Dual purpose bird or straight meat bird?

[Tracydr]

I'm still trying to find a mill in Arizona. I've never lived in a state before where I couldn't find a local grain mill. The only thing I can find is a bunch of little feed stores that all sell the same Purina Flock Raiser and Layena. It's very frustrating, as I'm sure others have experienced, to not be able to find real broiler feed, when we know the birds would do better, if better nutrition could simply be provided.
This has turned into a very interesting discussion, thanks everyone, for providing such experienced input.

 

[punky rooster]

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I know Jim Adkins knows his poultry, there for may be they best choice.

 

[AlbionWood]

The information about lighting schedule is interesting to me, and I'd like to hear more from Neil about that - what do you consider optimal?

We put CX chicks under broody hens and let them raise them, and never used any lighting at all. We get about 15 hours of daylight here in summer, lots of fog and very cool temps. The birds put themselves in the pen every evening and let themselves out every morning, and the hens made them move around the yard some. We still got exactly the same size carcasses Homesteadapps mentions - 5 to 6+ pounds dressed - in 8 weeks, with no losses (but we only had 18). So it seems to me the extra expense and trouble of artificial lighting isn't justified.

 

[GhostRider65]

OK People the verdict is in........
We butchered 4 of our extra roosters today even though I was thinking they would be just skin and bones, I was quite surprised, my 2 White Devils Wrocks weighed out dressed at almost 7 lbs. the GLW roo was 6 #, and the Buff Orpington, was 5#. I knew he would be thinner because all he ever did was run away from the food/water because one of the WD's was chasing him, his crop was empty even though I gave them a last meal this morning at 7 am, and we butchered at 10. so they did not let him eat again this morning. ggrrrrrrrrrr nasty WR'sd will never order them on purpose for sure even though they made the best dressed carcass, their just too mean. Beautiful birds, but mean to the other chickens.
So to say the least I was pleasantly surprised on how much they actually weighed. We have 5 more to butcher yet which should have been done today, but my DIL showed up early with my grandson, so we couldn't finish. I think he's too little yet at just over 3 years to see home butchering done, I was afraid it would freak him out he really loves them chickens. First thing he wanted to do was go see the girls and the babies and roosters outside so he could feed them greens.
Do any of you let the children watch you butchering, I know a lot of people do but I suspect the kids are older maybe 10 or 12 ????
So now I still have a rooster dilemma with the 5 that are left out of this batch who need to go. I moved them all into the extra horse stall, but they immediately started fighting and 1 flew up on top the stall frame and hasn't come down, guess he feels safer up there, but tomorrow he will see he can very easily get down and escape, the stall isn't chicken wired at the top like the coop stall. So tomorrow I need to figure out an arrangement for these 4 until I can get them in the freezer.
Now 1 more question, The ones we did today are all cleaned and sitting in my fridge in a plastic bag, I read to keep them refrigerated at least 24 hours for tenderizing, is that correct? if I leave them in there until tomorrow night can I cut em up and freeze them?
Now another problem we had today, in killing them, not sure what we did wrong, but we used the insert knife into brain twist method which is suppose to be the quickest kill, but it did not kill them instantly like stated, what did we do wrong? did we miss the brain? or was it just nerves still moving them making there wings flap? The sight I got the info from stated they die instantly, and no flapping, and feathers pull out easier??? here's the sight for anyone else's reference.
http://www.rogueturtle.com/articles/chicken.php

 

[Jared77]

How old were those birds you listed that dressed out near 7lbs?

 

[GhostRider65]

20weeks

 

[galanie]

Supposedly the knife in the brain is hard to perfect. I know little about it but did want to speak about kids and flapping dying chickens.

Speaking from the experience of watching my dad dispatch some, as long as you don't just let them flop all over the yard the kids shouldn't be overly traumatized at the flapping. My dad did that, then covered them with a washtub when he saw how horrified I was, but by then I'd been grossed out already. They were already dead at the time though since he cut their heads off and it was nerves firing off like they all do when killed most ways.

 

[Jared77]

Who did you get them from? Those are impressive sizes for 20 weeks.

 

[cukooformarans]

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My thoughts, exactly! And by the way, what is a white devils wrock?

 

[GhostRider65]

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Purely poultry, who gets there chicks from Cackle,
but my chickens were fed really well since birth , they were quite spoiled to tell the truth,
everyday they got scrabbled eggs for breakfast from day 1, plus the best feed I could afford to buy, which was Naturewise by Nutrena and organic corn, mixed with wild bird for scratch since they were 3 weeks old. All the cottage cheese and yogurt they could eat I made it myself from fresh goats milk, I also planted alot of natural organic early greens and things for them to eat, like Kale, lettace, parsley, cilantro, swiss chard, all my left over veggi's from last years garden which was the beets, squash pumpkins, and summer squash that kept great in my basement until May. I bought them vitamins which they got everyday until 12 weeks, ACV and natural worm preventatives, lots of bugs in there run, we had a bumper crop of June bugs this year, plus mosquitoes and ticks and night crawlers.
So by normal means they were actually twice the size of my neighbors chicks the same age. This is Fred look how huge he is at 18 weeks he's a White Wyandotte, and his sister my only WW hen.

So unless you plan to work your butt off for your chickens, it's unlikely they will get quite that large.