Crazy Question on Maximum, Chickens Per Freezer Capacity

[Brunty_Farms]

If you freeze them.... cold sleep.... how do you expect to use them as breeding stock?

I had a layer once get left outside one winter.... I found her frozen solid.... when it warmed up.... she didn't wake up....

I'm a bit lost. Do you want the chickens to fit comfortably in the freezer? If so your looking at 45 birds? That's my guess.

 

[3KillerBs]

This is info for a science fiction novel I'm writing for the National Novel Writing Month: www.nanowrimo.org There's a lot more on that in the thread I linked in my first post.

I am assuming that science will, at some point, develop so that cold sleep is practical for both humans and livestock.

If you can get 45 butchered, whole chickens into a 14-16 cuft freezer than I can use that number to figure out how many live ones I can get into a cold sleep unit.

Hmmm,

30 sounds good -- 25 hens and 5 roosters of the same breed would make one, good, farm-starter flock per unit. The higher-then-normal rooster to hen ratio for good genetic diversity.

Hmmm,

Maybe I should pack different breeds in the same freezers -- one rooster and 5 hens each -- so that losing a unit or a bank of units doesn't mean losing the entire breed?

 

[seramas]

We use one 5 Cu Ft freezer (holds 720# of cut up chicken), and four 7.5 Cu Ft freezers (1050# cut up chicken). Using several freezers so as they empty they can be cleaned and shut off to save energy. Plus full freezers keep better in power failures (we have 4-5 per year).

I know you wanted whole bird numbers-that would depend on the size of each bird. Some of our's are 17# dressed and would probably only fit 16 in 5 Cu Ft--four to a layer and 4 layers deep.

For genetic diversity you will need 7 Roosters and 49 hens-that is the smallest genetically sustainable population. Any less would lead to development of fatal genes and sterility of future generations provided that the selected stock is currently free of such anomalies.

 

[3KillerBs]

Quote:
You might enjoy the other thread if you haven't already contributed. Its an interesting theoretical exercise.