Meat Bird Idea

[Jaygood787]

I just moved and the place has a perfect shed/coop with a fenced in area. Ive got around 20 layers and random roosters around the yard. BUT, Im thinking about doing some meat chickens " freedom rangers" . Im going to take the fenced in area as soon as i can work the soil and plant a spring cover crop. Wait for a month and then order my meat chicks. I will keep them in this area as long as I can.

The fenced area and coop are around 500 Sq feet.

I hope the chickens will eat up my entire cover crop and be getting close to slaughter time before i need to mix them with my other flock by letting them out.

Future plans for this area will be a vegggie garden. I am working on the soil for a few years by doing this and tilling and planting fall/ spring cover crops along with my meat birds.

Any thoughts?

 

[ChickenCanoe]

I do the same with my raised beds and planted this for my freedom rangers.
That's field peas, vetch, buckwheat, oats and wheat.
I split the bed in half. After they cleared the first half I let them in the other half, by the time it was gone they were ready to eat.

 

[SteveBaz]

Wow FANTASTIC IDEA!! You really need room. What a plus for property owners like yourself!! Best of luck guys

 

[ChickenCanoe]

... You really need room. What a plus for property owners like yourself!! Best of luck guys

Actually I don't have much room. It is larger than an urban backyard but it's only 3/4 of an acre.
In that space I have a fairly large normal front yard, perennial gardens on the sides, an orchard, berry patches, grapes, herb and asparagus garden, four 40'X3.5' raised vegetable beds for rotating seasons and cover crop/poultry pasture, 4+ chicken coops with anywhere from 40-100 chickens in multiple pens, bee hives and stacks of logs propagating mushrooms, rain garden, rainwater harvesting and lots more.
I am fortunate that the lot is wedge shaped, wider in the back with an open field on one side and the lady behind me has 20 wooded acres. Only one person on the other side close enough to hear the roosters.

 

[Beekissed]

Excellent way to provide healthier food and get the manure where it needs to be without having to carry it there. I think everyone should be looking for ways to do meat chickens healthier and cheaper so one actually profits from raising the meaties, instead of feeling like they are just raising them, not because it is cheaper, but because they "know what goes into them".

I've seen many posts in which they claim they could get by much cheaper by buying their meat from the store than raising them at home and I always wonder why they don't just do that very thing. To me, the whole point of raising meat birds is to do it healthier and cheaper, not just healthier.

 

[Jaygood787]

Yes. This is not only my approach to A helthy food, but a sustainable type of growing my own food.

I would like to know any other ideas that people have on managing small isolated flocks for diffrent reasons.

After 2 years of this process , Im thinking the soil will be ready for growing lettuce and greens , then move to other vegetables once the nitrogen is used up a bit.....

 

[mstricer]

I love the idea. The only thing I find will be a problem is that it won't sustain them the whole time. My FR's free ranged the hole 12 weeks and they still ate feed, they did eat a lot less feed, they didn't gain what I thought they should have by 10 weeks and I changed their feed to Dumor 20% chick starter and limited their free ranging to the evenings only for the last 2 weeks, they gained and the boys topped off at over 7lbs and the girls between 5-6lbs. I have now chose to do broilers, instead. One I can get the 5lbers by 6-7 weeks and if I want them bigger, for roasters I'll take them to 9 weeks.

 

[Beekissed]

Sprouted grains is a cheaper way to get more calories from the same source but using less grains than just feeding them. Someone on SS is doing this and also has a source of left over milk and has let it clabber before feeding to the chicks. Good probios, good nutrition. Smaller portions with a bigger bang for your buck.