Can i mix my meaties with my regular girls?

[The Chicken Lady]

Quote:

I am sitting here, in tears, from laughing so hard. I love your conversational, witty writing style... I can feel the horror dripping off of every word when you discuss the poo.

Thanks for the laugh this morning!

 

[KellyHM]

I have my meaties (now 5.5 wks old) in a pen with my other babies of the same age. Although the meaties are 3-4 times the size of the other babies they all get along well. My pen is moveable so that the poo doesn't accumulate too much in one place. They DO eat a LOT, so I have to make sure to keep the feeders full, but I have enough feeder room that they're not competing with the other babies for a place to eat, so that everyone gets enough food. So far the only accident I've had was when it got cold out and the meaties piled up and squished 1 of the regular babies. I now have 2 lights out there in case it gets cold and they stay spread out.

ETA: I got mine from Welp also and em extremely pleased with them. They grow very fast and so far are still running around flapping their wings and playing like a normal chick does. I'm even considering keeping a pair to breed my own meaties since they seem so healthy...we'll see how they are at 8 wks.

 

[Brunty_Farms]

I see that you live in florida so the weather isn't much of a problem for you as here in Ohio raising day old chicks in 10 degree weather doesn't do good for any of us.

Do you have a couple of acres by chance of pasture? If so you can do 50 with out a problem. Look into a tractor raising method if you have a bit of land. If you don't know what it is look at my website below and on the front page you can see a pic of what they look like. You will see how clean these birds are if taken care of properly.

If you do not have land you probably don't have much of an option but to raise them with the layers. If you can seperate them as if you don't your going to regret doing so. It's like any other chicken... you do not want to mix chicks with adults. If you can keep them apart by all means do so.

If your raising them indoors make sure you use lots of bedding, and make sure there is plenty of space. There was a pic of someones 6-8 week broilers in a house with very clean bedding and the birds were spotless. This is only achieved if they have enough room and enough bedding. If you do not you will have chickens covered in manure and they will have red skin do the amonia levels in the bedding.

If you plan to do 50 make sure you have help processing 50 birds for a first timer cane be overwhelming. Do them 5 at a time or 10 at a time. Don't try to tackle the whole batch in one day.

If you have the land or a barn big enough for 50 then go for it. It's not hard. Just remember they need space, and fresh "ground" wether that be fresh grass, straw, wood chips or anything else.... the key is keeping it clean. If you can get away with it though keep them seperated, it will save lots of headaches.

 

[Omniskies]

Thanks, Chicken Lady

I'm wanting to cross my Cornish-Rock with random roosters and see what happens. I know I won't be able to get anything as meaty or as fast growing, but it'll be fun to see what I do get.

So far the only trick I've heard that everyone has in common when trying to raise birdzillas to adulthood is to let them free range for their food and for their exercise. I threw five Cornish-Rock hens in with my regular chickens and made them free range. Out of those five I ended up with one who made it to adulthood. I'm still waiting on her to decide to lay. Right now she's in with an Ameraucana rooster.

I know we lost at least two of the free range pullets to predators. Once the chicks discovered all of the loose feed in the barn (we have hanging cages that are always full of things that always spill a little food) then they decided it wasn't worth going back into the pen at night.

 

[Guinea Goonie]

I tell ya, I will second what Omniskies is talking about.

These birds are unbelievable. They will literally sit in front of the feeder at about 6 weeks and the other birds will climb over them to get to the food.

They POOOOOOOP, POOOOOOP, POOOOOP and POOOOOP some more. they poop on each other, they poop in the waterer, they poop in the feed, heck they poop in htier sleep !!

We had 25 of them and I wanna tell ya, they day we butchered ALL of them was the happiest day of my chicken keeping life.

I mean it was a whirlwind of constant poop management.

 

[roll8221]

Im glad i posted this then. I think ill cut it down to 25 for the first time. And maybe put an ad on cl for poo...... thanks guys!!!

 

[bheila]

Why don't you try raising 25 and once you butcher them raise another 25. At least that's how we do it. Let me tell you I do get tired of all of the POOP. But boy is that meat GOOD. We always raise ours until they are 12 weeks too. I don't keep all of my meaties and layers together but I do let them free range together during the day. I once let one of my Barred Rocks raise 8 of my meaties because she was broody and she needed something to do. It was hilarious to watch those fat little chickens wattle after their mommy all day

 

[Omniskies]

Oh yeah, I definitely recommend sticking with your 50 _total_ - just not raising them all at once your first time in.

This year I'm thinking about trying to raise 100 at once. I've already done 50 and...I have no idea why I want to raise 100 at once. I just know that I'm planning on doing so

 

[roll8221]

What do you guys recommend for feed??? do i use gamebird??? and is there a certain brand thats better than another?

 

[Omniskies]

Whatever you can get

Each feed store seems to have different brands they carry. Ask them for a broiler feed. Out here ours is called Meat Maker and sells for roughly $10-11 a bag.

If nothing else, gamebird feed should work, too. I've used it in the past when I was running low on Meat Maker and I didn't have any issues. It's just too expensive for me to use regularly for anything more than my quail.