I figured it out!

[booker81]

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Sure. There are farms that will let you in, and while it's generally better than a dedicated documentary that's out to show cruelty, it's still not near the life many folks here give their chickens. Logistically, large scale farming of meat animals needs to raise the highest number of animals in the safest amount of space - not in the "most space" they can provide. I can raise 12 CX comfortably in a 3x8 pen, where a commercial farm would probably put twice that number in, and gain a higher yield without loss. I just like them to have that extra room.

Plus, I have also been in a few slaughterhouses. They aren't nasty horrible places, but they are impersonal. I'd like my critter to go to it's maker in a place it's comfortable, by the hand of someone who's cared for it, instead of by someone who doesn't know it in a place that's foreign. It's not wrong, it's just a choice.

As for a 10'lber, from what I've seen here, go about 10+ weeks with a CX and hope for no CHF

I personally am going to aim for about a 4lber next round and process at 6 weeks. We just don't need that big of a bird here.

 

[myhubbycallsmechickeemama]

I have gone through 250 lbs of feed in 6 weeks for 20 (now 19) Cornish X and 3 Standard Bronze Turkeys. For the first week we was also feeding the higher protein feed to our 17 RIR chicks that were in the same brooder and when I took food away from the meaties at night they were moved to a different brooder. I think that is approximately 2 lbs of food per bird per week. I haven't weighed the little fatties in a couple of weeks. We are hoping to get to 8 weeks.

 

[CarriageStone]

Quote:
2. No discussions about animal rights organizations or Cock fighting .[/b]

Seriously?

2. No discussions about animal rights organizations or Cock fighting

When you do get your meaties and raise them out, keep us up to date on what you find your feed conversion to be. Myself and others have offered our experiences. They are real. I was very pleasantly surprised by the feed conversion ratio of our birds. I expected to go through 18lbs per bird, but actually went through 12lbs or so. At the cost of 20% Grower costing me $0.30 per pound, that saved us $1.80 per bird.

Hopefully that'll be the norm for us. Fingers crossed!

 

[gevannos]

here is my quick math

But, I did not do this for the money, but to have good quality chicken that I know what they were fed, etc., not a money saving venture at all.

I have 25 Cornish X's from Purely Poultry (great vendor)

I paid $1.40 per bird (5 of us ordered 116 birds so shipping was minimal)
I paid $20.50 for 100 pounds of chick starter (I figure 5 sacks will be plenty, although I'm pushing 50 so I might pay the extra for 50 pound sacks next time)
the butcher will be $2.50 per bird

that total is $7.59 per bird

I did not count the infrastructure as that is all re-usable

so the chart says at 8 weeks each will eat 17 pounds of feed so I figured 18 in my math.

So if the net weight of the bird is:

5 pounds then it is $1.51 per pound
6 pounds then it is $1.26 per pound
7 pounds then it is $ $1.08 per pound.

I could add more expense like electricity, freezer bags etc but like I said I'm not doing it for any monetary reason so another 50 cents per bird is ok.

 

[chickenfeverforever]

Quote:
2. No discussions about animal rights organizations or Cock fighting

Seriously?

2. No discussions about animal rights organizations or Cock fighting

When you do get your meaties and raise them out, keep us up to date on what you find your feed conversion to be. Myself and others have offered our experiences. They are real. I was very pleasantly surprised by the feed conversion ratio of our birds. I expected to go through 18lbs per bird, but actually went through 12lbs or so. At the cost of 20% Grower costing me $0.30 per pound, that saved us $1.80 per bird.

Hopefully that'll be the norm for us. Fingers crossed!

2. No discussions about animal rights organizations or Cock fighting
So yes.....Seriously. Like I said.....I will NOT be convinced that LARGE chicken farmers don't abuse, over crowd, neglect, over feed, vaccinate their birds.

 

[Connorrm]

Sorry, I didn't think this thread would turn into this. Let's keep it on track and talk about various who got what per pound.

 

[chickenfeverforever]

Quote:
Sounds good to me. Didnt mean to hijack your thread. Lol.

 

[Connorrm]

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Sounds good to me. Didnt mean to hijack your thread. Lol.

You didn't at all. I started it by mentioning the .... people. LOL, I'm really looking forward to this. I'm sad that I waited till it was too hot, so now I have to wait for summer to be winding down.

GRR.

Also, it looks like out of my 7 SR Sp. Sussex I only ended up with one roo. I thought for sure I was going to get a few roos to try out. I know they'd be small....but still would be nice to check it out

 

[CarriageStone]

No problem here. There have been many others in this thread that have more experience than you that have offered opinions politely. You don't seem to want to hear them, which is your perogative. However, there are a lot of folks here to learn from. Another opinion is not necessarily an attack.

We all likely agree that it's best to raise our own meat birds. Yes, they'd likely be treated better, cared for better, etc. However, to darn every full time farmer who raises birds to sell to Tyson or Perdue is simply unfair. It's easy to understand the necessities of scale those farmers have to work with since they have to earn a living being a farmer. We, on the other hand, enjoy playing a farmer.

No, I don't trust (2. No discussions about animal rights organizations or Cock fighting ). Nor do I trust most anyone else who is on their side of the fence. They likely come to the argument with an agenda to satisfy. Simple as that.

 

[ChickenAlgebra]

Yeah, I can never figure the feed cost really well. We've got turkeys running around, we've got kids who forget and let the other birds get some broiler food, or they give the meaties some of the laying food, whatever else happens. Plus once they are feathered, the stinky beasties get thrown outside on pasture and they will eat bugs and grass and such. We often let a hen or two who is broody in with them and they teach them to act like chickens instead of pigs. With that, we can throw them our scratch mix and they eat what the hens are eating anyway, and they aren't hideously expensive. We wind up with fat little meaties anyways.

Cost per bird - honestly, I think we'll go back to doing what we always do. Go to TSC and the other chain store here and get the left over meaties that are a week or two old. We get 'em for .25 cents each, if that much. If they start to get ugly, we often just get them for nothing. We ordered from MT-DI and have had nothing but birds who are NOT sturdy and they just fall over dead left and right. We tried 50, and ugh, they aren't growing well, over half have died, and we are culling the rest this weekend because I am sick and tired of these weak, sick birds and they are wasting money. And I'm not paying more than that for meaties because I'm cheap.

Processing remains the biggest cost usually. We process our own birds. Thus, the cost is minimal.

Cost to start up - for the tractor, plucker and scalder - is high, but once you use them for I forget how many years, it's kind of a moot point.

But the chicken at the store is now rapidly approaching $6 a pound. Ours aren't even close to that. The chicken that actually tastes like chicken in the store is $10 a pound.