Chronicles of Raising Meat Birds - Modern Broilers, Heritage and Hybrids

[jolenesdad]

“A producer has to fill out a very simple form, one page, two sides, and submit some supporting information.”

That may be a one-sentence affidavit declaring something like, “I take good care of my animals,”

How frustrating that an entire system is setup to take advantage of consumers who are trying not to be taken advantage of.

 

[aart]

How frustrating that an entire system is setup to take advantage of consumers who are trying not to be taken advantage of.

Oh, it's the way of the world...and humankind.
Was it Barnum who said... "there's a sucker born every minute"?

 

[jolenesdad]

Oh, it's the way of the world...and humankind.
Was it Barnum who said... "there's a sucker born every minute"?

 

[jolenesdad]

Re-thought the Delaware hatchery stock and instead ordered a set of Red Ranger Color Yield to try them with the cornish.

 

[RUNuts]

Re-thought the Delaware hatchery stock and instead ordered a set of Red Ranger Color Yield to try them with the cornish.

Interested in your reasoning & conclusions. Why Red Rangers?

Based on reading (a lot) and wandering around the internet, if you find a good starter stock local, may save you time if the goal of the breeder is the same as yours. Saves you time. Depending on the breeder, show stock can serve your purpose. Just thoughts. There are many paths to get to your destination.

 

[jolenesdad]

Mostly just time.

I need to do the cornish now after losing the meat. I don't want to be dealing with them in August/September, so they need to be here, like yesterday. If I had a few more weeks, I would start with something else, then add the cornish. This will just work with my timeline. Im not processing on my own, so I really don't want to be "left" with a few delaware cockerels that are too small at 12 weeks. Also, I don't want to have to keep just 4 separate if they get pushed around too much.

9 weeks Ill do the cornish that need it and any FR making me worry. This color yield cross is supposed to be bigger faster, so who knows.

12 weeks Ill do any cornish I held back, all the Freedom Rangers and the 5 or so Marans I have, which will be 15 weeks. I'll have processed both sets by the first week of August and won't have huge meat birds sitting under cooling fans.

Theres a heritage breeder of Delaware in TX that i'll get eggs from in July, and the Bielefelders, too. Supposedly they get to 6 pounds in 12-14 weeks. They can brood in the hot August, and I'll process them in the fall.

By the end of the year, I'll have tasted Cornish, Freedom Rangers, Delaware, Marans, Bielefelder and Orpington!

 

[jolenesdad]

Switched my plans around. I have my slow growers coming Thursday, and a few Cornish in three weeks. This way I can process everything together (big price break at 50) and also have some comparison of Cornish and these other broilers.

I switched it up AGAIN and ordered Robust White and Royal Red broilers from Moyers. I follow a farm on FB that has switched over exclusively to these RW broilers and their customers are loving it. Moyers said taking the RW to 12 weeks should get as big as a Cornish roaster and have no health issues doing it. We will see.

We made a new brooder that I’ll just be using for a couple of days indoors before they’ll go into the meat bird pen I used last time for a week. By then we will have the new 200sf meat bird pen done! I’m just building a cage inside half of the 20x20 horse stall I used last time. It’s fully shaded and protected from rain and opens up into two separate 1/4 acre fenced fields.

I’m mostly interested this go round in their behaviors while growing, taste and carcass size. Hoping for less genetic issues than the Cornish had last time (4 out of thirty had some sort of issue, a neck on sideways or legs that were turned.)

Running them all together so I won’t track the individual breed feed totals this time but will track weight and overall feed for all the birds and post weekly with results and comments. All birds will get 20% starter free choice, with dark nights from the beginning.

They’ll have 1/2 sf per bird for 2/3 days, 1sf for a week, then 4 sf per bird until 3-4 weeks when they’ll start going out and returning to 4sf for night.

These birds will get weighed at the processor, so even if I spoil the meat, I’ll get final numbers. (Kidding....)

 

[aart]

I switched it up AGAIN and ordered Robust White and Royal Red broilers from Moyers.

Will just wait until they finally arrive

 

[123RedBeard]

Do you have a freezer for all of them at once?

 

[jolenesdad]

Do you have a freezer for all of them at once?

Sadly yes. I have a brand new, empty, 20 cubic foot upright freezer (with lock!) that was supposed to be for my last batch.


And they’re in the mail now @aart. So maybe I’m safe from changes?

On a side note I’m glad you’re here. You’re a pretty big inspiration for me to get to this point. I often ponder your anti-anthropomorphizing comments made on posts, and now here I am. I still have a few relationships with some of my layers you can laugh at, but this is progress.

Anyway, I appreciate the subtle ways following your posts have brought me to this point.