New meat birds

[Appylover]

Friend bought 100 CX meat birds last week. They were just day old chicks and were SUPPOSED to be a rooster special no CX birds. What she got was 100 CX pullets. Not sure if somehow they got orders crossed or what but she had 100 birds of a type she did not want. So I took 10 off her hands. Of course she had some little laying breed chicks she conviently walked me by so i got five of those lol. Anyway I brought the little buggers home set them up in their temp brooder and looked at the outside temp. It is 107 today. Out came the ice blocks and they are happily laying around them. So I hopefully will have 10 tasty birds in about 6 weeks or so.

 

[Hummingbird Hollow]

Good luck. Her misfortune may be your good fortune.

 

[Appylover]

I hope so. They settled in and started doing their job of eating like they were made to do. I will have to figure out a temp solution to put them in a secure cage in the next week or so. The ten will soon be too big to fit in my outside brooder. Going to get DH to build me a temp run to keep them in until they are big enough to let loose with my regular birds. Next year I hope to have an area built for my meat birds but these were an impulse buy. I went out to get an incubator and she had these guys. Once I grabbed them she walked me by her laying chick cage. I had to bring 5 of these home. They are set up in my living room right now.

 

[Hummingbird Hollow]

Be careful. There was a thread here last week from a guy who mixed his meat birds in with his other birds and the poor meat birds were pecked almost to death. He had to butcher them early they were in such a bad state. I have absolutely no experience in this area, but I figure we can all learn from each other's experience. You might want to have a separate pen or a tractor devoted entirely to your meat birds, or at least be prepared to build one if your other birds turn nasty.

 

[Appylover]

Yeah these guys are pretty docile in the pecking games. I will try to put them in a temp run where the other birds can see but not get to them. It may end up being big enough to keep them in. I am real limited on building space and my neighbors just had dogs rip through his hardware cloth and kill all 25 of his prize winning Pheonixes and Sumatras. Boy i could hear him screaming all the way down here. They litterally ATE a huge hole into the hardware cloth because they could not dig under.

 

[Mehjr10]

The meaties will just lay there and let the other ones pick feathers to the point of bleeding and then the whole gang will join in.. I found that out on my first batch so I had to keep them separated from the rest until their timely demise. Good Luck.

 

[Hummingbird Hollow]

For the record, I do have experience mixing young Freedom Ranger meat birds with my existing heavy-breed egg layers. While we were evacuated from our home due to the Waldo Canyon fire I was forced to let my adult layers and juvenile Freedom Rangers mingle in my sister-in-law's garage and dog run. Other than the occasional peck on the head if they were in the way of the food, my big girls pretty much left my Freedom Rangers alone. I've actually moved two of the pullets in with my layers with the idea of keeping them and seeing how they perform as layers. The FRs are submissive around the big girls (although at 10 weeks, the roosters are starting to challenge the hens through the fence) but I didn't experience any of the type of issues that were discussed in that other thread. I don't know if the difference is the breed of adult bird (I have a mixed flock with no more than 2 of any one breed) or the difference is the CX vs the FR.

 

[Appylover]

My last batch of CX's did well with the intrigrating into the main flock. After a few weeks I just treat them like other birds. We make them get up and move and not lay around. I have kids to go out and pester them. We keep the water well away from the food so they have to move to drink. My meat ratio is lower than what I have read on here but it tastes SO much better. I am HOPING to get them to 10-12 weeks old before processing them. Thats what I did with my last birds but that was before the heat set in.