Cost to finish meat birds

[halo]

Quote:
No, I'm not the one making the dubious claims. However, if you put your claims of a much higher energy content on a label I bet you could be sued for false advertising. I see this is pointless because you are basing your assertions on how you feel, and would reject any scientific report on suspicious grounds.

I raise meat ducks, and the difference between my ducks and ones from a commercial farm is that my ducks are allowed to graze in a pasture. At best this imparts a different flavor and perhaps a slightly healthier meat.

You say:

I see this is pointless because you are basing your assertions on how you feel, and would reject any scientific report on suspicious grounds.

That is insanely funny.

 

[Bossroo]

Genetically a chicken is a chicken is a chicken. However there is a slight varieation in the genes between breeds and even between individuals. Some may be mean and lean while others are fat and lazy. A commercially grown chicken consumes a scientifically formulated feed that contains all of the nutrients that it needs for the most effeicient and maximum growth in the shortest possible time. While one raised on free range conditions gets it's nutrition needs in what it may consume from it's environment. It will extract only the nutrients it needs for bodily growth and bodily functions and any excess is stored in fat or eliminated. It also may get it's distintive flavors from it's diet in it's fat. If one consumes a more flavorful chicken , chances are that it is older and has a higher fat content and will deliver some more ( but hardly five times more) calories. However a higher fat content also has a negative effect by causing plack build up in one's arteries leading to heart attacks. When I consume a sumptuous roasted chicken dinner with mounds of mashed potatoes and lots of gravy,( think total calories) I feel satisfied for hours. But eating a similarly prepared and similar portion chicken serving but with rice without gravy and some lettuce on the side,( think points from weight watchers. No that doesn't work for me.) I am hungry within an hour.

 

[Happy Chooks]

Quote:
So, you're saying that there are more calories in a home grown chicken than one purchased from a supermarket?

Five times, huh? I'm sorry, but I find your comments hard to believe. Could you please provide some supporting documentation to substantiate your claims?

I'm not saying that there are 5 times more calories....I'm saying that I (Me personally) only have to eat 1/5th as much chicken when I eat my homegrown chicken for the same "feeling of nourishment" compared to supermarket chicken. This is entirely anecdotal. For me the proof was in the pudding. In taking the next mental leap, I can only explain this phenomenon by postulating that there is more of what my body needs in homegrown chicken versus supermarket chicken. What else could I think??? What would you think if you experienced the same? As you can see from some other posts here, I'm not the only one who has experienced similar personal findings.

In my most humble opinion, a great deal of our poor decision making as a society stems from an insatiable desire to assign a number to everything. Everything has to be measured and more is always better. When something isn't measured or can't be measured, it has a default value of zero. People have been conditioned to read packaging and look for lowest fat, or highest protein, etc. Quit believing everything you read and start letting your body tell you what it needs.

For most of human existence, people lived by trusting what their bodies were telling them. It's only recently that we've started trusting labels more than our bodies. I'm not saying that there isn't a place for scientific study and measurements. I'm just saying that we've forsaken a natural communication with our bodies because of what a label or report says. In many times we've gone against what our body is telling us.

So you are free to go find any supporting or contradictory study on this matter that you want. You may even provide links here in this thread or PM me with it. I'd be interested to read it, but at the end of the day, I'll trust my body over a report/study, especially when a report is trying to tell me that there is "no statistically significant difference" between my homegrown chicken and supermarket chicken. To that, my body screams that it's a lie of epic proportions.

Respectfully,
Dan

I'm not arguing with you here Dan, but I'm curious. I should add that I have NOT raised meat chickens yet. Contemplating it.


I'm sure the meat is more satisfying. (dense, higher protein, whatever the reason) But are you sure you don't eat as much because you had to take that animals life? More respectful of the fact the animal had to die vs. buying it from the store and being disconnected from the food we eat.

Just curious. Again, I'm not trying to be rude, just trying to learn.

 

[kingmt]

Quote:
OK. A chicken is a chicken. I won't argue with that but it sounds as your saying that every thing the body doesn't need it gets rid of. I agree that the body tries to get rid of things it doesn't need but it can't always get rid of it or the short life of this bird doesn't have time to get it out of its body. I know three men that work for a company called Monsanta (the spelling probably isn't correct) which was a chemical plant that made a chemical to make chickens grow faster. The inside joke was they called it chicken acid. It was made for KFC until the federal government stopped it. If it would have just passed through the body without contaminating the meat then nothing would have ever been said. I have never heard of a short cut with nature that doesn't end bad. We are smart enough to pull nitrogen from the air but to dumb to quit dumping so much of it on the ground that it is killing the native plants of our streams. I enjoy the easy way but what is so wrong with the way God made it. If you try it the way God designed it then it my be easier then the commercial way. The commercial way is just to move it as fast as you can without spending anymore then you have to on it & then blaming someone else when it went wrong.

I like to let mine run & eat all the good food growing on my property that I'm already paying for & not buy anymore then I fell is needed.

 

[wombat]

The only way you're going to get more calories per pound is with more fat per pound, and that's not generally good past enough to provide moisture and flavor. You won't get 5x as many calories even if you drench it in oil.

 

[kingmt]

Quote:
Not true. As you see on the labels at the store they say water added. I don't think this water has any calories but it does have weight. I don't know about 5 times the calories but Dan said he ate 5 half breast from the store & 1 from his home grown chicken. Now the one he grow out my have been bigger also, without the water added the raw weight of the meat would be heaver but not as much nutrition or substance, & maybe he just didn't need as much to eat that day. Who knows but so far all of these arguments have been brought up wit false facts. He just offered his opinion why must he prove his opinion.

If you want to see the same thing he does then try asking him how he raises his birds or how they are cooked so you can experiment & find out yourself.

I'm not saying there is fact to what he is saying but I fell the same way he does when I go to a buffet. I eat until I get full but as soon as I get home I run straight to the bathroom then I'm hungry again.

 

[Winsor Woods]

Hey guys and gals,

Interesting thread this turned into

New2chooks:
I hadn't thought of that but tend to think that is not the case. Sure I feel for the chicken when I process them, but Its usually several days later that I'd first have the opportunity to eat that one. I'm usually well over any feelings I had for the chicken by then. I'll definitely keep it in mind though and it's a really interesting thought. I do know that I mentally keep a running tally in my head of how many chickens we've got and how many we've eaten. There may be some sort of self imposed limitation with the rationing and wanting the chickens to last for the year, but I'm still not sure how much that has to do with it. The end result of all of this is that I don't feel hungry for quite a while after I have my own chicken, yet I hunger faster with supermarket chicken.

Is it possible that your body's hunger mechanism will tell you to keep eating if it's missing a small amount of trace minerals etc? I just don't know... I do know that I eat much less of my own chicken versus store bought and I don't have (nor necessarily want) the "proper" scientific knowledge/techniques to explain that. I have a general understanding of systems and cause/effect relationships. I've been through college level chemistry, biology, and physics years ago. I have the ability to think things through yet I don't have any specific formulas in front of me where I could plug and chug my way to an answer that would satisfy the science types. I do know that regardless of whether or not I was able to plug and chug with formulas, it wouldn't change the experience I have with my chickens versus store bought chickens.

Wombat:

If you refer to one of my earlier posts, I'm not saying my chickens have 5 times the calories. I'm saying my body is telling my brain that I only need to eat 1/5th as much chicken as compared to store bought chicken, everything else being equal. I'm at a loss to explain this phenomenon to the satisfaction of science types. How would you explain what I experience? It certainly appears as though I'm not the only one who's experienced this as well.

Kingmt:
I didn't know that about the water. Water is pretty heavy at roughly 8 lbs/gallon. I'm not sure how they get the water into the chicken but I'm not surprised they found a way. It's just like cutting cocaine or heroine to make it less pure. You get more weight, still sell per unit volume of weight and make more money. I could easily see this as explaining part of what I am experiencing.

Dan

 

[VA from WV]

My cost for the Cornish x Rocks I got in August is just breaking $5 per bird. With local slaughter and packaging, it will be a bit over $8 per bird. Perdue, for the small stuff, is starting at $11 and the average is $13-14.

I think that once my freezer is filled, I am going to ask $3-3.50 a pound for anything that doesn't easily fit. I might make back 70-75% of my food outlay on the project.

(Basically, we did this to control our food supply and if we come in under the price we'd pay for whole or half chickens in the store, we win. Anything that will feed us starts at $8, though we tend to get 2 or 3 meals out of a whole chicken by the time you get to the soup.)

What I need is a feed supplier in NoVA/WV/PA/MD who will cut a price break on quantities over 500 pounds and a local processor who can do the birds for less than $3 each. And then my costs start to drop and I really will make the money back.

 

[kingmt]

I buy my feed wholesale but it doesn't mater if you buy 5# or 5 ton it is the same price. I did get laughed at when I bought 5 # of ouster shell to get me through. I pay about $14 a hundred depending on the market that day. Out of all of my receipts I don't think one has the exact same price. You could do them your self & save on cost. I don't know where you live but this is probably to far to drive for you.

 

[becky3086]

Well, I read the thread all the way through and I don't think it is that hard to believe at all that the chicken Dan raises to eat would tend to make him need less of it. I haven't raised cornish x and never really thought about this when eating my other chickens but I think it is just common sense that a chicken loaded with water would make you have to eat more of it than one that wasn't. Also that a chicken raised in a healthier environment would be more nutritious than one that wasn't. I don't need to hear any scientific evidence from him. I am glad he told us and I will be seeing myself if this is true next year.