Looking at raising meat birds; need some help.

[ILoveDaffy]

I want to raise meat birds, but I need some advice. I need to know the best feeds, coops, and breeds. (So, basically everything.) I also need them to be ugly, and ones that I won't fall in love with.
Thank you!






(I only raised egglayers before)

 

[All4Eggz]

I want to raise meat birds, but I need some advice. I need to know the best feeds, coops, and breeds. (So, basically everything.) I also need them to be ugly, and ones that I won't fall in love with.
Thank you!






(I only raised egglayers before)

Meat birds as in chickens or turkeys or other fowl?

Assuming chickens, you should get the Cornish Cross chickens. They are one of the more common kinds of meat chickens, and can be grown fast and butchered at just 9 weeks old.
They are very slow, fat, and sometimes just sit in an area because they are too fat to walk
You should feed them meat bird feed; Purina has a pretty good feed, and I would recommend the non-medicated, so you know you're getting the most organic possible meat.

 

[CNJ]

My Cornish Cross are so adorable, you will fall in love with them. They usually get bullied, but today, I saw one fighting back with a same aged heritage pullet and won. This type of chicken doesn't run around like other heritage breeds. I raised 15 of them, processed 10 and kept 5 for breeding. They don't like to be held, but they like to follow me around.

The advantage is, they grow big very fast and the disadvantage is, they make a lot of poop, so you need a screen floor or a moving chicken tractor. The screen floor will start to lacerate their legs when they are ready to be processed at 8 weeks. Its the back part of the leg shank where they sit on that gets irritated. They averaged about 8lbs live weight, fed 12 hours a day.

I started limiting the food in take of the ones I kept for breeding at eight weeks. If I let them eat all day, they will end up eating them selves to death.

 

[All4Eggz]

Meat birds as in chickens or turkeys or other fowl?

Assuming chickens, you should get the Cornish Cross chickens. They are one of the more common kinds of meat chickens, and can be grown fast and butchered at just 9 weeks old.
They are very slow, fat, and sometimes just sit in an area because they are too fat to walk
You should feed them meat bird feed; Purina has a pretty good feed, and I would recommend the non-medicated, so you know you're getting the most organic possible meat.

If you were talking about turkeys, the Broad Breasted variety would be best for meat. Heritage breeds will not grow as big as the BB's.

 

[ILoveDaffy]

I definitely need chickens that are ugly, because I love chickens, and am looking to make money from them.

 

[All4Eggz]

I definitely need chickens that are ugly, because I love chickens, and am looking to make money from them.

I would say cornish cross birds are necessarily pretty, but they are not the ugliest. I don't really know any ugly meat breeds; they're all pretty in their own way

 

[iwltfum]

I definitely need chickens that are ugly, because I love chickens, and am looking to make money from them.

Good luck with that. It is more difficult than it seems to make money from broilers. Most people raise them to save money by raising a quality of bird that would otherwise be too expensive to buy at the farmers market or co-op.

Feed has gone up 20% just in the past year and food regulations are only becoming more strict. I would figure out how to grow the bird for yourself first, get really good at it and familiar with the process, then think about how to monetize it.

 

[Folly's place]

On a small scale it's really difficult to make any profit raising either eggs or meat.
Cornishx birds are the most economical to raise, by design. They need good feed, and restricted times with their feeders after they are about four weeks of age, because they grow too fast for their legs and heart, pathetic! Most go to the freezer by eight weeks of age, although some will make it longer, with fewer hours of feed per day.
Red ranger types (look at the Freedom Ranger hatchery in Pennsylvania) grow slower, and get to be real chickens, and are processed from twelve to sixteen weeks of age. So, more expensive to raise, but many of us consider them better. More flavor, for sure!
Then, either get set up to kill them yourself, which involves buying equipment and mess, or pay a processing plant to do it. And in most states, you can't sell any number of them without having them processed at an inspected plant.
The last time I figured out what it cost me per pound of bird (2019) it came out to about $3.50 per pound. Feed was less expensive then too...
So, before you try to grow chickens for sale, grow some for yourself. And if you think you want to keep some around, do NOT get Cornishx chicks, because they can't have any sort of normal life.
Mary

 

[ILoveDaffy]

Thank you!