Gonna try some Cornish X

[LarryP2]

First time with meat birds, just ordered 50 Cornish X chicks, will be here on next Tuesday. I guess I am feeling cocky after successfully raising 60 SL Wyandottes and some silkies and bantiesj from day old chicks, as well as four turkeys from day old babies. The SLW & company are now about 6 weeks old and very very lively. We "started out" with 8 copper moran chicks hatched and raised by a broody RIR last fall. She is now broody again big time, so I also am having delivered 24 Chukar Partridge eggs, so hopefully she will outdo herself again and raise these like the Morans. I have also bought 10 six month old silkies and 2 Barred Rocks to complete the collection. We have far more eggs than we could ever eat ourselves, and give away dozens and dozens of eggs. The turkeys are doing fantastic in our massive predator-proof covered run we built last year (80 feet by 8 feet wide). We are right in the middle of expanding that huge covered even more by adding another 12' x 30' section, that should be finished in about a week. The turkeys have grown at an astonishing rate and are HUGE at around 10 weeks old. This winter, I finished a 12' x 8' brooder barn, where all of the SLWs & company are presently residing. And there are two smaller hen houses attached to the covered run. The smallest hen house is the residence of a lone runt silky chick that was being pecked to death by SLW & company. The bigger hen house is where the eggs are layed.

I plan on starting the CX's in a plastic tub inside our warm mudroom where my daughter will hand raise them, as they learn to eat and drink during those critical first few days and then putting them in the brooder bar at two weeks (the SLW & company will get kicked out to fend for themselves in the chaotic melee in the general population in the covered run) . My daughter is very patient at that task, and raised those four turkey poults who are now very friendly and used to being held and around people. It will be tough to kill them and eat them.

The brooder barn has a walled off brooder area that is "L" shaped and is about 80 square feet. Very easy to keep warm and dry and is very well ventilated. I think I might be able to get away with growing the CXs in their until they are six weeks old. The SLWs are almost six weeks old and are doing fine in there and until they are 8 weeks. I was thinking the brooder house would be ideal for the 12 hours of feeding/12 hours of starvation routine that supposedly CXs grow the fastest on. We will heavily supplement their organic commercial feed with lots and lots of weeds from our 6/10ths of an acre. Prickly lettuce is profuse around our lot, and the chickens and turkeys love it. The turkeys attack it like they have been starved for weeks.

Hopefully by the time the CX are ready to butcher (at about 10 or 12 weeks) we will be able to finish them off with an unlimited supply of apples. I heard that really makes them tasty.

My cousin, who is a professional butcher, will handle the processing end of the whole operation.

Anyway, I am operating under the belief that I have a good plan in place for my first foray into meat chickens. Feel free to chime in with criticisms and comments.

 

[SmokinChick]

You have 60 SLW's in a 80 sq ft pen? I hope I read that wrong. That is awfully tight, includes feeders and waters. I raised 35 CX in a 98 sq ft mobile tractor that is moved daily and they were tight in there.
A CX @ 5 weeks will be the size of your 1 yr old SLW. I feel 50 CX will out grow their pen very quickly.
Good luck, and look for a bit more room. I know it is not always easy to find.

 

[NikonD2xer]

the 12 on 12 off feedings are suggested so they DON"T grow as fast as they can..

having them on feed 24 hours could possibly lead to leg problems and heart failure.

I had 25 of them in a 8 x 8.....it was fine for a couple of weeks.
At 3 weeks everything grew, the birds, the appetite, amount of poop, and the smell.

You are going to need a lot of bedding to keep things clean and dry and even more ventilation to keep the birds healthy.

Just my opinion.

Good luck

 

[LarryP2]

I should have added that the chicks brooder barn is attached to the gigantic run, which is sectioned off so that they do not have to physically interact with the older birds until they are full-size. They have a 20' x 8' area in the great outdoors whenever they want, but usually they choose to stay inside the chicken barn. The meat birds will spend about their first two weeks in the brooder barn and then they will be transferred out to the new addition of the covered run, which will be approximately 360 square feet. The meat birds will be kept separate from the general population which is currently residing in the existing covered run, since we are going to be feeding the meat birds a lot more greens and fruits so that they don't grow so fast, eliminating a lot of the deaths and cruel disabilities that I understand are caused by the phenomenal growth rate. I am in no hurry to slaughter them.

The brooder barn is the first structure I ever built. I made a lot of mistakes in building it, but fixed them. We took the front door off of our house (replaced it with a much nicer one) and used it as the door for the barn. There is a heat exchanger from our outdoor wood boiler that is just big enough to take the edge off the cold in the winter, and a small rooftop swam cooler that takes the edge off the hottest days (a big problem with Cornish x). My next projects after the run extension is finished is to install a bulk feeder that will hold a whole ton of feed (I can buy a whole ton of locally produced organic feed for $250) and a 100 gallon watering system. There is virtually 100 percent air exchange through the eaves under the roof, which were left open but covered with hardware cloth. Have had no moisture or ammonia buildup problems.