Holy Broilers Batman!

[WildfireSmitty]

My next batch of meaties have arrived! 1 week in the brooder then it's sunshine and greenery for these little guys!

There are 800 cornishX.










Starting young, typical broiler. Sleeping as close to the food as possible.

 

[N F C]

Wow, that's a whole lot of meat chickens!

Hope you have a large freezer!

 

[wvhomesteader]

Wow!
I have 16 that hatched on Monday and 26 due around the 19th.

 

[WildfireSmitty]

Wow, that's a whole lot of meat chickens!

Hope you have a large freezer!

haha! We butcher them in groups of 300, and a lot of them go straight to delivery. Usually we have around 4 deep freezes full at one time.

Wow!
I have 16 that hatched on Monday and 26 due around the 19th.

nice, is that for personal or do you sell also?

 

[wvhomesteader]

haha!  We butcher them in groups of 300, and a lot of them go straight to delivery. Usually we have around 4 deep freezes full at one time.


nice, is that for personal or do you sell also?

Personal. This is our first time doing broilers so we started small and in succession.
I'd love to find out how to become certified as a farm to be able to sell.

 

[WildfireSmitty]

Personal. This is our first time doing broilers so we started small and in succession.
I'd love to find out how to become certified as a farm to be able to sell.

i'm not sure what the regulations are in the USA. In Canada, you can sell them straight from the farm with out being inspected. If you want too sell off the farm (farmers markets..etc) you have to get the processed at an inspected facility. We do both. Some people like the Sunday drive out to the farm, and it gives them the opportunity to get them fresh and not yet frozen. (we only sell them whole)

In Canada, your allowed to have 999 birds with out having to buy into the federal quota. If you surpass 999 birds then you have to buy into the commercial production quota. Not sure what it costs, but I know the for selling eggs, to buy into the quota it's like two hundred thousand.

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

Awesome setup and I absolutely love that you move them out for "real" living with sunshine and greenery!

@wvhomesteader - your states Dept of Ag can answer questions regarding whether permitting, inspections, etc would be required. There are generally factors such as the number of birds (at a given time and within a calendar year totals), labeling, whether the product is transported from the property by you or folks pick up on site, etc that influence what permitting would be required and what sort of inspections you would be subject to, etc.

 

[slingshotandLAR]

Nice....

We just moved into the broiler business, I'm doing them in batches of 150.

We have a 1000 bird limit we can do on the farm, luckily I have a state inspected processing facility 6 miles from the farm.

I'll be building more brooder space soon as demand is quickly exceeding my current capacity.

I move them out @3 weeks to the tractors but have noticed they seem ok after 2 weeks, we have had reached warm temps lately, they've been without heat for the last 4 days and are going outside tomorrow.

Have you had much issue moving them out at one week?


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[WildfireSmitty]

Nice....

We just moved into the broiler business, I'm doing them in batches of 150.

We have a 1000 bird limit we can do on the farm, luckily I have a state inspected processing facility 6 miles from the farm.

I'll be building more brooder space soon as demand is quickly exceeding my current capacity.

I move them out @3 weeks to the tractors but have noticed they seem ok after 2 weeks, we have had reached warm temps lately, they've been without heat for the last 4 days and are going outside tomorrow.

Have you had much issue moving them out at one week?


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We have a 1000 bird limit also. Your lucky to have a facility that close. Our facility is almost an hour drive for us, but we also process some on the farm.


I don't tractor my birds. They have 2 acre range area that is protected by chicken fencing.

Once they are out of the brooder room at 1 week (if the weather looks like it will behave) I have a large barn that I allow them to come and go freely(large doors open at both ends). Their automatic feeders and waters are inside the barn.
With this it gives me the ability to lock them up and throw some heat lights on if the weather turns for the worse. Previous years I have had temp issues after letting them out, I had to deal with some loss's.




Looks like it might a good year (got a stress free batch of chicks from the hatchery) I am on day 3 and still have not had a sing loss, not even in the box's after bringing them home. I have yet to see this till now. They say with broilers it normal to lose 10-15%. I do have a couple little ones that are a little rough looking. I like to push my chicks around the brooding room, anything that is slow or is not performing like the majority of the birds I separate into a box brooder and give them a little special attention.

It is a bit risky to let them out at 1 week, but with 800 broilers they need more space pretty quick.

If you dont mind me asking, what weight are you aiming for? and what are you selling them at per LB?

Hopefully everything works out for you.

Just a heads up, raising broilers is a love hate relationship. You are going to have good days, and bad days, and even worse days.

Take the time to sit with your birds. Really watch them, learn their behaviors. See the broiler be the broiler!

 

[slingshotandLAR]

We try to get them at least 4lbs dressed......

The 7-8 week mark seems to be working pretty well. Currently we sell the for $4.00lb retail and a little less whole sale. Prices will go up a bit as we progress

I also do turkeys, seasonal only at the moment but I'm trying to generate enough interest to do them all season May- November.

So far it's been going very well, other than the losses the birds have been doing great, the current batch I have is right at 16%. It was a bit cold when they shipped but I would like to see that number get significantly smaller. I didn't have any looses till day 7.

Broilers fit in nicely with our operation, we do beef, pork, turkeys and eggs all pasture based. I need to take some more pics this year but here's one I took the other day when I was out with the cattle.

This is when I lovey job the most

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