Can you clarify re: culling and replacing flock?

[SomeChickinTN]

No, no. Chicken math is great. The subtraction leads to great dinners. The addition leads to cute little fluffy balls of fluff running around. There is joy in both aspects. Just be sure you know what the end of the story will look like.

Yeah, but I'm only in the first chapter, trying not to skip ahead too early, lol. It's surreal when your dreams start to become reality. You guys have all been awesome.

 

[Ridgerunner]

.. How do you determine how many chickens you need for meat for the year? .

You might read post #21 in this thread, it will save me a lot of typing. There is good information in the whole thread about laying cycle.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/advice-on-flock-size-please.1282043/page-3#post-20691324

I determine the number I need to hatch by trial and error. You can get an approximation by how many you eat a week and how many weeks you are at home to cook but stuff happens. It's never right but it is a good starting point. I determined I needed about 45 chickens a year for the two of us.

One of my constraints was that freezer space was limited. I had a large garden, berries, and fruit trees. In season I used the freezer to temporary store things until I had enough to can or make jelly, plus I froze a lot of veggies for us to eat in winter. I might have four or five gallons of tomatoes in there before I was ready to make sauce. I could not just fill it full of chicken meat, so I hatched several times a year. I did not want a huge laying flock either, too expensive to feed.

So I'd use an incubator and hatch around 20 chicks in February. That way I'd have some to butcher when the ones in the freezer ran out. After that I usually had broody hens to hatch and raise the rest, but occasionally I'd have to use the incubator for a second smaller batch. Broody hens are undependable, they don't usually go broody when you want them to.

I'd start butchering the cockerels around 16 weeks if I needed the meat but my preferred age for cockerels was 23 weeks. I'd generally keep the pullets until they were about 8 months so I could see the eggs they were laying before I decided which ones I was going to keep as replacements. That's one advantage of the dual purpose over the broilers, you can leave the meat on the "hoof" so to speak if you are not ready to butcher as long as you are willing to feed them.

 

[Morrigan]

I was exactly where you were at a few years ago. I wanted to raise chickens for eggs and meat. Here are a couple of things I learned along the way about the meat aspect of a dual purpose flock.

First, most"dual purpose" birds sold in hatcheries these days have not truly been bred for size and eating as the breeding skewed to egg laying potential. So, unless you have true heritage birds, bred to reflect their original purpose, you might be disappointed in the size and yield. Even then, a well bred dual purpose bird, will still be smaller and shaped a little differently (less breast meat) that the hybrid broilers that you see in the supermarkets. I was OK with that, but my husband was really disappointed.

Second, an older hen is not a bird you can throw on the BBQ. They are sometimes referred to as "stewing fowl", because they generally are best in slow cooked applications like soups and stews. Many people swear by the flavor of these older hens and find it well worth the effort to cook them down. And, the fat off an older hen is incredible when rendered down. I've attached a link to an article discussing the cooking of traditional fowl, and when to harvest if you are looking for a bird you can fry or grill.

http://www.albc-usa.org/documents/cookingwheritagechicken.pdf

At bottom, if you are expecting a meat bird of the size and nature of what you are used to buying in a supermarket, you will need to raise hybrid broilers (Cornish X). That's the direction we decided to go, although we still process extra cockerels and older hens for food. But, it's still a dream of mine to bred a more self-sustaining dual purpose bird. As Ridgerunner shows, it can be done.

 

[SomeChickinTN]

I was exactly where you were at a few years ago. I wanted to raise chickens for eggs and meat. Here are a couple of things I learned along the way about the meat aspect of a dual purpose flock.

First, most"dual purpose" birds sold in hatcheries these days have not truly been bred for size and eating as the breeding skewed to egg laying potential. So, unless you have true heritage birds, bred to reflect their original purpose, you might be disappointed in the size and yield. Even then, a well bred dual purpose bird, will still be smaller and shaped a little differently (less breast meat) that the hybrid broilers that you see in the supermarkets. I was OK with that, but my husband was really disappointed.

Second, an older hen is not a bird you can throw on the BBQ. They are sometimes referred to as "stewing fowl", because they generally are best in slow cooked applications like soups and stews. Many people swear by the flavor of these older hens and find it well worth the effort to cook them down. And, the fat off an older hen is incredible when rendered down. I've attached a link to an article discussing the cooking of traditional fowl, and when to harvest if you are looking for a bird you can fry or grill.

http://www.albc-usa.org/documents/cookingwheritagechicken.pdf

At bottom, if you are expecting a meat bird of the size and nature of what you are used to buying in a supermarket, you will need to raise hybrid broilers (Cornish X). That's the direction we decided to go, although we still process extra cockerels and older hens for food. But, it's still a dream of mine to bred a more self-sustaining dual purpose bird. As Ridgerunner shows, it can be done.

Thanks Yeah, I'm ok with them being smaller too, I'll just have to figure out how far one bird will go for my family. I'm thinking I am mainly going to go with egg production, at least for now, and the meat will be a plus.

I was hoping to talk to the woman today who is giving me the chickens (I think I actually did, but it's a long story), anyway, I thought I was just getting RIR's, but I'm getting those and some barred rock and sex links, which I hear are great on eggs.

I was trying to do the chicken math on how many chickens I need for even 6 months of meat, and I don't think I have enough space, unless maybe I do the Cornish cross....

 

[SomeChickinTN]

Assuming my family eats two dozen eggs a week, including baking, and then we eat chicken twice a week needing 2 chickens, which really would be a main meal of Crock-Pot chicken, and then chicken and dumplings the next night....That's harvesting 4 chickens a week for dinner, plus at least 3 chickens for the weekly eggs.... I'm obviously no good at numbers, but that sounds like a lot of chickens, lol

 

[Morrigan]

One of the best things about going the cornish cross route, is that you can raise them to eating size in anywhere from 7 to 12 weeks depending on how big you like them. We tend to like them big, so we butcher from 10 to 13 weeks of age, and get 6 to 10 lb birds. It's a short, but more intensive time period of chicken raising. We do one batch of 20 to 25 each fall. We did need to buy a chest freezer, so we have room to freeze them.

It's really convenient, but I still hate that I have to buy hatchery chicks each year.

 

[SomeChickinTN]

One of the best things about going the cornish cross route, is that you can raise them to eating size in anywhere from 7 to 12 weeks depending on how big you like them. We tend to like them big, so we butcher from 10 to 13 weeks of age, and get 6 to 10 lb birds. It's a short, but more intensive time period of chicken raising. We do one batch of 20 to 25 each fall. We did need to buy a chest freezer, so we have room to freeze them.

It's really convenient, but I still hate that I have to buy hatchery chicks each year.

I may look into that, however, I prefer not to hand raise anymore chicks unless my hens refuse to brood ever. Chicks are adorably irritating, lol

 

[mixedbreeds]

I raise the Cornish cross chickens each year for my fried/baked chicken they are excellent. The older laying hens for soup and noodles or anything using slow cooked chicken meat. Remember do not name the chickens or get to friendly with them as it sucks come butchering day. I give them a good life but that’s where it ends.

 

[SomeChickinTN]

I raise the Cornish cross chickens each year for my fried/baked chicken they are excellent. The older laying hens for soup and noodles or anything using slow cooked chicken meat. Remember do not name the chickens or get to friendly with them as it sucks come butchering day. I give them a good life but that’s where it ends.

That's a pretty good idea. And the friendliness with the chickens is a problem, at least when raising chicks. My husband says he will have no issues actually killing them, and I can probably dress them, but my kids know we plan to eat them and they are not going to like it. I'm not sure how to get them to understand this is where food actually comes from.

 

[Morrigan]

I may look into that, however, I prefer not to hand raise anymore chicks unless my hens refuse to brood ever. Chicks are adorably irritating, lol

True! If I get enough broody hens this year, I'm going to see if I can get some broiler eggs for them to sit on and see how that goes. At least with the Cornish Cross, I only have them in the brooder for 2 weeks, and I have my brooder out in a shed. They grow so fast and tend to run hot, so you can put them outside with not a lot of fuss at a young age.