Meat chickens in the winter?

[atucker]

We are thinking of trying our hands at some meat chickens... I am thinking heritage breed so they will need to be housed for longer, 6 months is what I am seeing...
I have read a lot about meat chickens and not needing a coop, just a run and places inside of it to roost... But what about in the winter? If the run has a roof so they are fully enclosed... will they not freeze? Winter here can get cold in Maine...

Seems like you have to have closer to 30 to turn a real profit? Sorry if this all sounds dumb, there is so many articles and opinions online I figured I'd ask the real professionals here lol!!

 

[Ridgerunner]

When people talk about "meat chickens" they are usually talking about the Cornish X or Rangers, not heritage or dual purpose chickens. You can look at Cornish X or Rangers as meat specialists, they put on meat so fast. I kinda look at them as special needs chickens too as they grow so fast they may need to be treated differently. Also, it is really hard to hatch your own CX or Rangers from your own eggs so you pretty much have to buy baby chicks. With this group of people on here somebody is likely to try about anything and occasionally even make it work so I'll talk in generalities.

In general, the heritage/dual purpose chickens that we raise for meat aren't really that different from a backyard laying flock. Oh, some of us may feed them a special diet but housing and such is basically the same. So, yes, if you are keeping them over the winter in Maine they need some protection from the weather but also good ventilation.

Unless you get really cold they do not need protection from cold after they reach a certain age. Baby chicks need heat. One cold weather expert in Alaska says he notices a change around -20 Fahrenheit, I don't know if you see that or not. I have not experienced those temperatures raising chickens myself. Protection from cold generally means give them decent ventilation so they can exchange good air for bad and keep breezes from hitting them. The colonists and pioneers managed this long before electricity.

iwltfum makes some good points. A fairly typical model for many of us is to hatch our own eggs in the spring or early summer and have all of them in the freezer before winter. Not that we all do that, we are each different. There are many different ways we can go about this. Some are for out own consumption, some for sale. Some hatch our own eggs (what do you do with the pullets) some might buy baby male chicks. Some buy everything they eat, some of us depend a lot on forage or what we grow.

The more you can tell us about what you are trying to accomplish and why you want to do certain things the more we may be able to help. Knowing what you have to work with can help too. We can warn you of things that can be a problem but also may give you ways to handle that. To me it's easier to discuss specific things than to just talk generalities.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Thank you so much for your response!! I currently own layers and some baby chicks, with hopes to start selling eggs once the chicks are laying.. I was thinking of getting a rooster and then though of hatching some of my own as meat birds. My ladies are dual purpose and a mixed flock. I though perhaps I would keep the best meat breeds with a Salmon Faverolles Rooster and then hatching some of these eggs for meat. My next thought was that if I hatched 8 every 21 days or so I could have a constant rotation of birds in and birds out... but that would mean suppling housing for 48 meat birds...and as they are all different age levels they wouldnt all get along I can only imagine... I would most likely need a seperate coop just for the roosters that would be hatched (I hear they wont fight to the death if not hens are present for them) and if they take 6 months to reach of age... then I would have to do this year round... I hoped to make enough profit to cover the cost of their food as well as meat for myself... It looks good on paper, and I am not afraid of putting the work in, building the coops, feeding, water, cleaning out the coops year round... But I also dont want to get into this and loose money relizing it was a bad idea...

This whole thing probably sounds crazy to people who do this, but it is new to me and I am still figuring it out so please be patient with me! lol

Long term goal is to have a self sustainable farm that I can profit from... but were talking down the road, way down lol! Chickens and garden just seemed like a good place to start.

Good you are asking questions and doing the math first.

I'm currently doing what you are sort of hinting at, you can see my flock below. I set 12 eggs for incubation every three weeks (plus a few days), get between 6-9 hatchings on average recently, 50% are male, so I can take two birds a week for my wife and I to eat and maintain flock numbers. More than half my flock is under laying age, so in spite of having 50+ birds, I get only 10 eggs a day or so right now. (that WILL change shortly - I hatched ducks between Feb and April, so I'm in a lull as I wait for birds to age up) We eat a dozen or so a week, allow for an "extra" dozen every third week for incubation, and suddenly you aren't generating even two flats a week for sale. Lucky to cover feed costs, certainly no profit in it - and that's before considering licensing, equipment, advertising, LLC formation, or any of the other things you might do to build a business.

This comes out of my entertainment budget, and is part of a long term investment I'm making in my acres. So as you work out your budget, you shold also consider your time scale, and the maximum size of your potential investment.

Backyard chickens are the most expensive eggs you will ever eat.

 

[Ridgerunner]

There is no way we can compete on price with the commercial egg layers or the commercial meat providers. They have way too many advantages. If you are going to make a business of it, especially beyond a "pocket-change" type of business, you have to fill a niche so you can charge higher than normal prices. A lot of the marketing words like natural, free-range, organic, cage-free, pastured, and others may not have a legal meaning or may actually mean something quite different than commonly thought. I don't know what country you are in so I really don't know what they mean where you are. Still, marketing names like these can help you find a niche.

Long term goal is to have a self sustainable farm that I can profit from... but were talking down the road, way down lol! Chickens and garden just seemed like a good place to start.

If you go into business you need to find out what the legal requirements are. In the USA unless you are crossing state lines or exceed a certain volume Federal rules often don't pertain to you. Each state has its own rules, different for eggs and meat. Counties and cities often have even more. If you sell at a farmer's market there may be even more. Some of these depend on volume or where you sell them. If you sell to a restaurant you may have different inspection and licensing requirements. There is a difference in selling a few eggs to friends and neighbors to help pay for the feed than trying to make enough to pay food and utility bills. Meat can have more restrictions, eggs are generally easier.

You mentioned 48 meat birds a year. How much profit per bird would you need to make to pay your electricity bill this month, let alone your internet bill? You are not going to make a big profit unless you scale things up.

I grew up on a subsistence farm. Money was TIGHT. We raised almost everything we ate. The work day was LONG. Trips and vacations were pretty much non-existent since we had animals to care for, our working relatives visited us when they had a vacation. We might visit nearby relatives on Sunday afternoons when Dad could afford gas. Our cash crops were tobacco and cattle. There is a lot of romance in getting back to nature and this simpler lifestyle but that usually works a lot better if somebody has a job, especially with benefits. You can certainly look at finding a way to make a profit in the future but right now I'd suggest your initial goal should be to feed yourself and your animals.

I also dont want to get into this and loose money relizing it was a bad idea.

Don't give up on your dream and keep asking questions. But take baby steps until you can see for yourself what is involved. Be flexible, nothing ever works out as you think it will. It is very possible you'll come up with a totally different way instead of selling meat. Maybe selling hatching eggs or baby chicks from your laying flock. Or green eggs. You can eat the cockerels hatched from your laying flock, they just might not be as big as "meat" chickens. Maybe you decide to buy Cornish X chicks to raise to sell as organic or pastured, you can do a cycle of them every 8 or so weeks, maybe 3 batches a year.

Chickens can be a big part in a self-sustaining farm, not necessary in bringing in money. If they can forage they can pretty much feed themselves during the good weather months at east. Can't get much more efficient than that. Eggs will probably be a lot more important to your diet than the meat, but the meat is a nice benefit. Just like your garden that can be cyclic, production will drop in winter.

I hoped to make enough profit to cover the cost of their food as well as meat for myself

This is different than I was talking about above, certainly doable. Many people cover the cost of feed just from egg sales though it still helps to be filling a niche so you can charge more. One problem with egg sales though is that egg production is seasonable and customers often want a steady supply.

Mature hens usually molt in the fall and quit laying. Often some pullets will skip the molt their first winter and keep laying straight through until the next fall, when they molt. Also, the older the hens get the less they lay after a certain point. You cannot totally eliminate this but you can reduce the impact. Every year I cycle in new pullets and retire older "spent" hens. You can eat those old hens too. I suggest chicken and dumplings but there are plenty of other recipes too.

Some people get hung up on the size of a cockerel if they are going to eat them. I don't. For thousands of years small farmers have eaten cockerels that were not huge meat chickens. For some purposes size is important but regardless, they all taste like chicken.

One model I propose you consider. Get a rooster and put him with your laying flock. Sell the eggs. Determine how many chickens you might want to eat per year and try to hatch that many if you eat pullets. Or hatch twice as many, eat the cockerels, and sell the pullets. I can think of one guy that pays for the feed by selling the pullets. Forget about raising a special breed for meat, at least for the near future. That just makes it too complicated.

I eat my pullets and need to hatch about 40 to 45 chicks a year to get the meat I need. I also have limited freezer space, I need it for garden and orchard stuff. I hatch about 20 chicks in February or early March so I don't run out in the freezer then hatch smaller batches, usually with broody hens but sometimes in the incubator, to get the number I need. As long as you give them enough room different age groups can get along. I keep a few of the pullets to replace older hens. There is a learning curve on how to make something like this work for you, you will need to tweak it.

My next thought was that if I hatched 8 every 21 days or so I could have a constant rotation of birds in and birds out

To control when and how many eggs you set you have to use an incubator or sometimes two. You cannot rely on broody hens for that. They go broody when they want, if they go broody at all. You can use two incubators, one to incubate and one as a hatcher, and get weekly hatches if you want. If you decide to sell baby chicks that could be useful. But as you mentioned, for your model the logistics don't work well. I'd be thinking of a few larger hatches. You can make that work.

 

[RUNuts]

Shavings will layer and pack. Need lots of turning to get them going and stay aerated. If you mix them with something bulky, you may have better luck. I suggest wood chips or some type of large mulch.

I use yard waste and junk mail. The county dump shreds yard waste and it's free for the taking as mulch, compost or wood chips. Quality varies with what was shredded. I've recycled wood chips, hay bales (those cute fall decorations or rotting bales from a barn), grass clippings, leaves and banana trees (can't kill them) from the dump. I target the wood chips for the chickens and the composted stuff for the garden. Fill empty feed bags once and dump when and where you want them.

The figs this year are golf ball size. Last year was half that. This includes using chicken compost around the figs. Compost, flattened boxes for weed deterrent and topped with wood chips. I'm still feeding the soil, but there are areas that are black and rich.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Leaf litter from my surrounding forest. Its an upland hardwood hammock, technically, so there isn't much pine needle, unlike most of FL. Leaves of oak, hickory, youpon holly primarily, plus some pine and laurels, and others I have yet to identify.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Chicken droppings are "hot" compost, high nitrogen, and thus can "burn" certain sensitive plants. The highe the protein in the feed you offer them, the higher the nitrogen, and the "hotter" (as in, more likely to burn your plants) the compost.

Easist way is to add it to brown matter and let it break down naturally (which is what we who deep litter method are doing). You can also add it wholesale to a raised bed you intend to let lay fallow for a season - till it in a few months later, plant as normal. Or you can let them free range on so many acres the droppings are too widely scattered to have obvious effect (or ability for you togather and scoop the poop).

Between those extremes, there's a lot of options.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Chickens have a temperature range of tolerance MUCH wider (and lower) than ours - they are, after all, wearing down jackets. But food energy turned into staying warm, instead of putting on weight, will hurt finished weights. Free ranging or a big run in which to exercise improves flavor, but adds toughness. Age improves flavor, but adds toughness.

There are all the above mentioned "you are miserable in that weather" management issues with waterers and bedding etc.

While I'm in FL (in part because of the "too damned cold for me" winter of the far northern States), I would recommend against. I don't see how you could make the numbers work, particularly with what is likely to be a relatively low weight, unusually tough product.

 

[Molpet]

I use broodies to hatch and raise. The ones that hatch around Thanksgiving do take more feed and don't grow as fast. Have had frostbite toes issues because they pile up on the floor and dont roost.
I discourage winter broodies.
I harvest my meat mutt chickens around 16 weeks. 4 to 6 lbs .Some Hatchery heritage dress out around 3lbs at that age.

 

[Molpet]

Feeding breeding stock pretty much eats up any profits. IF you have a niche market buyers available, like organic heritage, you might have a good chance. Finding people willing to pay just the feed cost that goes into it is difficult in most places. But you don't know until you try.