You really, seriously wanna house your meat birds separately.
If so, How many? When? How long? Should I add on?? Etc...
A dozen is a nice number to try, the work and stink are not too unreasonable and if you have to process them all yourself it can be done pretty easily. But of course, pick whatever number you want
You don't want to be growing meat birds in real hot weather, as they have even more problems dealing with heat than 'normal' chickens do. Also if you have a wet season, avoiding that would be good.
With CornishX, you will get birds that dress out at 3+ lbs by 6 wks,
5-6+ lbs at 8 wks, and beyond that you get excessively large chickens but also a higher death rate. From the standpoint of cost per lb of usable meat, it is more economical to process them earlier/smaller, as their feed conversion efficiency gets worse as they get bigger. OTOH if you have a family of 6 and need a 6+ lb roasting chicken for everyone to get their share, then obvioulsy it would be worth growing them out larger.
You could also consider red broiler / "freedom ranger" types. They do not grow as fast but they also eat less. FWIW the red broilers I raised this past year ended up at *exactly the same* $/lb of meat as the previous year's CornishX, because the lesser growth rate was matched by lesser feed consumption. They still have a lot of breast meat and are pretty comparable to the CornishX carcass, only you can grow them up a bit *older* (not larger) and thus get more flavor, and they are a bit hardier and less prone to heart/leg problems.
Good luck, have fun,
Pat
