Having great success raising Brahma's, Silkies, and other bantams as day-old chicks, so I thought I'd try my hand at a few meat chickens. FIL volunteered to help me when "harvest" day came, so off to TSC I went. Figured 25 was a good number. They had 14 left the day I arrived, already feathering out nicely so definitely not brand-new chicks. While loading them into the box, more arrived! I decided to just take the 25 new chicks that arrived and put the older 14 back, however the salesman offered to give me the older 14 for $1 each if I took them too. After negotiating, I got all 39 for $1 each! Great deal, right? So now I have 39 rapidly growing chicks and am amazed at how different they are from my other chickens. The Cornish Rocks are flighty, stinky, and seem to have half a brain in their heads. No interest in me beyond giving them feed and water (which is fine - they are to be meat birds after all). They ingest an immense amount of food and water and create an amazing amount of waste. Their behavior is even entirely different from the other chickens. They are now separated into 2 brooders and it's still hard to keep up with them. It feels like I'm raising an entirely different species, not just a different breed of chicken. Anyone else feel this way? And I'm surprised to find that I'll be relieved when "harvest" day comes. Odd.
You may not be immediately relieved because 39 are likley to take more than just one processing session! But the things you have described definitely make it easy for me to do the processing.
I completely agree. My first batch of CX are 3 weeks old. They are nothing like the mixed egg layers I have. They are super flighty... to the point of piling up in the corners when I reach in. They have no personality. And they have a very off putting poo smell... compared to my egg layers. But boy to the plump up fast! I too won't be sad to see them fill up my freezer. Cheers!
While mine have no obvious personality, there are a couple that walk right up to me, most likely to see if I brought them food though, lol. Ours are about a month old and already not wanting to walk around, they just lay down a lot. Pretty boring birds!
They are different, that's for sure. Mine started to get a bit of an attitude right around 6 to 7 weeks, and actually attempted to attack my hands when I would take care of their food and water. It was pretty pathetic, but an attempt the same That was about the only personality that showed up, and the next week, they were in freezer camp. It still makes me laugh a bit how they would puff up and peck at me....and then get tired and sit down again. Lazy bums, but tasty!!
I actually find my meaties to be charming. Yes, all they think about is food and how to shove more of it down their little beaks, but I think they are funny. We put a batch of 3-week olds in the tractor today and I spent about 10mins just watching them chase each other around to try and get whatever food their mate had found. When they are older, I think their waddling walk is a hoot.
