Cornish cross chicks arriving next week

[wolfwalker]

There are 25 Cornish broilers in the brooder, I or should I say in the next brooder over, decided to hop the wall and join the Cornish. Its funny to see the FBCM chicks huddling on top of the Cornish, sitting there looking around and I can imagine them strutting about, "I'm on top of the world".

So 30 chicks in the brooder right now and so far today they have gone through 6 pounds of feed and since the other chicks joined them and showed them how to scratch at the feed, are spilling it all over.

They did so last night too and I pulled the feed an hour early. This morning there was no feed around, they ended up cleaning it up. I can't wait to get them up to the farm and put in the pen in the greenhouse so they have more room. I picked up one at random and placed them on the scale, 7.9 ounces. I do think I'll see half a pound from the tagged ones on Tuesday, if not more.

 

[mahan4428]

Are you giving electrolytes and probiotics? If so, how often? This is our first year for broilers. Our daughter will be showing in January.

 

[wolfwalker]

Are you giving electrolytes and probiotics? If so, how often? This is our first year for broilers. Our daughter will be showing in January.

I did for the first 7 days of life, or 5 days that I had them. Today they are 2 weeks from hatch and I will give them another does in water overnight. they seem to be drinking 1/2 a gallon right now so I will mix up a dose shortly. I've decided to do extra vitamin and probiotics on a weekly schedule.

 

[wolfwalker]

And today was weight day.

According to the Broiler standard chart, which also has them on free feed 24/7 they should weigh between 13 and 16 ounces depending on sex. I'm close to 13 and they have had a cumulative feed of 24.2 ounces. I have to also add in that they are wasting a lot of feed. and for one full day, when I tried to change to a low waste feeder they refused to eat. So the goal is to change the feeders this week to try to cut down on wasted feed. I also pulled the biggest chick from the brooder and weighed them, 15.2 ounces, but he is not part of the charting as I have marked the birds and weighing each week the same ones.

 

[wolfwalker]

They have outgrown the 6X8 brooder by 21 days old. Remarkable, considering I normally leave my standard breed chicks in there until 8 weeks old. they will be moving to the greenhouse on Thursday. They also have a feed conversion of 1.7 to 1 so far and are very darn close to be on track with the broiler chart for the big producers.

 

[wolfwalker]

Day 28. Moved all the cornish up to the greenhouse last Friday. And let me tell you, trying to carry and load into the back of the jeep at 04:30, 25 2 lb birds was a chore and a half. then trying to get them down teh hill into the greenhouse in the dark was an experience.
I am filling the feeder once a day and when it runs out, well they are out until the next morning when I get back up to the farm since I can not be up there at dark to remove feed for the night. Though from trail cam footage that I have been looking at, it seems when it gets dark they curl up together for the night and sleep, so if this weeks cam footage shows teh same I will no longer estimate the feed needed for a day and just fill the troughs full.

I am continuing the Vitamin mineral supplement in water, (Nutri-drench) on each Tuesday and I see no signs of any weakness or problems with being active. The little buggers like to jump around and play tag, at least that is what it looks like as the trail cam activates from their antics.

I'm guesstimating a 2:1 feed conversion so far

 

[wolfwalker]

I remembered to take some pictures today while up at the farm. For reference that half cinder block is 8 inches tall. And you can barely see it. So forget I mentioned it.

 

[wolfwalker]

Another week has past and the little soccer balls on legs have eaten a total of 80 pounds of feed this past week. I went out and bought a hanging scale to double check weights as I was tempted to start looking for someone sneaking in and stealing feed out of teh can. But they have come close to doubling their weight this week.
And I have had to resort to placing them inside a 2.5 gallon bucket to be able to weight them. And it is a tight fit girth wise.

 

[wolfwalker]

I should add, that they have access to an indoor pen of 90 square feet, an outside pen of 20 by 40 that they walk around in a bit before plopping down to watch the world. And since they were eating so much I added 1.5 ounces of nutri-drench to a 4 gallon water reservoir on last Wednesday and have kept topping it up every day and diluting the mixture each day so there is always some nutri-drench in the water

 

[wolfwalker]

Another week and the basketballs on legs were not happy that it (A was raining and they were stuck inside (B it was weigh day and once again were squashed into a 2.5 gallon bucket to be weighed.

So i switched things up a bit, everything is now in pounds, that way I don't have to convert it to ridiculous numbers.

I am also keeping Nutri-drench in the water 6 out of 7 days. I think it is helping as they once again nearly doubled in weight.

I was originally planning on a 8 or 9 weeks harvest, if I wait that long, half of them will be near enough 10 pounds it doesn't matter and the rest people will look at them and say turkey.

So far I am very pleased with this strain of Cornish broiler from Welp hatchery. I have gone through just about 280 pounds of 22% feed so far or $126 in feed cost. Add to that the cost of chicks, which included shipping, of 48.50, so assuming a 70 percent return on carcass, that is $1.40 a pound. The real total cost per pound will be in two weeks when I start to process them and have real totals to work with.