What type of chickens do you have/raise?
Can you clarify re: culling and replacing flock?
- Thread starter SomeChickinTN
- Start date
What type of chickens do you have/raise?
SomeChickinTN - don't remember where you said something about not being able to process your own birds... this post is really long.
Have you watched any YouTube videos of it? There are MANY different ways to process a chicken. You could also look into having a butcher process them for you (regulations are different for each state and company - costs can be prohibitive) or find someone who'd help out and be willing to trade for a bird or two in exchange for processing several at a time for you. Craigs list may work, MarketPlace on FB OR a note posted at your local feed store.
My hubby is not into being around during any type of castrations (not chickens, but other critters) or killing or processing. He is a "killer" cook, however!! So far, I've not had a problem, originally the first time with help several years ago, doing the processing.
This weekend, I may be doing several roosters. Need to reduce feeding numbers and have too many roosters (2 Blue & 2 Splash cockerels w/ 2 Blue pullets/4 Lavender cockerels w/ 3 pullets. The blue pullets are JUST starting to lay and these 6 birds were hatched on 3/12/18. The Lavs<self blues depending on which group you are going with> were hatched on 3/29 & 4/11... No eggs yet & I can't decide which of the roos I really want to keep yet...). These aren't meat birds per say. I've never dressed out a purebred Ameraucana before - have no idea what weights they will be or how much meat they will have on 'em (& unfortunately, since our move, we can't find the kitchen scale! so won't have any kind of real/accurate weights
). For now, I can tell you this - I don't pluck. Hand plucking, for me, takes too long and is very difficult for me to do. I don't have any kind of "fancy" plucker yet (that's coming in the future -when we have a larger number of birds to do all at once). I "peel" them. Quite literally. It's a little difficult in some areas, easier in others. The skin and feathers go into a feed bag that then gets dumped into our compost (this time I also dumped out the feet/legs and the heads). My videos aren't edited - but several that we did in October were taped by my daughter on our phones. The first bird I did took about 30 minutes from first cut to final rinse and putting him on ice (the ice tub carried into the house & covered with a lid - rinsed & bagged the next morning, then into the freezer). Then got a little faster with the middle ones, then the 5th one I was freezing (outside in wind and 20* temp drop) and tired and fumbling with my hands. Took almost 45 minutes to do according to video... My daughter and the grand daughters didn't help - just watched (& taped). It did take a while, all told. Since I wasn't plucking, I didn't scald them. If there was a scent, I was standing upwind and the scent picked up and blown away from me. (the 7 & 8 yr old grand daughters said they "have STANK", LOL). The innards were put into a bucket and partially split between the 5 dogs (every one got a neck & a heart - from the 12# pom to the 80# pitX). The other innards from three of the birds were tossed into the dog yard - for the 3 dogs out there to piece thru as they chose. The rest went out to an area in our back field where the CLB & RB flocks range and spread out on some gardening area(s). UM... between the two barn cats that showed up and a flock of 12 mostly grown young birds (4 roosters/8 pullets) - those innards were ALL gone in less than 1 hour! This was my first time processing birds completely by myself and only the 4th time since 2012 that we've done birds for us... Will become regular part of our "homestead life" now. I have a couple of pics of the processed birds...
I've since done two of those birds in the new Instant Pot - as soup. Not a whole lot of meat - had I done them as roasters - they most certainly weren't turkeys. When I had the 3 daughters at home, it would probably have taken 3 full birds to feed the 5 of us as 1 meal (not soup or chixNdumplings). If we have a family get-together of us and the oldest w/ her hubby & 2 granddaughters - I really think we'd have to have cooked all 5 of these birds at once. The 5 birds that I did that day were 3 barnyardXs - of about 50% mixed bantam breeding and 50% Ameraucana and 2 CLB roosters. The CLBs were HUGE compared to the Bantams, but once cleaned and dressed - not that much different in size. I'm going to have to go thru pics to figure out when the bantamXs were hatched, the CLBs were supposedly 3m old when I got them in March, not sure though, meaning they would be 8m old when I processed them. I gave 2 to a neighbor who has had some financial issues and is now allowing me to house some of my birds in the coop that is on his property. He said they were wonderful - he did them in the oven as whole birds w/ potatoes and onions.
I didn't track exactly how much feed they were getting, but they got a whole lot less feed overall than my prospective breeding stock which weren't free ranging the same way. "Grazing" in our front & side yards garnered a lot of bugs & greens for them. The only reason they were free ranging out of pens is they figured out how to get out of the 4' high temp pens and they'd go do "walkies"... I did lose 1 Bantam and 1 CLB that way, but that's not too bad actually. A pic of the CLB roos in June. They weren't tagged at all - I have no idea which ones I processed in October.
As to numbers of birds? I haven't figured it out on paper - but know that I will have to feed my purebred birds (dual purpose?) for a bit longer and still won't have a carcass (at least not this first couple of generations) that is real meaty or large. For that, we'll have to raise some cornishX's, I believe. Not sure that's going to happen next year yet (I've been visiting with a couple of different people on some ideas for using the birds I have now X'd on a new breed to create my own "meat birds"). Our plan is to feed the 5 dogs and at least the 3 outdoor cats quite a bit of chicken as well as feeding ourselves. There were a couple of times Larry and I got roasted chicken 3x a week this past summer (before I had any birds ready to process) - and ate the birds' just by our selves... Each bird did make more than 1 meal, but ... The 5 just processed about the same size as the rotisserie birds from our local supermarket - not very big at all.
Me thinks we are looking at raising a lot of birds!...AS to eggs - my first chickens (mixed assortment of bantams) were given to me - then I bought some hatchery chicks thru the feed store. This past summer, I had 20 laying hens and was lucky to get 20 eggs in a week, if that...
(the laying hens are mixed breeds - hatchery stock - gottne thru our feed store coming from Privett Hatchery.
Have you watched any YouTube videos of it? There are MANY different ways to process a chicken. You could also look into having a butcher process them for you (regulations are different for each state and company - costs can be prohibitive) or find someone who'd help out and be willing to trade for a bird or two in exchange for processing several at a time for you. Craigs list may work, MarketPlace on FB OR a note posted at your local feed store.
My hubby is not into being around during any type of castrations (not chickens, but other critters) or killing or processing. He is a "killer" cook, however!! So far, I've not had a problem, originally the first time with help several years ago, doing the processing.
This weekend, I may be doing several roosters. Need to reduce feeding numbers and have too many roosters (2 Blue & 2 Splash cockerels w/ 2 Blue pullets/4 Lavender cockerels w/ 3 pullets. The blue pullets are JUST starting to lay and these 6 birds were hatched on 3/12/18. The Lavs<self blues depending on which group you are going with> were hatched on 3/29 & 4/11... No eggs yet & I can't decide which of the roos I really want to keep yet...). These aren't meat birds per say. I've never dressed out a purebred Ameraucana before - have no idea what weights they will be or how much meat they will have on 'em (& unfortunately, since our move, we can't find the kitchen scale! so won't have any kind of real/accurate weights
). For now, I can tell you this - I don't pluck. Hand plucking, for me, takes too long and is very difficult for me to do. I don't have any kind of "fancy" plucker yet (that's coming in the future -when we have a larger number of birds to do all at once). I "peel" them. Quite literally. It's a little difficult in some areas, easier in others. The skin and feathers go into a feed bag that then gets dumped into our compost (this time I also dumped out the feet/legs and the heads). My videos aren't edited - but several that we did in October were taped by my daughter on our phones. The first bird I did took about 30 minutes from first cut to final rinse and putting him on ice (the ice tub carried into the house & covered with a lid - rinsed & bagged the next morning, then into the freezer). Then got a little faster with the middle ones, then the 5th one I was freezing (outside in wind and 20* temp drop) and tired and fumbling with my hands. Took almost 45 minutes to do according to video... My daughter and the grand daughters didn't help - just watched (& taped). It did take a while, all told. Since I wasn't plucking, I didn't scald them. If there was a scent, I was standing upwind and the scent picked up and blown away from me. (the 7 & 8 yr old grand daughters said they "have STANK", LOL). The innards were put into a bucket and partially split between the 5 dogs (every one got a neck & a heart - from the 12# pom to the 80# pitX). The other innards from three of the birds were tossed into the dog yard - for the 3 dogs out there to piece thru as they chose. The rest went out to an area in our back field where the CLB & RB flocks range and spread out on some gardening area(s). UM... between the two barn cats that showed up and a flock of 12 mostly grown young birds (4 roosters/8 pullets) - those innards were ALL gone in less than 1 hour! This was my first time processing birds completely by myself and only the 4th time since 2012 that we've done birds for us... Will become regular part of our "homestead life" now. I have a couple of pics of the processed birds...I've since done two of those birds in the new Instant Pot - as soup. Not a whole lot of meat - had I done them as roasters - they most certainly weren't turkeys. When I had the 3 daughters at home, it would probably have taken 3 full birds to feed the 5 of us as 1 meal (not soup or chixNdumplings). If we have a family get-together of us and the oldest w/ her hubby & 2 granddaughters - I really think we'd have to have cooked all 5 of these birds at once. The 5 birds that I did that day were 3 barnyardXs - of about 50% mixed bantam breeding and 50% Ameraucana and 2 CLB roosters. The CLBs were HUGE compared to the Bantams, but once cleaned and dressed - not that much different in size. I'm going to have to go thru pics to figure out when the bantamXs were hatched, the CLBs were supposedly 3m old when I got them in March, not sure though, meaning they would be 8m old when I processed them. I gave 2 to a neighbor who has had some financial issues and is now allowing me to house some of my birds in the coop that is on his property. He said they were wonderful - he did them in the oven as whole birds w/ potatoes and onions.
I didn't track exactly how much feed they were getting, but they got a whole lot less feed overall than my prospective breeding stock which weren't free ranging the same way. "Grazing" in our front & side yards garnered a lot of bugs & greens for them. The only reason they were free ranging out of pens is they figured out how to get out of the 4' high temp pens and they'd go do "walkies"... I did lose 1 Bantam and 1 CLB that way, but that's not too bad actually. A pic of the CLB roos in June. They weren't tagged at all - I have no idea which ones I processed in October.
As to numbers of birds? I haven't figured it out on paper - but know that I will have to feed my purebred birds (dual purpose?) for a bit longer and still won't have a carcass (at least not this first couple of generations) that is real meaty or large. For that, we'll have to raise some cornishX's, I believe. Not sure that's going to happen next year yet (I've been visiting with a couple of different people on some ideas for using the birds I have now X'd on a new breed to create my own "meat birds"). Our plan is to feed the 5 dogs and at least the 3 outdoor cats quite a bit of chicken as well as feeding ourselves. There were a couple of times Larry and I got roasted chicken 3x a week this past summer (before I had any birds ready to process) - and ate the birds' just by our selves... Each bird did make more than 1 meal, but ... The 5 just processed about the same size as the rotisserie birds from our local supermarket - not very big at all.
Me thinks we are looking at raising a lot of birds!...AS to eggs - my first chickens (mixed assortment of bantams) were given to me - then I bought some hatchery chicks thru the feed store. This past summer, I had 20 laying hens and was lucky to get 20 eggs in a week, if that...
(the laying hens are mixed breeds - hatchery stock - gottne thru our feed store coming from Privett Hatchery.
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Have had a mix of 'breeds' and 'mutts'.
Olive Eggers is my focus as of now.
Current cock is a Black Copper Marans.
3 Legbar pullets and 1 hen.
Bunch of F1 OE's and some backcrosses.
Have some old EE's, OE, and an SLW.
- Thread starter
- #34
SomeChickinTN
Songster
SomeChickinTN - don't remember where you said something about not being able to process your own birds... this post is really long.
Have you watched any YouTube videos of it? There are MANY different ways to process a chicken. You could also look into having a butcher process them for you (regulations are different for each state and company - costs can be prohibitive) or find someone who'd help out and be willing to trade for a bird or two in exchange for processing several at a time for you. Craigs list may work, MarketPlace on FB OR a note posted at your local feed store.
My hubby is not into being around during any type of castrations (not chickens, but other critters) or killing or processing. He is a "killer" cook, however!! So far, I've not had a problem, originally the first time with help several years ago, doing the processing.
This weekend, I may be doing several roosters. Need to reduce feeding numbers and have too many roosters (2 Blue & 2 Splash cockerels w/ 2 Blue pullets/4 Lavender cockerels w/ 3 pullets. The blue pullets are JUST starting to lay and these 6 birds were hatched on 3/12/18. The Lavs<self blues depending on which group you are going with> were hatched on 3/29 & 4/11... No eggs yet & I can't decide which of the roos I really want to keep yet...). These aren't meat birds per say. I've never dressed out a purebred Ameraucana before - have no idea what weights they will be or how much meat they will have on 'em (& unfortunately, since our move, we can't find the kitchen scale! so won't have any kind of real/accurate weights
I've since done two of those birds in the new Instant Pot - as soup. Not a whole lot of meat - had I done them as roasters - they most certainly weren't turkeys. When I had the 3 daughters at home, it would probably have taken 3 full birds to feed the 5 of us as 1 meal (not soup or chixNdumplings). If we have a family get-together of us and the oldest w/ her hubby & 2 granddaughters - I really think we'd have to have cooked all 5 of these birds at once. The 5 birds that I did that day were 3 barnyardXs - of about 50% mixed bantam breeding and 50% Ameraucana and 2 CLB roosters. The CLBs were HUGE compared to the Bantams, but once cleaned and dressed - not that much different in size. I'm going to have to go thru pics to figure out when the bantamXs were hatched, the CLBs were supposedly 3m old when I got them in March, not sure though, meaning they would be 8m old when I processed them. I gave 2 to a neighbor who has had some financial issues and is now allowing me to house some of my birds in the coop that is on his property. He said they were wonderful - he did them in the oven as whole birds w/ potatoes and onions.
I didn't track exactly how much feed they were getting, but they got a whole lot less feed overall than my prospective breeding stock which weren't free ranging the same way. "Grazing" in our front & side yards garnered a lot of bugs & greens for them. The only reason they were free ranging out of pens is they figured out how to get out of the 4' high temp pens and they'd go do "walkies"... I did lose 1 Bantam and 1 CLB that way, but that's not too bad actually. A pic of the CLB roos in June. They weren't tagged at all - I have no idea which ones I processed in October.
View attachment 1608792
As to numbers of birds? I haven't figured it out on paper - but know that I will have to feed my purebred birds (dual purpose?) for a bit longer and still won't have a carcass (at least not this first couple of generations) that is real meaty or large. For that, we'll have to raise some cornishX's, I believe. Not sure that's going to happen next year yet (I've been visiting with a couple of different people on some ideas for using the birds I have now X'd on a new breed to create my own "meat birds"). Our plan is to feed the 5 dogs and at least the 3 outdoor cats quite a bit of chicken as well as feeding ourselves. There were a couple of times Larry and I got roasted chicken 3x a week this past summer (before I had any birds ready to process) - and ate the birds' just by our selves... Each bird did make more than 1 meal, but ... The 5 just processed about the same size as the rotisserie birds from our local supermarket - not very big at all.
Me thinks we are looking at raising a lot of birds!...AS to eggs - my first chickens (mixed assortment of bantams) were given to me - then I bought some hatchery chicks thru the feed store. This past summer, I had 20 laying hens and was lucky to get 20 eggs in a week, if that...
I have orpingtons, and will hopefully be getting some RIR, barred rock, and black sex links soon. My father in law said the same thing about skinning them. That it's a bit easier. I've never dressed anything out, so I'm mostly worried about the ick factor of warm innards, but I've had to do other gross stuff that didn't bother me, so I should be ok.
Around here they say bantams aren't really good for meat. It sounds like they are about the size of little Cornish game hens. We have 7 in our family, and space wise, I'll probably be maxed out at 24 chickens, so I'm not sure it will be feasible to use the dual purpose chickens for a constant supply of meat. I had originally planned on keeping them for eggs, and on standby for meat.
Maybe in the future I'll get a chest freezer and raise a few Cornish cross.
It's just my husband and I but somehow we need to have a flock of 70+ to function on a system between eggs and meat. I really only eat the boys unless a pullet/hen needs culled, if I have a hen past 1 year old it's because she's pretty nice for her breed and will get sold as part of a breeding group between 2-3 years old. If they're not for the breeding pen or my utility layer group then they're sold at POL. Those sales then take a chunk out of the feed bill.
I was pretty disappointed in the small frames and poor meat quality in the hatchery grade birds of most varieties, it gets spendy when you go to a breeder, so I went ahead and spent and then started my own program once we knew we'd be eating spares. Now we're starting to see some pretty good size on boys at 16-22 weeks.
My favorite are the Bresse. Laying machines for the girls, incredible baked/fried/grilled/pulled boys. 2nd favorite are Marans, they're put together a little different, have more dark meat and thicker skin. Then I have 2 projects I'm playing with as well.
Luckily we had an old barn to turn into a coop, a 9x6 coop we brought with and just finished an 11x9 cockerel grow out coop. I maintain 4 breeding pens for chickens and 3 for Turkeys, with more brooder space than my little kid heart ever dreamed of.
Previously we were urban so I had an average flock of 12-14 without a rooster (most times...lol). We're coming into our 3rd year at this new scale and we have a system now.
I start hatching Nov/Dec. Mostly because the freezer is getting lean. We have winterized grow out space, I have 3 empty pens at the moment and all brooders are empty. Time to refill! My goal this next season is to hatch larger, quarterly batches. I'll need to hold back 18 pullets as a minimum.
Here's the kicker though. Since I'm breeding for improved birds and certain traits, meatiness included, I need to grow out at least 60 to get a large enough grouping for the 30% of a hatch that turns out really nice, leaving me with my 18 of new breeding quality pullets. Only a percentage of birds will turn out pretty close to being ideal, when all merits are considered. The other 42 of that group of 60 is what pays for the feed bill when they get sold as POL pullets.
Half of a hatch, generally, is going to be boys. So now I go from a batch of 60 to a batch of 120. Of the 60 boys, that's 1 cockerel a week plus a couple for the year in meat. If I spot a REALLY nice one, the total package, great attitude, correct for his breed, looking extra meaty... he gets a life-saving green legband as a potential breeder. On average I have about 7 "stud" roosters around.
Growing out 120 birds at once gets costly and takes up a lot of space. Last year I didn't grow out enough. We're out of Turkey already and only 5 cockerels left in the freezer. So I have 41 eggs in the incubator right now, 5 are Turkey. The first tester hatch, the first pen filler.
Once I've hatched myself to "full" I start sorting/selling. Extra breeding stock I let go of in the Spring rather than Fall, the prices are higher and I'm going to need a pallet of starter feed.
Last year we added pasture tractors to grow birds out in. That worked out really well and we'll build a couple more. 9x6 heavy duty, walk-in height, never-flat 10 inch tires troll the back field easily. Those are sitting empty now too, they're not winterized. In theory I could roll them into the barn and use them as winter pens.
With maintaining a breeding flock totaling 50 and growing out another 30-50 at any given time, our feed bill grew to close to $250/month. My husband started panicking. LOL Turkeys can really pack it away! To negate that feed bill, 17 birds a month need to go at a price of $15/ea. Turkey poults and POL pullets fit that. If you can sustain the sales during grow out, the cockerel meat at the end is free. I only had to explain that to my husband about 55 times.
If we relied on old hens for meat, we'd never have enough. Unless I phased out about 60 hens a year. Since we've given the boys a purpose other than being given away (not many takers in our area, if we weren't prepared to eat them, my hatching would have to be dramatically scaled back) we have ample meat after I've reached that 120 mark of chicks to grow out.
I don't sell day old chickens, I grow them all until gender is known. The center of our entire project is creating better breeding stock for the next generation. Hatch, grow, select, cull, repeat.
It could be done with a smaller breeding group, though I grew weary of weekly hatches from a small number of hens. I store eggs for hatching over 7 days, so I need the number of girls that can give me the eggs I need in those 7 days, without having to do it every 7 days over months. I'd like to collect over 7 days and then wait a month or 3 before setting again. I can't keep up with my co-workers that want eggs for eating, so I have an out for spare eggs. They're scrambling for more and they HATE hatch season. Haha
The age overlap will be the clincher on if we run out next year. I'll need to sustain 20 cockerels at a time in each grow out phase, from brooder to grow pen to pasture finishing.
Course I could save us all the hassle and just put 20 CornishX out into those pasture tractors every 8-10 weeks. But then I'd need a huge deep freezer and a husband willing to process that many at once, or pay out for processing. I'm fine with plucking/processing but the deed itself is my husband's thing.
I like the Heritage birds for their ability to keep on keeping on out in a field until you're ready for them 3-5 at a time. If all of our dinners were chicken based, we could go through 3 a week. To reach that though, then I'd be looking at 156 cockerels a year. Broken down quarterly, that's 39, so I'd have to set about 90 eggs to get close to that in one hatch, supposing the hatch rate was high.
Reminding ourselves at the cash register at the feed store that the pullets will pay us back. Then we sit down to chicken dinner and we're reminded that it's all worth it. Hatch, repeat.
It took me 20 years to come around to this point, now I'm a total chicken nerd. From when I was 7 years old until about 30, they were pets. My perspective on it all has changed dramatically, the deeper I got into it. I still have my favorites out of the flock though, my Bourbon Red tom turkey is my buddy.
I was pretty disappointed in the small frames and poor meat quality in the hatchery grade birds of most varieties, it gets spendy when you go to a breeder, so I went ahead and spent and then started my own program once we knew we'd be eating spares. Now we're starting to see some pretty good size on boys at 16-22 weeks.
My favorite are the Bresse. Laying machines for the girls, incredible baked/fried/grilled/pulled boys. 2nd favorite are Marans, they're put together a little different, have more dark meat and thicker skin. Then I have 2 projects I'm playing with as well.
Luckily we had an old barn to turn into a coop, a 9x6 coop we brought with and just finished an 11x9 cockerel grow out coop. I maintain 4 breeding pens for chickens and 3 for Turkeys, with more brooder space than my little kid heart ever dreamed of.
Previously we were urban so I had an average flock of 12-14 without a rooster (most times...lol). We're coming into our 3rd year at this new scale and we have a system now.
I start hatching Nov/Dec. Mostly because the freezer is getting lean. We have winterized grow out space, I have 3 empty pens at the moment and all brooders are empty. Time to refill! My goal this next season is to hatch larger, quarterly batches. I'll need to hold back 18 pullets as a minimum.
Here's the kicker though. Since I'm breeding for improved birds and certain traits, meatiness included, I need to grow out at least 60 to get a large enough grouping for the 30% of a hatch that turns out really nice, leaving me with my 18 of new breeding quality pullets. Only a percentage of birds will turn out pretty close to being ideal, when all merits are considered. The other 42 of that group of 60 is what pays for the feed bill when they get sold as POL pullets.
Half of a hatch, generally, is going to be boys. So now I go from a batch of 60 to a batch of 120. Of the 60 boys, that's 1 cockerel a week plus a couple for the year in meat. If I spot a REALLY nice one, the total package, great attitude, correct for his breed, looking extra meaty... he gets a life-saving green legband as a potential breeder. On average I have about 7 "stud" roosters around.
Growing out 120 birds at once gets costly and takes up a lot of space. Last year I didn't grow out enough. We're out of Turkey already and only 5 cockerels left in the freezer. So I have 41 eggs in the incubator right now, 5 are Turkey. The first tester hatch, the first pen filler.
Once I've hatched myself to "full" I start sorting/selling. Extra breeding stock I let go of in the Spring rather than Fall, the prices are higher and I'm going to need a pallet of starter feed.
Last year we added pasture tractors to grow birds out in. That worked out really well and we'll build a couple more. 9x6 heavy duty, walk-in height, never-flat 10 inch tires troll the back field easily. Those are sitting empty now too, they're not winterized. In theory I could roll them into the barn and use them as winter pens.
With maintaining a breeding flock totaling 50 and growing out another 30-50 at any given time, our feed bill grew to close to $250/month. My husband started panicking. LOL Turkeys can really pack it away! To negate that feed bill, 17 birds a month need to go at a price of $15/ea. Turkey poults and POL pullets fit that. If you can sustain the sales during grow out, the cockerel meat at the end is free. I only had to explain that to my husband about 55 times.
If we relied on old hens for meat, we'd never have enough. Unless I phased out about 60 hens a year. Since we've given the boys a purpose other than being given away (not many takers in our area, if we weren't prepared to eat them, my hatching would have to be dramatically scaled back) we have ample meat after I've reached that 120 mark of chicks to grow out.
I don't sell day old chickens, I grow them all until gender is known. The center of our entire project is creating better breeding stock for the next generation. Hatch, grow, select, cull, repeat.
It could be done with a smaller breeding group, though I grew weary of weekly hatches from a small number of hens. I store eggs for hatching over 7 days, so I need the number of girls that can give me the eggs I need in those 7 days, without having to do it every 7 days over months. I'd like to collect over 7 days and then wait a month or 3 before setting again. I can't keep up with my co-workers that want eggs for eating, so I have an out for spare eggs. They're scrambling for more and they HATE hatch season. Haha
The age overlap will be the clincher on if we run out next year. I'll need to sustain 20 cockerels at a time in each grow out phase, from brooder to grow pen to pasture finishing.
Course I could save us all the hassle and just put 20 CornishX out into those pasture tractors every 8-10 weeks. But then I'd need a huge deep freezer and a husband willing to process that many at once, or pay out for processing. I'm fine with plucking/processing but the deed itself is my husband's thing.
I like the Heritage birds for their ability to keep on keeping on out in a field until you're ready for them 3-5 at a time. If all of our dinners were chicken based, we could go through 3 a week. To reach that though, then I'd be looking at 156 cockerels a year. Broken down quarterly, that's 39, so I'd have to set about 90 eggs to get close to that in one hatch, supposing the hatch rate was high.
Reminding ourselves at the cash register at the feed store that the pullets will pay us back. Then we sit down to chicken dinner and we're reminded that it's all worth it. Hatch, repeat.
It took me 20 years to come around to this point, now I'm a total chicken nerd. From when I was 7 years old until about 30, they were pets. My perspective on it all has changed dramatically, the deeper I got into it. I still have my favorites out of the flock though, my Bourbon Red tom turkey is my buddy.
@mandelyn
That's an amazing system. I wish I had the space for something like that. My land is all sloped and rocky, so it's difficult to add a new coop and pen without major bulldozing.
I gather you decided the economics work better to sell the pullets, rather then eat them along with the boys. Do you just Craig's list them? Or do you have regular buyers.
That's an amazing system. I wish I had the space for something like that. My land is all sloped and rocky, so it's difficult to add a new coop and pen without major bulldozing.
I gather you decided the economics work better to sell the pullets, rather then eat them along with the boys. Do you just Craig's list them? Or do you have regular buyers.
@Morrigan
It didn't take too long to get regular pullet buyers and a list locally. We don't ship either, at least not yet. Between NPIP waiting and my job making postal runs inconvenient it's just not in the works right now. Listing locally has been working too, so no birds lost in transit. We have a lot of egg sellers locally that want the greens/blues/dark browns.
It didn't take too long to get regular pullet buyers and a list locally. We don't ship either, at least not yet. Between NPIP waiting and my job making postal runs inconvenient it's just not in the works right now. Listing locally has been working too, so no birds lost in transit. We have a lot of egg sellers locally that want the greens/blues/dark browns.
The word "CULLING" only means that you remove that birds DNA from you flock. How you accomplish that is up to you. At the most basic level you are culling a chicken every time that you scramble an egg.
In the dark ages of chickendom businessmen called egg brokers travelrd the back roads of freerange America in buggies and purchased surpluss eggs when they were plentiful (and thus cheap) then these men stored their egg stashs in water glass or else slathered them in lard. It also helped to store these egg stashes in caves or underground cold storage facilities. Then at about this time of year these 6 to 9 month old eggs hit the grocery stores just in time for Thanksgiving or Christmas time cooking. I feel that the irrational refusal to keep eggs in the fridge is an outgrowth of someone's grandmother or great grandmother breaking out an improperly stored egg (stored in a cold cave) for a holiday bowl of eggnog and Granny getting a nasty surprise.
I'm just now starting to get worked into a system in my mind. I've processed a lot of birds over the last few years - extra males, older hens, hens people give me, etc. I'm just now in a place where I can be hatching my purebred Barred Rocks, so I'm going to start rotating birds in and out. My old rooster is going in the fridge this weekend. I'm hoping to start breeding from 2-3 hens in August, and I think I'm going to basically set weekly until I have however many chicks I feel is "enough." I'm going to cull hard as young as possible for anything obvious, but I'm still going to have a bit of an issue with housing so many different aged juveniles. But, I hope to be able to get it culled down to at least 8 pullets that I'll want to breed the next year. They can join my older breeding hens, and I'll cull everything I currently have out there.
So, basically, I'm going to hatch every year and keep only the very best, and the rest will go in the freezer. My goal is to get to where my hatches are consistently of good quality and where I have at least a dozen laying hens that I can consider good breeders.
So, basically, I'm going to hatch every year and keep only the very best, and the rest will go in the freezer. My goal is to get to where my hatches are consistently of good quality and where I have at least a dozen laying hens that I can consider good breeders.
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