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rjohns39 said:
Just for reference, a 55 gallon drum holds 300 pounds of feed, a 5 gallon bucket about 25 pounds. Layers that have forage available typically provide max yield at 4 1/2 oz of feed per day per bird. A couple 5 gallon food grade buckets with an omni lid might serve you well.
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Good information!

That's actually more than I thought. If I had 25 layers, that would be more than 7 lbs/day. I'll probably end up with only 5 layers and a cock, but I'm planning to grow out two straight runs of 25 first--one of Rock-Cornish crosses this Fall for learning and the freezer, and then one of Buff Orpingtons next year, to eat most and establish breeders.

I can see I have more calculations to do.
 
I did and experiment with meat birds last fall, not sure if the info would be useful to you or not but here's the thread. My results were terrible. https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/the-grand-experiment.1275258/

With the CX I recommend Sunrise Broiler from start to finish. I couldn't get it for my experiment. I also prefer McMurray hatchery for meat birds, but there's no way to control what type you get. But I had really good results with their birds, sunrise feed and spring/summer grass.
 
rjohns39 said:
I did and experiment with meat birds last fall, not sure if the info would be useful to you or not but here's the thread. My results were terrible. https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/the-grand-experiment.1275258/

With the CX I recommend Sunrise Broiler from start to finish. I couldn't get it for my experiment. I also prefer McMurray hatchery for meat birds, but there's no way to control what type you get. But I had really good results with their birds, sunrise feed and spring/summer grass.
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That is a fascinating thread, and very valuable, as several on there said. It looked like weather might have been a confound in your experiment, but you still learned a lot, and had the sense to keep on recording things when the wheels were coming off. As others said, definitely a success.

That kind of thing is also why I want a straight run of crosses to grow out for broilers, to learn. At 25 birds, it's not going to be quite so overwhelming when things go wrong, and some of them (probably half) I plan to process at the "game hen" size. The rest will go to 12 weeks, giving me the winter to think about and apply what I learn, before starting Orpingtons for eggs and meat. Even if the initial results are poor, I'm still planning to eat what I grow, not make a profit on them.

Thank you again for the wonderful help!
 

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