Buying meat birds...

[PurpleChicken]

Quote:
That was a well said and well educated post. For your application a Cornish is a better choice.

I'll say it again that the perspectives and experiences given on this thread
have been excellent.

 

[greyfields]

Yeah, those are all good points, too!

I wanted to bring up one more thing as far as speed of growth:

CornishX
Colored Range Broilers (add 2 weeks to the CornishX base crop duration)
Slow Cornish (add 4 weeks to the CornishX base crop duration)

The Red/Black broilers you see out there are not the CRB's, but slow Cornish. Do not mistake the two concepts.

I frankly wonder how they do manage to keep the CRB's to a market size at 82 days. By my dressed weights, 3.5-5.5 lbs, they would already be too large for the average chicken size I see at Mark's & Specners, Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's, etc. in England. They certainly throttle the feed on them, or use a lower protein % than we do here.

 

[Bossroo]

Right after I posted my last post, I heard a blood curdling screem outside. One of my mares was chasing off a couple of yearling cougars out in my pasture. Their mother was sitting about 50 yards away. I got my shotgun out, ran outside and shot off 3 rounds in their direction while they ran off at full speed. I then called several of my neighbors that raise sheep, cattle and horses to be on the lookout for them. Fish & game will only take a report and are a real pain in the neck to deal with in this type of matter, and the do NOTHING. I am so glad that all of my Cornish X are in freezer camp or these huge predators would have been inside of my barn with bloody fangs and claws and chicken carcasses all over the place. Too close for comfort !

 

[PurpleChicken]

Quote:
Sorry I missed this CTChickenMom.

We process ourselves. There are no processors here in CT that I know of.
The processors in Mass, RI, and New York I've heard of charge up to $5
a bird.

For us processing is part of the experience and we stagger our processing,
usually doing 5 birds at a time.

There is a group of us here that split orders and get together for
processing parties. I built a basic plucker and use my turkey fryer for
scalding.

 

[PurpleChicken]

Quote:
That's rough man. My chickens are 40 feet away from my upstairs bedroom
window. There have been times I've heard the strange screams and
come running. We just don't have the predators here that you do or
at least not nearly as many.

I had to laugh at the feezer camp thing though. That's a good one.

 

[CovenantCreek]

Quote:
WOW! I guess that's another thing I'm not missing since leaving the West. So far, all I've heard of around here are coyotes, foxes, and hawks. The woven wire perimeter fence seems to be keeping the ground dwellers out, so I really only have to deal with the hawks. If I had mountain lions running around I'd definitely have a full-size donkey in the pasture(s).

 

[greyfields]

Quote:
One more point to bring up. A colored range broiler or slow cornish will consume exactly the same amount of feed to reach 3.5# dressed as a CornishX will. You are exchanging time for vigor.

Neither is more economical to raise than the other, unless you are a 24/7/365 producer since you would produce 20% fewer birds over a year.

The flipside of the argument is that using 'breeds' with lower mortality, the gap is only very slightly in favor of the CornishX. Again if your criteria is solely producing the maximum number of birds per year.

 

[Lazy J Farms Feed & Hay]

Quote:
Greyfields:

I have seen you mention this several times. Do you have data to support this theory?

In my mind the colored ranger will have a greater total maintenance requirement due to the longer live span and greater activity, while the cornish should have less maintenance energy requirements and expend less energy due to a lower activity level.

Jim

 

[chickenannie]

Quote:
One more point to bring up. A colored range broiler or slow cornish will consume exactly the same amount of feed to reach 3.5# dressed as a CornishX will. You are exchanging time for vigor.

Neither is more economical to raise than the other, unless you are a 24/7/365 producer since you would produce 20% fewer birds over a year.

The flipside of the argument is that using 'breeds' with lower mortality, the gap is only very slightly in favor of the CornishX. Again if your criteria is solely producing the maximum number of birds per year.

Can someone who's raised colored range broilers explain the difference to me in comparison to a Cornish X. for example:

Taste?
Size?
Light, dark, breast meat?
Behavior?
Better pastured, or penned?
Health (do they have the leg/organ problems)?
Any other special characteristics?

Thanks much! I've gotten a lot of great info from this thread as well.

 

[chickenannie]

Quote:
I just heard one reason why Asian cultures like dark-colored or black chickens... Chinese medicine has strong philosphies about eating "Yin" and "yang" foods for health and for preventative health measures. And the dark-skinned chicken is believed to have "hot" or "Yang" properties. So when a "yang" food is called for, you wouldn't want to eat a white-skinned bird.