Dying - first time meat birds

[prinellie]

First time meat birds. This has been a horrible experience. One can't get up so we are hand feeding and watering (and it's not even very big). Now today one died. It was fine this morning. They are 9 weeks Monday. I have no idea what it died of. Don't know whether it's safe to eat?? They are scheduled for the butcher Friday.... will he know if they are healthy??

 

[slingshotandLAR]

Normal unfortunately....

We butcher ours 7 weeks at the latest, at 9 weeks your in the territory of all kinds of breed specific health problems.

They can have all sorts of problems the bigger they get including heart attacks. I would not eat ANY animal that I did not kill, period.

Cull the one that can't walk, odds are it won't make it another week anyway. I can tell you from experience it's not worth dealing with it. I even cull the small birds before they go into the tractors. There always seem to be one or two that don't grow like the rest, then they seem to die the day before we process.

Your birds are old in terms of when they should be butchered, so that alone will bring more complications, maybe you can give some more detail of the issues you've had.

We may be able to help

 

[eviemethugh]

So 2 are a problem out of how many??
No, you never eat a dead bird, you don't know why it died.
Let's say you still have 8 good birds, I think you are doing great for a first time! Some birds don't have the genetics to be as big as the others. And it's crazy when you butcher the Roos yourself. The realllly big boys, have more than 2 testes and or huge ones. The smaller ones sometime only have one, and they are small! It's just the way the world turns.
Raising meat birds doesn't have to be horrible. Putting the birds in a moveable tractor pen makes it easier, making sure they have enough space and food, access to dust bath and grit if needed. They can truly be quite pleasant. I love mine as much as I love our egg layers and pet chickens.

Just because one died doesn't mean your flock is unhealthy unless there is more to this story.

 

[prinellie]

I had 23. I didn't mean I would eat the dead one... I'm having trouble deciding if I even want to eat the ones still alive. I'm not used to having chickens like the x-rock cross (I think that's what they are called). It seems 'sick' to raise a chicken like that. Next time I will just get a heritage chicken and feed them normally. Anyway, I am not going to be able to butcher them myself. We live in Amish country so there is an Amish man who has a butcher shop - he is doing it. I just wondered if there is anything he should look for (that is if we can get them to next Friday!!). There are soooo many different opinions out there - we asked around and some people said 12 weeks and someone said 10 so we went with the 10. Obviously it should have been sooner. This has become a nightmare. I am feeding non-gmo no soy and the feed is terribly expensive... I don't even want to admit how much we have in these chickens... I tried to get them to go outside when they were about 3 weeks and they would just come right back in. I thought to supplement them to free range... but no go. They have had diarrhea ever since the first week. I thought cocci so I treated them, then gave probiotics - nope - nothing worked. But they are all having trouble walking. My husband is calling the butcher shop tomorrow to see if he will do it sooner. Let me know if there is anything else to look for or know. Thanks for your help so far - I really appreciate the feedback.

 

[meowsandy]

I had 23. I didn't mean I would eat the dead one... I'm having trouble deciding if I even want to eat the ones still alive. I'm not used to having chickens like the x-rock cross (I think that's what they are called). It seems 'sick' to raise a chicken like that. Next time I will just get a heritage chicken and feed them normally. Anyway, I am not going to be able to butcher them myself. We live in Amish country so there is an Amish man who has a butcher shop - he is doing it. I just wondered if there is anything he should look for (that is if we can get them to next Friday!!). There are soooo many different opinions out there - we asked around and some people said 12 weeks and someone said 10 so we went with the 10. Obviously it should have been sooner. This has become a nightmare. I am feeding non-gmo no soy and the feed is terribly expensive... I don't even want to admit how much we have in these chickens... I tried to get them to go outside when they were about 3 weeks and they would just come right back in. I thought to supplement them to free range... but no go. They have had diarrhea ever since the first week. I thought cocci so I treated them, then gave probiotics - nope - nothing worked. But they are all having trouble walking. My husband is calling the butcher shop tomorrow to see if he will do it sooner. Let me know if there is anything else to look for or know. Thanks for your help so far - I really appreciate the feedback.

This basically described our first experience raising cornish cross. It was a terrible experience and we spent about $40 a bird, for birds that dressed out at about 4 lbs. But I gave it another shot. I read a bunch of posts on here, and asked a bunch of questions. It's gotten better and better and our last batch was fantastic. We averaged $1.80 a lb for free range, organic chicken. A few things that we did wrong the first time were as followes, and how we changed it. You may or may not have these issues, I'm just sharing what we did in case it can help anyone.

1. First time we raised 10 birds in an 8x8 tractor. It was heavy and hard to move, so it's didnt' get moved every day. We trashed that one and went with this set up:

The house is one wheels and easy to move, so it gets moved twice a day. It also serves as a pig shelter it the winter when we aren't using it for broilers. The electronet is moved weekly, and takes me about 30 minutes to do by myself. These birds got so much more excercise than the first batch. We keet them in the house from 2.5 - 4 weeks, to keep them safe from hawks. After that we just locked them up at night.

2. The first batch we raised was only fed twice a day. I have since added a meal of fermented organic scratch at noon. I'm guessing that the probiotics helped keep them healthy.

3. The first batch used a standard trough waterer. And even though we cleaned it out twice a day it was always nasty and full of poop. We now use a drip water, and always add one tablespoon of Bragg ACV.

4. The first batch got coccidiosis and it took me a while to figure out what it was, and then get the correct meds. Now I keep Corrid on hand and treat at the first sign. Corrid is my preferred coccidiastat as it is effective against all cocci that chickens get.

5. We added Brewers Yeast to help with joint issues.

6. Butcher at 8-9 weeks. Any later and you will have birds outgrow their heart capacity.

I've raised the red rangers and heritage breed roosters and while I do think that you can get a decent table bird that way, Cornish Cross are still the most efficient way to raise chicken, at least for my family.

 

[prinellie]

Oh wow! That helps a lot! Thanks so much. My husband and I were at wits-end thinking this was something that was over our heads. We love animals and this just seemed cruel. We never kept a light on at night (I heard that u were supposed to do that) and we only fed twice a day also. I have done the ACV but they still have loose poops. We will get them to the butcher asap and if we try it again, next time we will get them outside and try fewer chickens also. At least I am not so worried about disease now. Yes - these chickens will be at about 45-50 dollars per bird and I have no idea how much they will weigh. They are all females. Thanks again for all the info. This website and its 'peeps' are awesome!!

 

[eviemethugh]

Meat birds have loose stools. It's a common problem. Some people claim relief by fermenting the feed, but I don't think that is the way to go when your goal is to put on weight. Yes, 8 weeks is pretty much tops with Cornish cross. We did 12 weeks with red Rangers and probably used twice as much food as Cornish cross does.
I would trust your butcher to immediately see if there is a problem, more than likely I don't think yours are sick.
If you want them to go out, you just have to build them something where they don't have a choice and they are always out. We put ours in a tractor from 3 weeks old (our weather was good at the time.) they do not eat grass though. So if you want to cut the feed bill make sure the forage is clover and other protein rich "weeds" basically.
If you do give it a go again, the typical pounds of feed conversion to pounds of bird is Cornish cross (or cornish rock X) 2:1
Red or freedom Rangers, pioneer, other cross breeds 3-4:1
Heritage breeds 4+:1
They will eat table scraps, but only protein converts.
we had a rough last week before butcher because our 22 roosters were fighting and finding their voices at 3am....there are always things you learn to do differently for next time

 

[Morrigan]

First of all, no matter what you do, a few birds may die along the way, so don't get down on yourself about it. Some CX just seem less hardy than others. In my first batch, I had 4 die within the first week, but then the remaining birds all flourished and I butchered them in stages between 8 1/2 and 10 weeks old.

The second batch, all birds made it to 4 weeks and I was feeling great, but then over the next two weeks 6 (out of 27) began to suffer leg problems. I culled them and processed those while they were still alive and looked healthy (other than not wanting to walk). The remaining birds were all super healthy and I butchered them in stages between 10 and 12 weeks. All dressed out between 5 and 9 lbs. They were extremely active and I think I could have kept them a lot longer if I wanted.

I fed my birds a combination of fermented feed and spouted wheat/barley/sunflower seeds. I fed them them FF twice a day -- basically all they could eat within 10 minutes. In between the feedings I scattered my sprouted grains (and sometimes old produce) throughout the yard so they had to move around to get it.

I think the FF really helped with the poop. There is a thread on this forum with great information on that. I never felt that the volume or smell was overwhelming. I did notice that there was some bloody strands in some poop. After doing a bunch of research I became convinced it was shedding lining from their intestines, which is a normal thing in growing chickens, not cocci.

 

[animalsRawesome]

Meat birds have loose stools. It's a common problem. Some people claim relief by fermenting the feed, but I don't think that is the way to go when your goal is to put on weight. Yes, 8 weeks is pretty much tops with Cornish cross. We did 12 weeks with red Rangers and probably used twice as much food as Cornish cross does.
I would trust your butcher to immediately see if there is a problem, more than likely I don't think yours are sick.
If you want them to go out, you just have to build them something where they don't have a choice and they are always out. We put ours in a tractor from 3 weeks old (our weather was good at the time.) they do not eat grass though. So if you want to cut the feed bill make sure the forage is clover and other protein rich "weeds" basically.
If you do give it a go again, the typical pounds of feed conversion to pounds of bird is Cornish cross (or cornish rock X) 2:1
Red or freedom Rangers, pioneer, other cross breeds 3-4:1
Heritage breeds 4+:1
They will eat table scraps, but only protein converts.
we had a rough last week before butcher because our 22 roosters were fighting and finding their voices at 3am....there are always things you learn to do differently for next time

X2 on eviemethugh's post especially on making them go out. I would add that you need healthy chicks to start (I love love love http://www.schlechthatchery.com/ and they are cheap too!) Also, don't feed twice a day. Give them full access to feed for the first 2-3 weeks. After 2-3 weeks give them full access to feed but only for 12 hrs a day (take the feed completely away each night). Also, starting them on 24% protein feed is crucial. You can bump them down to 20% towards the end). Don't give up. They are not that bad. I can raise a batch of 25 without loosing a single bird!