Best practices for ethical meat birds raising

[CDee]

Talk to me about ethical meat birds practices.

This is my first year processing. I'm learning a lot as I go. We got 5 cornish× because that's what there seemed to be the most information about and they were most accessible to me. But I'm not going to lie, they're kinda making me depressed.

The whole reason I wanted to process our own meat (aside from knowing where it comes from) was to do it in a more ethical and eco conscious way. I'm doing my best to give my meaties a good life - or as good a life as I can. They have toys and enrichment in their brooder, they get fresh water multiple times a day, they have access to a dust bath and perch. They have a good size run waiting for them outside when it warms up. But the fact that they are designed to grow faster than their bones or bodies can support seems so cruel.

I've been reading The Small Scale Poultry Flock by Harvey Ussery and he touches on using excess roosters from his own breeding practices for meat. I don't want to do Cornish again. My husband wants to do the free rangers, I'm open to either that or breeding dual purpose birds.

What are the best practices for this? It would also be a plus for me if my meaties and layers could live together.

 

[MysteryChicken]

Talk to me about ethical meat birds practices.

This is my first year processing. I'm learning a lot as I go. We got 5 cornish× because that's what there seemed to be the most information about and they were most accessible to me. But I'm not going to lie, they're kinda making me depressed.

The whole reason I wanted to process our own meat (aside from knowing where it comes from) was to do it in a more ethical and eco conscious way. I'm doing my best to give my meaties a good life - or as good a life as I can. They have toys and enrichment in their brooder, they get fresh water multiple times a day, they have access to a dust bath and perch. They have a good size run waiting for them outside when it warms up. But the fact that they are designed to grow faster than their bones or bodies can support seems so cruel.

I've been reading The Small Scale Poultry Flock by Harvey Ussery and he touches on using excess roosters from his own breeding practices for meat. I don't want to do Cornish again. My husband wants to do the free rangers, I'm open to either that or breeding dual purpose birds.

What are the best practices for this? It would also be a plus for me if my meaties and layers could live together.

I breed my own out of specific cross breeds for meat.
Just hatch out however many I want to butcher, & butcher all, or keep a few back for breeding. I try to cycle it, to about 1-2 times a year.

 

[Ridgerunner]

What do you want from a meat bird? Some people are all about quantity. Some are really interested in cost per pound of meat. Some like to be able to delay butchering. Some want to breed and hatch their own. If you pluck feather color may be important, if you skin it's not. How important to you is how you cook them? The age you butcher them might be important to that.

The Cornish X were designed to be butchered at 6 to 8 weeks of age and fed a certain way. They are very efficient in a feed to meat conversion so the least expensive to grow. They are butchered so young that they can be cooked any way you want. Because they eat so much they poop a lot so you will probably spend time on poop management. You butcher both males and females.

Rangers are designed to grow a little slower than the CX and are better suited to being pasture raised. If raised the way they are designed they should be butchered around 12 weeks of age but can usually be delayed a bit. They are still young enough that you can cook them anyway you wish but if you delay much they may not be that good for frying or grilling. You butcher both males and females.

Dual purpose are a lot harder to talk about because there is so much variety in them. I'm not sure where to start, especially considering ethics. I hatch my own from my dual purpose laying flock. I raise my own replacement layers and eat the excess girls and the boys. I feed them all the same thing (a low calcium feed with oyster shell on the side for the ones laying eggs). If you have any specific questions I'll try to answer them.

If you manage them the way they are designed to be managed I don't see ethics playing into it. If you don't stay within those bounds, yes, I can see some issues.

 

[LinkinChicks]

One other thing to keep in mind if you do go the dual purpose route, unless you find a breeder who is willing to sell you some chicks and has been working on making them grow as dual purpose birds, you will get egg laying birds, meaning that they will likely not be very wide or very big and likely be a little tough. You can definitely improve on the breed, but it will require eating through a lot of birds that aren’t ideal.

 

[Molpet]

In My signature is a link to bramblewoodhill farms about breeding for meat.