I kept a flock of broiler hens for over a year before selling them. You can keep them alive and they end up living relatively good chickeny lives.
Lots and lots of free ranging is required. I forced mine to free range and gave them scratch grain here and there to force them to really dig around for their food. Once they were adults they lost a lot of their "Must do nothing but eat!" mentality and could be given free egg pellets so long as I let them do a lot of free ranging during the day.
Aspirin in the water helps a lot. It's a blood thinner so you don't have to worry about clotting.
Free range or no, these birds eat a _lot_ of food. A _lot_. They will be extremely expensive to keep. Also, you really need to get rid of any roosters in the group. When they mount the hens bad things happen to their bodies. We got rid of all of the roosters and gave the flock a Buff Orpington rooster instead. The group did fine and were even laying eggs for me.
Lots and lots of free ranging is required. I forced mine to free range and gave them scratch grain here and there to force them to really dig around for their food. Once they were adults they lost a lot of their "Must do nothing but eat!" mentality and could be given free egg pellets so long as I let them do a lot of free ranging during the day.
Aspirin in the water helps a lot. It's a blood thinner so you don't have to worry about clotting.
Free range or no, these birds eat a _lot_ of food. A _lot_. They will be extremely expensive to keep. Also, you really need to get rid of any roosters in the group. When they mount the hens bad things happen to their bodies. We got rid of all of the roosters and gave the flock a Buff Orpington rooster instead. The group did fine and were even laying eggs for me.
