leaving meat birds for 3 days?

[City Chicken]

so, normally i leave my flock in the workshop with food and water enough for the days i am gone (max 3-4).

However, this time i have 6 cornish x i will be leaving...
if i leave them the feed they will just gorge themselves and not leave enough for late, right?

i don't see a way around this really. i'm thinking that if they have enough water they are just going to have to be left...

another thought, IF i were to leave them in the same area as the other chickens they would have to fight for food with the older chickens right??
or would they just sneakily eat it all while the others slept? they will have natural light- so sun up light, sun down, no light.

 

[silkiechicken]

As long as you can put enough food in there to last 3-4 days, they will be fine. Yes they gorge on food, but not more than they would eat anyway if you are feeding them sun up to sun down now. Not like they'll really put up a fight per se either. How old are they? If they are under a month, treat them like regular chickens. I only "restrict" diet on meat birds via natural lighting. Can't see, can't eat. Their crops are only so big. Huge vs a regular bird, but they do stop eating at some point.

 

[City Chicken]

they will be 10 weeks old, but are all small in the 1.5-3 lb range i would say.

 

[frigginchi]

Maybe you can invest in an auto feeder.

http://www.cabelas.com/product/Amer...=deer+feeder&WTz_l=Header;Search-All+Products

 

[silkiechicken]

they will be 10 weeks old, but are all small in the 1.5-3 lb range i would say.

Wow! 10 weeks old and only 1.5-3lbs?

At 10 weeks mine are easily 8lbs... are you sure you have cornish x meat birds? Mine were 2lbs at like 3 weeks... if they are so tiny, I'd not worry about them overeating.

 

[silkiechicken]

Here are my birds at 5.5 weeks old.

The three small ones are leghorns, the four big ones are the cornish x meat birds. The meat birds are over 4lbs each in the pics. The leghorns were probably about a pound. And a leghorn is a small adult bird, with my 2 year old layers weighing in at like 4lbs.

Almost sounds like you got maybe white rocks instead?

These guys ate sun up to sun down. They were let out to range too, but I didn't restrict feed beyond normal day/night hours... which in march, is only like 10 hours in WA. LOL

 

[City Chicken]

they are cornish X...

i sent them to my sisters and she restricted their feed more than i would have. this is our first batch though, she didn't want them to tip over, we were figuring it all out. i think it scared her to see how they gorged themselves... it is a frightening sight, i agree! they are little monsters.

in any case, i have mine back here and they are growing, but set back a few weeks. so i will process some at 10 weeks, but i doubt i will get 6 lbs from them... and i will process the rest at probably 13-14 weeks.

tomorrow i am setting 3 aside that i hope to process next week before christmas. i will be feeding them extra extra ('every other night' feeding too...) and they will have less competition. the other 6 will probably thrive as well because of the new arrangement since they are the smaller ones.

i will do this again, but differently... i won't try to make them be normal chickens next time. haha.

 

[City Chicken]

their skin is literally too thin. the other chickens have pecked and bloodied... really annoying. won't be leaving them together.

 

[TamTurkey]