Does it cost more to raise a standard breed for meat?

[Chicken411]

If a "normal" chicken takes 16-24 weeks? to become butcher ready, do they cost more to feed to that weight or do cornish cross eat so much more there is no difference?

Just curious.

 

[Illia]

I think it would depend on how you're raising your Cornish X versus your normal breed of chicken - If you raised the Cornish X more on a stricter type diet versus a normal chicken with only a run and some feed, then I would think you're not saving much. But if your normal breed is free ranged, thus you hardly have to pay any feed for it, you're gonna save money, even if you wait longer.

 

[tammyd57]

AND you'll have better tasting birds!

 

[silkiechicken]

Pound for pound, if you have to pay per chick, even with free ranging with plans to butcher at 14-16 weeks old for the standards, unless you have lots of grains and food for free ranging chicks, they would probably cost more in the long run. Per pound of food eaten, you get the most pounds of meat in the optimized genetics of the cornish x hybrid.

Hatch your own chicks though, have enough free range space that is fertile and productive, then regular meat pound for pound may be better, but if you are not accustomed to standard types for meat, you may be disappointed by the "lack" of meat on the bones.

No matter how you cut it though, they will all be much more expensive than birds from meat factories. However, the quality will be surpurb.

 

[Chicken411]

Thanks for the replies. I bought a couple of processed standard birds from a local farmer and did not enjoy the flavor at all. I tried roasting one and putting the other in chicken noodle soup. I guess I just don't have a "taste" for standard birds (the breast was okay), so I decided to raise my own cornish cross. I thought it would be cheaper than paying $20 per organic bird in the store. Even if it isn't, at least I know how the bird lived, was treated, and died.

To be fair, I have no idea what type of standard chicken I ate. They had a bunch all mixed together and couldn't tell me what they were selling me, so maybe I would like another type better. Or maybe they did something wrong in the processing of the bird, like not letting it age in the fridge? Does that affect flavor and texture? I don't know. I know I had dinner at a friend's house the other day and she served me some store bought chicken in rice and I could barely get it down. So bland and soft texture, almost slimy? Never noticed it before, but thought it was awful. Didn't tell her that though

I just tried to eat mostly rice.

 

[Buster52]

Quote:
Yes.

But if cost was all that mattered, you would be better off buying your chicken from Walmart.

 

[Brunty_Farms]

The ones you bought from your farmer friend sounds to be extra roosters. If they were all running around and he couldn't tell what was what.... I would assume they were mutt roosters. These are the birds that have the rich flavor from their age. However cooking can be tricky if your not used to preparing Dual Purpose chickens (what everyone ate years ago).

Now the cornish cross you just bought are the standard meat birds in the industry. So.... from what I'm reading.... sounds like your going to like them. They are not
the typical mush that you hear about in the stores. If they have any kind of room to range, the meat will have more bite than a normal one from a store.

Keep in mind.... each chicken shines best in it's own dishes. I will let Jen elaborate on that..... she seems on top of the cooking and can better explain it!

 

[Buster52]

Quote:
Maybe your farmer friend sold you some old wore out chickens. If that was the case they should have been cooked differently. Plus chickens raised on pasture are better than those raised in confinement.

 

[petrelline]

Cost-wise it absolutely costs more to raise a DP chicken.

In my experience it takes 500lbs of feed to raise 25 cornish cross or 25 DP chickens to slaughter weight. For CX that's 8-10 weeks. For DP birds its 12-18 weeks. The CX eat the feed faster, but its the same amount of feed. (to be fair I have only personally raised DP birds but I've heard here and elsewhere that 500lbs/25 chickens is a good rule of thumb for the CX as well. This is also aside from free-ranging, which will of course cut down your feed, but not by enormous amounts)

BUT the big difference is that at slaughter weight the CX will be 6-8lbs+. The DP birds will only be 3-4lbs.

If you're trying to maximize the amount of meat you get per pound of feed you put in, there is no question that CX are the better value. This is FCR, Feed Conversion Ratio. Nothing beats a cornish cross.

There are of course different reasons to raise a DP bird -- I prefer the taste and texture of the older chickens, and I prefer a non-hybrid, sustainable heritage bird. The DP birds will also have more dark meat than light and I'm OK with that (I prefer it, actually). But from a pure cost standpoint the CX is undeniably far cheaper.

 

[silkiechicken]

Quote:
If you are figuring 500lbs for 25 cornishx, that would make the cornish x even cheaper. I can do 4 cornish x per 50lb bag of feed for 8-10 weeks, which means 500 lbs would be enough to raise 40cornish x. If a conservative final weight was 5 lbs each dressed, that would be 200lbs of meat, giving a fcr something like 2.5lbs of food per lb of meat, which I think is about right for cornish x.