looking to raise meat birds... need some advice

[rmcclure]

Awesome thanks!

 

[Coralietg]

It's hard to get the cost close to grocery store price. The quality far surpasses though.

We put ours in a tractor, the smell isn't too bad. We move it every 2 days and it's worked well.

As for a bag of feed per bird, no way. Our biggest rooster before processing was over 9lbs, processed to 6.8lbs. Not a chance he ate 50lbs of food by himself. We raised 16, and went through 9 bags of food. That included feeding about 20 other standard chicks though, so I don't have the exact numbers.

I did use fermented food. That definitely cut down on the waste, the didn't make a huge mess and get the food everywhere.

I have heard people say that for 50 Cornish X, it's one 50lb bag of food the first week, two the second week, three the third week, etc. That comes to 21 bags of food after 6 weeks. 1,050lbs of food, or 21lbs each bird. For our feed costs here, that is $7.14 for feeding each chicken to 6 weeks. This is very rough though, as there are so many variables.

I would never do more than 25 at once, it's a lot of work.

 

[rmcclure]

glad someone says they dont eat that much lol! I know I can't really expect to get the birds too close to the store but I did not expect to hear they would end up twice the store price lol at $7ish in feed per bird I can do that! would end me up with about an 8 or 9 dollar bird if I buy from a local feed store that has them for $1.10 each I think I am going to do like 5 and then try the bigger group if that goes well... I don't think even if I wanted too I could handle more than 25 from what I have seen of them lol! I read they should use medicated chick start in a lot of the things I found... has anyone tried the non-medicated and had good success? also what kind of feed should they get? I read chick start til 3-4 weeks then adult food but some say crumbles some say pellets some dont say at all! I might try this fermented feed idea with this method do they still get the chick start for the first 3ish weeks?

 

[Coralietg]

glad someone says they dont eat that much lol! I know I can't really expect to get the birds too close to the store but I did not expect to hear they would end up twice the store price lol at $7ish in feed per bird I can do that! would end me up with about an 8 or 9 dollar bird if I buy from a local feed store that has them for $1.10 each I think I am going to do like 5 and then try the bigger group if that goes well... I don't think even if I wanted too I could handle more than 25 from what I have seen of them lol! I read they should use medicated chick start in a lot of the things I found... has anyone tried the non-medicated and had good success? also what kind of feed should they get? I read chick start til 3-4 weeks then adult food but some say crumbles some say pellets some dont say at all! I might try this fermented feed idea with this method do they still get the chick start for the first 3ish weeks?

My 6.8lb chicken would cost me $24 at the Farmers Market. That's where the saving is. Commercial chicken houses raise thousands at a time, that's why they can make them so cheap.

I used chick starter the whole way through, 18% protein level and I've had no issues. I had one loss at 7 weeks, but that was because we kept putting off processing.

5 sounds like a good number to start with!

 

[rmcclure]

hmmm okay I didn't realize how much home raised chickens are sold for lol never tried to buy one.... well after this experiment wit the 5 I guess I will know for sure... I might try chick start all the way and see what I end up with as far as weight