Meat chicken logistics

[madisonjh95]

I have a similar lifestyle to what you are describing going on here..... maybe more birds. It all started out innocently enough we set out to have a dozen egg layers , then poof here we are 8 years later hatching year round, more growouts than we can count. Turkeys, ducks, over 100 chickens.
In all seriousness what you are describing is doable. Pick a breed that you love get a copy of the American poultry association standard of perfection, start small, breed only your best always work twords improving what you have.
Have your pens built and make sure they are secure if you have a predator issue in your area. You will need more space for grow outs than you think.
My dual purpose hatchery birds take 5-6 months to get a big enough bird to butcher. I am starting to improve those numbers by being very selective about what birds I keep for breeders. After 2 years my hatch rates have drastically improved with my incubator setup and my own eggs. The hard part is the feed bill to grow that many birds out till they are ready for butcher... right now we are butchering 12-24 birds a month mostly 6 at a time on weekends. If you jump into meat birds make sure you have a plan for butcher day..... heritage cockrels have a more flex able schedule because they will not eat themselves to death like some of the fast growing broilers, so you can butcher on your time. I love my flock and we end up eating old layers and extra roos. Take the time to find what works best for you in your situation.
Best of luck and enjoy the journey

I am so glad you commented! You've gotten me so excited! What breed(s) do you have? Thanks so much for your insight!

 

[madisonjh95]

And I strive to maintain heritage breeds so I only have heritage breeds and want to avoid having cross breeds as much as I can.

If you are determined to have only heritage breeds (nothing wrong with personal preference like that) determine what heritage means to you. For some people it is a bird that meets show chicken standards, some may want it to meet show chicken standards plus the behaviors and production qualities the breed was meant to have. I'm probably the only person on this forum that when they think of heritage chickens that they think of the chickens that our great-grandparents kept, flocks that followed the general breed standards but were certainly not show chickens. Instead they were used to feed the family efficiently. That means they would pretty much feed themselves (weather permitting) and provide eggs and meat but would not win any chicken shows. Production qualities were more important than meeting a breed SOP. Personally I use mixed breeds, keeping the ones that best suit my goals for breeding and eat the rest. You can do the same with one breed, my personal preference is to have mixed colors/patterns. If you are going to do that I'd stick with one breed, it can get complicated to raise different breeds and keep them from cross-breeding. Keep it simple, why make your life harder than it needs to be.

Here's my thought process: I'm thinking I can purchase some eggs from a hatchery or something or other of a dual purpose breed like australorps or plymouth rocks,

This is doable. If you are getting them from a hatchery I'd get day-old baby chicks instead of hatching eggs. That way you can better control how many chicks you actually get. You can get straight run (no telling how many will be males or females). I did that the first time I ordered but after that I went with sexed chicks. You really don't know how many of either sex you will get. I got seven pullets from seven straight run Buff Orpington I ordered. I got other breeds that did have cockerels so I still got a rooster. That convinced me that if I want males or females I better order them sexed.

I suggest you order at least 50% more pullets than you think you need, some probably won't meet your standards but still taste great or you may lose some. Get several cockerels even though you plan to keep only one. There can be a huge difference in the quality of cockerels from the same flock, especially from hatcheries. I once raised 18 Buff Rock cockerels from a hatchery and only had three that met my standards as far as being potential flock masters and breeding roosters. I ate all but one. If I had only ordered one which would I have gotten, one of the three or one of the fifteen?

You can get chicks from a feed store, they originally came from a hatchery. Many people do. Depending on the experience and quality of that specific stores personnel you have a greater chance of not getting what you want breed or sex due to mix ups. Some store people are pretty good, some not so much. This way you avoid the hassle of shipping.

keep a rooster and 4-5 hens for breeding year round (or as long as they will), give them safe housing away from the cats and coyotes, incubate all of their eggs and raise the chicks keeping pullets to replenish my egg layers (dispatching hens at about 3-4 years old to make dog food) and keeping the cockerels to raise for meat throughout the year. I would give extra eggs and meat to my parents and in-laws so that there is no waste.

Obviously if you are going to give extra eggs away you are not planning on hatching all of them. I had to read that twice. I think you plan on having an incubator since you mentioned possibly starting with hatching eggs. To try to keep my post shorter I'll go through how I manage this. I know this is way too long anyway, partly because there are so may different ways you can do this.

I typically hatch a bunch of chicks in January/February in my incubator. I'm limited on freezer space on how much I can store at a time, partially because I freeze a lot of stuff from the garden. If you pressure can the meat instead of freezing it all you can increase storage. I typically hatch about 20 chicks so I will have meat available when my frozen meat runs out. After that hatch I might do one more incubator hatch if a hen doesn't go broody early enough but I have several that typically go broody in late spring and summer so I can mostly rely on broody hens after that. If you hatch eggs from hens that go broody and keep the daughters as replacements they tend to go broody too.

My typical laying/breeding flock is 6 to 8 hens and one rooster. I've determined that I need to hatch about 40 to 45 chicks every year to keep us in chicken meat. There are only two of us so even a pullet will make two meals, though the second meal is soup. I keep back 4 pullets to add to my flock each year, keep 3 or 4 of the previous year's hatch through the winter, and eat the older hens from the year before that when they start to molt and stop laying. Since I also play around with genetics I usually replace my rooster annually with one of the cockerels.

I butcher all my excess cockerels and pullets all through the year. I typically butcher the cockerels when they hit about 23 weeks of age. That's my sweet spot the way I feed them and the way I cook them. Others have different ages for butchering, depending on how they cook them and other factors. I typically butcher excess pullets around 8 months of age after I've evaluated them for laying. Some people only eat the cockerels and sell started pullets, they may be able to pay for a lot of feed that way.

One of the big issues of sustainability is how you feed them. If you feed them everything they eat you either need to grow a lot or spend a lot of money buying feed. If you have good quality forage they can find a lot of their own food but they can be vulnerable to predators. It can be a very tough balancing act.

There are so many different ways to do any of this, trial and error can be a great teacher. I'll quit typing for now and see what other responses you get or questions you have. Small farmers have done this for centuries but most of us are not small farmers. Your specific conditions will have a lot to do with what works best for you.

This is really great info!

The importance of heritage breeds to me is more-so conserving the breeds our great-grandparents raised that were able to feed and provide for whole families. Not so much show chicken quality.

I'm glad you said that, I probably would've gotten only what I (think) I need.

Is it better to have a broody hen that stops laying and takes care of her own chicks? Or to raise all the babies in a brooder so she will continuously lay for you? What breeds do you have and why did you pick them and what do you like about them? How do you know when a cockerel or pullet is ready for butchering?

 

[ShannonR]

This is really great info!

The importance of heritage breeds to me is more-so conserving the breeds our great-grandparents raised that were able to feed and provide for whole families. Not so much show chicken quality.

I'm glad you said that, I probably would've gotten only what I (think) I need.

Is it better to have a broody hen that stops laying and takes care of her own chicks? Or to raise all the babies in a brooder so she will continuously lay for you? What breeds do you have and why did you pick them and what do you like about them? How do you know when a cockerel or pullet is ready for butchering?

While I agree that heritage breeds are less about show chickens and more about conservation, I do need to point out that the standard of perfection is there for a reason. There should be at least a few traits you try to maintain in a heritage flock. All too often, folks forget this and as a result there are many types within a given breed that can vary quite a bit. Take hatchery birds for example. Their size and a lot of the original traits aren't there or don't always breed true. But their egg laying tends to be higher than the birds our great grandparents raised. Anyway, off my soapbox, but the SOP exists so that future generations can still recognize a Brahma as a Brahma chicken.

As for broodiness, that is a personal choice. I always liked the birds who are capable of raising their own kids without your help. To my thinking, a breed isn't really heritage if the chicks need to be artificially incubated and raised. That isn't how our great grandparents did it, anyway.

Finally, butchering time is when you feel like it. Take care to not let the birds get too old, though.

 

[ChocolateMouse]

So you may want to consider CX for meat birds. Raising them free-range or in a tractor can have surprisingly positive results. Also they are a simple 4-way hybrid, not genetically modified like some people believe. They can be surprisingly robust and friendly with the correct care levels, but are higher maintenance with a higher payout. Their feed conversion ratio (lbs of feed to lbs of meat) is top notch.

If you're intent on dual purpose birds, I strongly suggest looking away from hatchery birds. I find that their "Dual Purpose" chickens tend to err a lot more on the layer side of things and tend to be smaller and less well-muscled than they ought to be. If you're buying from a hatchery, get day-old chicks. They're often nearly the same price but the hatching work is done for you already.

I find there are pros and cons to broodies vs incubation. Incubating you get a lot more eggs hatched at once (depending on incubator size ofc), you have fewer chick losses, and a lot more control. For example, it's much easier to cull a chick with a messed up leg when you're not snatching it from an angry mother, or decide how often you want chicks because you never know when a hen will go broody (and in fact they might never). On the other hand incubation can be difficult, time consuming and unreliable. A broody does not care if the power goes out or you have a health emergency etc. She just goes on brooding and doing a perfect job (assuming she's a good broody). And she's better at hatching eggs than your incubator ever will be.

I process my extra roosters any time before they hit 6 months old and I feel like they have sufficient meat. The younger, the more tender, but I have fried rooster meat at 5 months and not been disappointed.

To figure out how many a year you need to raise out, you'll need to think about how much chicken you eat in a month (remember that bone-in is not the same as boneless) then extrapolate for the year. Then consider each processed bird to be around 3lbs heritage or 6lbs hybrid. Then you can calculate how many you need a year. You may want to throw in some extra for things like soup stock or holidays as well.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Is it better to have a broody hen that stops laying and takes care of her own chicks? Or to raise all the babies in a brooder so she will continuously lay for you?

A lot depends on you, your personal preferences, and your goals. A whole lot depends on a hen going broody to start with. You cannot make them go broody, you especially cannot control when they go broody if they even do.

I really like a hen to do all the work of incubating, hatching, and raising them. If you let a broody hen raise the chicks with the flock she takes care if integration for you. The chicks will peck at the ground she has pooped on which mean they get any probiotics she has, plus they get exposed to anything she has that they may need immunity to. Many flocks have what we call flock immunities. They have a parasite or disease that they have developed an immunity to so it really doesn't bother them. If the chicks are exposed to those at a young age they develop those immunities also. I think them being raised with a broody hen strengths their immune system. I even take dirt from the run and feed that to my brooder-raised chicks to help them develop strong immune systems.

When a hen goes broody she stops laying eggs and uses stored up energy to mostly live on while she is sitting on the eggs. That way she rarely needs to leave the nest to eat or drink, though most leave the nest daily. After she stops being broody she needs to build those reserves back up before she starts laying again. The longer they are broody the longer it takes for them to start laying again. But the sooner you break them from being broody the sooner they get back to laying.

I use an incubator and brood them myself because of timing. My hens do not go broody in winter when I need to hatch eggs to keep from running out of meat in the freezer. My preference is to use a broody hen but to meet my goals and because of my limited freezer space I supplement the broody hens with an incubator.

What breeds do you have and why did you pick them and what do you like about them?

In addition to raising them for meat, one of my goals was to play with genetics. I play with genetics, I'm not that serious about it. My genetics goals change over time. I started making red sex links just to see how that worked. I decided red barred chickens would be really attractive, they were. I eventually made red mottled and black mottled chickens that laid blue or green eggs and went broody a lot. Then I decided that red shade was too dark and I needed to lighten it to a softer red.

My goals are different to yours so my breeds may not suit you all that much. Over the years I got Speckled Sussex, Delaware, Black Australorp, Buff Orpington, and Buff Rocks from hatcheries and true Ameraucana from a breeder.

How do you know when a cockerel or pullet is ready for butchering?

You can eat any chicken of any size and at any age but you get more meat when they are closer to grown. Also the older they are the more you have to be careful how you cook them. I hate to give specific ages because chickens even of the same breed will mature at different rates though breeds have tendencies. Another big factor is strain. A flock that is developed with certain traits can be quite different from a flock of the same breed that is selected for different traits. A hatchery bird of any breed is likely to lay more than a breeder raised bird of the same breed unless the breeder is specifically selecting for egg laying. If a breeder is selecting for early maturity then their birds will generally mature earlier than hatchery birds or a breeder not selecting for early maturity. These tend to put on size earlier but the meat may develop texture and flavor earlier than others of the same breed.

One pretty big factor in when they are ready is how you want to cook them. The older they get the more flavor and texture they tend to have. Many people used to the chickens they buy at the store get turned off by older chickens. The ones at the store are the Cornish X, butchered at 6 to 8 weeks of age. They are very tender because they are so young and taste pretty bland compared to older chickens, but if that is what you are used to then you might not like older chickens.

A young chicken can be cooked any way you want. At a certain age, often between 12 and 14 weeks depending on individual tastes, they can become pretty tough if fried or grilled. How you fry them can make a difference too. After another length of time they can become challenging for roasting and need to be cooked another way. Generally the older the bird the slower it needs to be cooked and the more moisture you need. Coq au Vin, Chicken and Dumplings, and chicken stew are traditional ways to cook really old birds. Some people use a pressure cooker or a crock pot to get really tender meat but some people may consider that meat to be mushy. Everybody has different tastes, I don't know what yours or your family's are.

Some people butcher cockerels at 12 weeks so they can be fried but there is very little meat there in dual purpose breeds. Or they want to cook them before they start crowing if they are not allowed to have roosters. A lot like to butcher around 15 or 16 weeks because that is often when the cockerels start to get really amorous with the pullets, often violently. Their behaviors may influence when they are butchered more than any efficiency in meat. One member on here butchers his at 14 weeks, he is happy with the way he can grill them and he has bred his to pack on meat pretty early. My target age for cockerels is 23 weeks. I bake mine instead of grilling and mine forage for a lot of their own food so my feed costs aren't that high. Mine seem to hit a food to weight gain plateau at 23 weeks. His would probably hit that plateau earlier because of the way he bred them.

Pullets tend to not be that meaty anyway compared to cockerels and are slower to develop texture and flavor. A lot of the cockerels flavor and probably texture is because of their hormones that hit during puberty. I tend to butcher most of my pullets at 8 months after I evaluate their egg laying. I can still bake them but they probably aren't that much different in size than if I had butchered them at five months.

We are all unique, there are just too many different factors for me to be able to tell you what is the best age for you to butcher. My suggestion in that is to try different things and try to find your sweet spot.

 

[Acre4Me]

The importance of heritage breeds to me is more-so conserving the breeds our great-grandparents raised that were able to feed and provide for whole families. Not so much show chicken quality.

Here is a link you might be interested in(Livestock conservancy):

https://livestockconservancy.org/index.php/heritage/internal/poultry-breeds

and the 2018 American Poultry Association Standard of Perfection: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/th...MIqNWxmLLm3wIVTdbACh0ReQpKEAQYAiABEgLu4fD_BwE

 

[aliciaplus3]

I am so glad you commented! You've gotten me so excited! What breed(s) do you have? Thanks so much for your insight!

I suffer from a mild disorder called "all the colors" where I have tried many breeds(and cross breeds) trying to get all the egg colors I desire(ok all of them)... Right now I have decided to continue forward with some Delaware and Delaware cross, Turken(my own cross with Big Size), Ameracaunas(for the blue /green eggs), I also have some Cuckoo marans cross, some wellsummer,(both for Dark eggs), some Black Australorps, and some White leghorns..... my big concentration right now is twords the crosses from my Delaware with my Big white roo(he was a gift not sure on breed but Big, like 14 pounds) here is one of the offspring I managed to hatch in september he is 13 weeks in the pic and standing in front of a 6 month old german bielfelder, he weighed in at 5 pounds at 12 weeks.

all the reading I have done on the Delaware states that they were originally designed for making broilers. So they should be able to be bred back to that.

 

[aliciaplus3]

This is really great info!

The importance of heritage breeds to me is more-so conserving the breeds our great-grandparents raised that were able to feed and provide for whole families. Not so much show chicken quality.

I'm glad you said that, I probably would've gotten only what I (think) I need.

Is it better to have a broody hen that stops laying and takes care of her own chicks? Or to raise all the babies in a brooder so she will continuously lay for you? What breeds do you have and why did you pick them and what do you like about them? How do you know when a cockerel or pullet is ready for butchering?

The broody bit is more of a personal preference, some folks like to have the hen do all the work of raising the babies and integrating them into the flock, while others want them to be laying eggs during that time preferring to use and incubator and brooder. I have tried both( some of my hens made terrible mothers, and only went broody on their terms when i was not ready for more chicks) I Love my incubator!

 

[Morrigan]

I decided red barred chickens would be really attractive, they were. I eventually made red mottled and black mottled chickens that laid blue or green eggs and went broody a lot. Then I decided that red shade was too dark and I needed to lighten it to a softer red.

I'd love to see pictures of your birds. They sound really striking.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Here are some blue and green egg layers (Easter Eggers) from 2016 and 2017.