free ranging your Cornish X birds

[LarryPQ]

Yeah, they are slow and Oh, so tasty.

 

[miss_thenorth]

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My shelter is hard to describe--hubby got a big 12x12'x2 pool- type thingy from work. We cut it in half and prop it up on bricks to let a bit of ventilation come through. It only takes one person to move. Our poutlry netting is 100' long and we put it in a round shape. and also we raise 30 meaties a year--all at one time.
As far as raptors, we definitely have them here as we are in the migratory path, but we have never lost anything to a raptor. (neighbours dogs-yes, (the layiing chickens) but never raptors) For brooding, we put the heat lamp and everything under the plastic shelter and move that every other day. I alwasys raise my meaties in August so htey dont need much of the heat lamp as it is hot in the day, and then by processing time, it is much cooler in October.

so we keep the shelter at one end, and put the water at one point, and the food at the other point to make a type of triangle, so they actually have to walk. They do forage, and when we process, there is lots of grass in their crops.

 

[Kaitie09]

I found a 10x10 dog kennel on CL for $75. We opened it up so that is was 10x20, and put it against a wall. My 27, 5 week olds have a 4x10 "coop" in it, so overall they get a 10x16 area to run around in. When I let them out in the morning they all start running and jumping to stretch their wings, but then they normally settle down by food and water, with a stray one pecking here and there.

 

[greenhorn]

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The poops always the deepest by far right under the roost in my coop.

I would personally rather clean the coop than spread that nasty mess all over my yard. I'm not a pro at raising meaties, done about 150 so far. I'm having a cement floor put in the 10x20 as soon as I'm done digging a trench from my big coop to my brooder coop. Have auto drinkers set up in the brooder coop and will be putting automatic drinkers in the big coop. Both of these coops will be used for meat birds full time soon. The larger coop is the 10x20. I'm going to paint the cement floor with epoxy paint like I did in the brooder coop, it works great, cleans up like a dream.

We let our meaties share the coop and run with the egg birds right now. The egg birds help give the the meaties some exercise and most of them get out and enjoy the run with the other birds. There are always those lazy ones that try to hang out as close to the feeders as they can though. The butcher always remarks about how clean our birds are too.

Keeping 2 coops allows us to produce 25 plus birds each month. They spend 4-5 weeks in the brooder coop then 3-4 weeks in the 10x20. When the 7-8 week old birds go off to the butcher the smaller birds go into the 10x20 and we clean the brooder coop. Then a new batch of chicks goes into the brooder coop. We started doing this to fill our own freezers but after giving away a few birds to friends we have been getting requests to sell them. We had to replace the brooder coop this year and we are giving them a run. They will probably only use the run for a week or 2 tops but I think it might help them learn to get out and move around a little bit before they get too fat and it's too late. The brooder coop will also be used for other kinds of chicks also so the run will surely get used more then. In the future we plan to start raising dorkings and true cornish for roasters.

I have a video of the brooder coop but it's not finished yet in the video. It's almost done though, I'll try to get some pics tomorrow. Here is a video I made of the brooder coop a week or so ago, the run and the trench haven't been dug yet.

 

[Matrix Escapee]

The electric netting is interesting, but I can't see the benefit of making it large. My experience with the cornish has been that they don't spend time in the sun unless it is early morning. So, if you have the shelter inside the netted area, that is where they are gonna spend their time no matter how much room they have to roam. You will probably see poop build up under the shelter, next to the waterer and feeder, as that is where they are gonna spend their time. Also as a side note, in my experience, when the sun is up and it's a hot summer day, birds will not drink from the waterer unless it is in the shade.
As far as predator birds, no age is immune to being snatched. We had a large bird die this fall. Probably weight 7-8 lbs. My father-in-law took it to his farm and threw it ont top of their chicken compost pile. Well, a fox took it the next day, and right before getting to the woods, a Bald Eagle swooped down and took it from the foz and flew away. I swear this is not made up.
We raised just under 1,000 cornish this season. We used Salatin style daily move pens. Ours were 10x12 and 30"tall. We put about 100 birds per pen. At the peak, we had 6 pens going at thesame time. I am probably biased, but i dont see a better way. The pen is great b/c it provides shade, dryness, and protection from predators. At the same time, it still allows sunlight and air to come into play. And, unlike a fixed building, you are not allowing waste and PATHOGENS to build up b/c you keep them on the move. The fact that they are only gonna range so far, makes 10x12 a logical size. Some people knock the fact that this breed of bird is not gonna run around and forage all day, but my response is: who cares. They devour all the green matter that the pen occupies for that day, and get to do that everyday of their life. And they eat a non-soy, organic feed.
The only negative is having to move multiple pens. Everyday. For 7 months. That is why i say the electric netting is interesting. I am just unsure, in my case, if it would be less work. The 10x12 are just too efficient. We just need to improve our pen construction and how we physically move them. I have a dolly like salatin uses, but find it to be a royal pain. We use 2" PVC pieces as rollers at this point. Plus, we have birds anywhere from 2 to 9 weeks old going at the same time, so we would still have to have a series of fences and shelters...

 

[Tracydr]

I have my 12 with about 6 red broilers and 11 packing peanuts which look like production reds. The red chicks keep them active. I kept them in a tractor until 4 weeks, than in the huge paddock/garden with the Pullets and banty rooster. I fenced off the garden last week to plant but they still have a 15x 75 area fully shaded by lemon and pine trees and I spread the feed and waterers all over to encourage exercise.
Processing 6 next week and 6 2 weeks after that. Their breasts and bums are nice and clean. I've had three that were slightly pecked a couple days ago so they are in the tractor keeping some silky chicks warm.
This is working really well for the most part, no smell, active chickens. I give lots of alfalfa hay for forage and there are tons of bugs in the paddock, roaches and crickets mostly.

 

[ChickieBooBoo]

I free-range mine, they are just as active as my other birds actually, just a bit slower.

 

[Tracydr]

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I have to be careful not to let my husband see the meaties when they're hungry. Last time he wanted to keep one. He was finally convinced when he saw one start to have a heart attack from stress while we were irrigating that it wasn't meant to be. He's such a sortie. I know I'll be in trouble when I raise turkeys!

 

[MyFirstFarm]

Lots of great ideas here. A response to some comments:

Our "yard" is a 1/2 acre field that isn't being used for anything much so I don't mind if it gets covered in bird poop. The idea of having a larger enclosure is that hopefully it will spread the poop around a bit more so the birds aren't sitting in it for hours at a time. And it's great fertilizer for the field (already where the tractor had been sitting the clover came up thick and lush there). The idea is not to have to clean poop.

The field has some trees for shade but is also right next to a very tall forest of about 160 acres. The tall trees are on the west so the part of the field where the birds would be loses its direct sunlight fairly early in the afternoon. So I would be able to mitigate that factor plus keep the waterer in the shade.

We raised 50 birds this year (ended up with 42, mostly in the first batch we lost a bunch of chicks early on b/c we were newbies I think; lost no chicks in the second batch). We only raise for personal consumption and would not be interested in selling them to others so I can't see us wanting to raise more than 50 each year.

Mr. Nappy, you can plan to let them roam but when they are 2 weeks old (the time one usually lets them out of the brooder) they are still pretty small. I have no idea how "predator smart" they are, so perhaps need to account for that if you have predatory birds.

I know eagles can take big birds but our neighbours have free-ranging birds and haven't lost one yet. I figure the birds are "street wise" and duck for cover when they see something coming (there's lots of woods here).

greenhorn: sounds like a great setup.

 

[galanie]

So far as a mess in your yard, if you move the thing every day and hose down that spot, it's not much of a mess. And the grass LOVES it! But we do all have our preferences. I'm just lazy and don't want to clean a coop if I can get around it. Also I'm an organic gardener and use the poop from the laying hens freely so there's poo all over the place anyway LOL.