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- #91
Coming in late with the WEEK FIVE UPDATE
I've been a little busy and overwhelmed with stuff this week. But luckily, my Cornish X are all still very healthy and are growing at what I think is a nice rate. We've had some nasty weather lately. It's been cool (40s), rainy, and very windy this week. So I have had to make some temporary accommodations to the tractor to block some of the wind and rain.
Because these guys and gals are getting so big and were barely fitting on my tiny kitchen scale anymore, I bought a hanging scale from TSC that I thought I could use with a bucket. Well, either I'm not using it right or it's just not very accurate, because it was saying the chickens were 7 or 8 pounds, even when I zeroed the scale out after hanging the bucket. So, weights were a mess this week. It just got too difficult doing it alone. I opened the tractor and they all jumped out, and I just grabbed a random few and got what weights I could on my old kitchen scale. They all look the same so I have no clue how many I actually weighed and if I weighed anyone twice lol. So I'm just going to give a rough estimate. Every bird was near or at the 5 pound mark. So I think this is pretty good!
I've been generally following this growth rate chart from Meyer Hatchery (scroll down): https://meyerhatchery.zendesk.com/h...ers-101-How-to-raise-from-hatch-to-processing
And so far, they are pretty much spot on with weight (subtracting 33% from their weight to get dressed weight)!
At what weight do you guys typically butcher? I think at this rate I'm still going to shoot for 8 weeks so I can have a 6+ pound dressed bird. Our goal is to have as much meat for our family as possible for the winter. But if they get leg issues before then, we will process sooner I think.
I've been a little busy and overwhelmed with stuff this week. But luckily, my Cornish X are all still very healthy and are growing at what I think is a nice rate. We've had some nasty weather lately. It's been cool (40s), rainy, and very windy this week. So I have had to make some temporary accommodations to the tractor to block some of the wind and rain.
Because these guys and gals are getting so big and were barely fitting on my tiny kitchen scale anymore, I bought a hanging scale from TSC that I thought I could use with a bucket. Well, either I'm not using it right or it's just not very accurate, because it was saying the chickens were 7 or 8 pounds, even when I zeroed the scale out after hanging the bucket. So, weights were a mess this week. It just got too difficult doing it alone. I opened the tractor and they all jumped out, and I just grabbed a random few and got what weights I could on my old kitchen scale. They all look the same so I have no clue how many I actually weighed and if I weighed anyone twice lol. So I'm just going to give a rough estimate. Every bird was near or at the 5 pound mark. So I think this is pretty good!
I've been generally following this growth rate chart from Meyer Hatchery (scroll down): https://meyerhatchery.zendesk.com/h...ers-101-How-to-raise-from-hatch-to-processing
And so far, they are pretty much spot on with weight (subtracting 33% from their weight to get dressed weight)!
At what weight do you guys typically butcher? I think at this rate I'm still going to shoot for 8 weeks so I can have a 6+ pound dressed bird. Our goal is to have as much meat for our family as possible for the winter. But if they get leg issues before then, we will process sooner I think.