn't match my experiences.

Also, the Colored Range Broilers are not the "Red" or "Black" broilers some hatcheries sell. Those are just slow cornish with different feather color. If you've never raised broilers before, I would do Cornish X's just so you know what the baseline is which people compare against.

One final note. They all cost you teh same to raise in feed. The FCR's are essentially identical and ARE identical if you take into account the typical feed wastage for a small farmer. The traditional CornishX are eating $$$ worth of food in X days; whereas alternative broilers are eating $$$ worth of food in Y days.

 

[Bossroo]

Quote:
Let's see ... You are saying that it costs the same to raise a Cornish X or alternative meat bird no matter how much time it takes? If so, Willheveland says to expect a RIR to dress out at 3 lbs in 16 weeks ( 116 days) of age. He also gets 7-8 lb for the Cornish X for his investment cost of $10 per bird. Coondog74017 had a yield from his Cornish X of 8- 10 lbs 14 oz at 12 weeks (84 days). Brundy_Farms says he free ranges his birds in tractors, butchers his Cornish X at 42 days for carcass yield of 3.5 lbs. He also states that " the price per pound goes up per week after 6 weeks (42 days) drastically". So, if you butcher your free range Colored Range Broilers at 9.5 weeks ( 66.5 days) to 10 weeks (70) days what is your average yield per carcass?

 

[willheveland]

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=76875

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=65879

Here were a couple posts that may describe their results. Will

 

[greyfields]

Quote:
A couple points here:

1) I said all broilers are equivelant. Purebreds or 'dual purpose' birds are not on the same playing field with broilers, so exclude those from the argument.

2) The published FCR of broilers is averaged over hundreds of birds, which includes males and females. They then publish it based on the age of the bird versus the FCR; but it really should be the weight of the bird and the FCR.

3) Your straight up comparison is really going to mislead you. All these different people will be feeding at different rates under different environmental conditions. You can throttle your birds down or grow them full speed. Also, not everyone is calculating their cost per pound using the same basis.

Brundy_Farms is correct that the FCR curve does begin going up exponentially; but what everyone is confusing here is that it is really a function of the birds live weight NOT their age. So when he/she says 42 days, it should be "once they achieve weight X, it starts ramping up the feed requirement to get to weight X+1".

Let me try to be as clear and simple here by saying all broilers have equivelant FCR's for the duration of their life (which they don't, the FCR increases with size) for the purposes of demonstrating the point.

CornishX FCR 2.5
Alternatiev Broiler FCR 2.5

CornishX live carcass weight at slaughter 10.0 lbs
Alternative Broiler weighta t slaughter 10.0 lbs

Quantity of Feed Eaten to reach this live weight = 25# for both birds

The only difference is the birds eat food at a different rate of consumption. Your Cornish X may reach that in 8 weeks, another broiler in 10 weeks. Or someone could really restrict feed on a Cornish X and not acheive that for 12 weeks.

So, unless you are farming industrially, where every single day of your crop duration matters immensely, all the broilers will be equivelant. Any scant difference in FCR amongst the different varieties, breeds, strains, etc. ammounts to less feed than you probably spill out of your pickup if you rip a bag open on accident.

The bottom line for me is the mortality of the CornishX nails my profitability and I wouldn't go back. But, if I had never raised them, I wouldn't realize this.

Great questions, by the way. I'm suppposed to be on vacation here.

 

[Steve]

I had good luck with Cornish X this past year and plan on doing them again this coming year.

I picked up the chicks at TSC on or close to April 15 and they were processed June 20. The processor weighed them dressed on their scales and they were weighing around 10lbs. each.

 

[Bossroo]

Greyfields... Brunty_Farms states that he butchers his free range Cornish X at 42 days of age for a carcass weight of 3.5 lbs and he has fed them 6.14 lbs of feed each plus whatever amount of grass that they eat. He does not say what his mortality rate is. You raise your Colored Range Broiler birds also free range but for 66.5 days to 70 days but with no losses to speak of. You both are in the chicken meat for sale business so I assume that both of you whant to get the most amount of return on your investment in feed. I also hazard to guess that most of us whant a similar result. I know that I do. I would say that would be only fair if we knew what the weight of the Colored Range Broiler was if we could since we know that the Colored Range Broiler takes that much longer to grow to slaughter weight under similar growing conditions. Since you are recommending the Colored Range Broilers what is your average weight yield that your birds atchieve at time of slaughter so that we can compare these two results?

 

[dragonshiner]

Has anyone used White Leghorns for meat birds? Sunnyside Hatchery has male leghorn chicks for 38 cents a piece and that could be a real budget saver, But I don't know if it would be worth it. I've been raising birds for a little over a year now but this will be the first year I am going to be raising some birds specifically for meat processing.

 

[greyfields]

Quote:
Every crop is different. They've been as small as 3.25 to 4.5 lbs in the early/late crops when weather isn't ideal. Add 1.0 to 1.5 lbs to that for the summer crops when everything is in full gear, they are eating constantly, vegetable garden waste is being thrown in their pen, etc.

The fact is we both work day jobs, sometimes the feed runs out during the day, and we aren't growing our broilers full-throttle. So, I'm not being vague to answer your question, I jsut don't keep records of every ounce of feed which goes into them. When we're feeding the broilers, we're also feeding the ducks and geese out of hte same bag and I wouldn't even begin to speculate how much each beasts eats.

Also, I didn't say we don't have mortality. We just have greatly reduced mortality, especially considering coccidiossis in our environment, summer rains, a windy coastal location and a ground water table which extends out of hte ground most of the year.

Hope that helps!

 

[Brunty_Farms]

I see where greyfields is coming from. If your not raising a lot of the free range birds at one time than yes it would cost the same to raise the cornish over the free rangers.

The reason why is like greyfields said they eat the same of feed wether it takes 12 (colored range), 18 (dual purpose), or 6 weeks. All birds will eat 25 lbs of feed. If we all paid the same amount for feed/birds/heat we would all have the same variables. The only thing that would change would be the weather of the outside and the mortality rate, which in reality is a managment issue.

The problem with this is like Bossroo states "time is money" and that this hurts me in the longrun. (I'm going to use me for an example). In the time frame it takes someone to raise colored rangers, I could have raised double the amount. For instence say all three of us had 18 weeks to grow as many batches of 100 birds and share the results. Greyfields raises 100 Colored broilers and gets half way through his second batch. Bossroo raises 100 Rhode Island reds in the 18 weeks. In this same time frame I will have raised 300 Cornish X's.

But reality is we all have different prices, different elements, and different ways of raising them. For example I cut at least 20% out of my feed cost when they are raised in the tractors in the spring, they don't burn very much energy foraging as I bring it to them.
Greyfields lets his run, so in reality his are going to eat just a little more due to the foraging.

I guess the biggest thing is, from a family farmer that is raising birds for meat it comes to mind that the type of bird doesn't matter. As it's basically a prefrence. It's going to cost about the same to raise 10 cornish, rir, or color rangers. They all cost about the same chick wise, eat the same, and cost the same to butcher. The difference is they time frame they are ready to be processed


For a buisness, it's a dreadfull thought to have to wait 12 weeks weeks instead of 42 days to make money. In the long run everything is cheaper, feed, chicks, labor. Everything gets a price break.

 

[greyfields]

Well, except, I don't know where everyone is coming up with teh 12 week number?!? I would still argue it's at most 2 weeks longer than your CornishX would be under the same conditions.

Regardless, I think the point is setting in now. UNLESS time is critical, the cost of going either route is equivelant. I see a lot of people on here assuming it costs you more money to raise alternative or slow broilers than it would the jumbo giant Cornish X. That's simply not true. What people don't understand is because they have them longer, they must therefore eat more food. It's not the case, though.

Now, carefully re-read that paragraph. It does not say that raising a heavy breed or dual purpose chicken would cost you the same $$ but only take longer. The FCR's on anything which is not a broiler are not on the same playing field and it will cost you a considerable ammount more in dollars and time to raise heavy breeds/dual purposes.