Newbie Chicken and duck farmer

[Pork Pie]

Hi and welcome to BYC - great that you have joined us.

I'd suggest having food available for your meat birds 24/7 as the sooner they reach slaughter weight, the better.

No clue about ducks, but these guys do - Ducks

 

[KLIL]

Hello and welcome to BYC!
You are going to love it here.
Hope to see more of your flock.
Lovely to meet you

I have documented My Flock Journey if you would like to take a look.
Started:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/my-flock-journey.1258290/

Current:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/my-flock-journey-2-0.1272608/

 

[N F C]

Loved your intro, look forward to seeing you on the forums!

 

[007Sean]

Howdy and Welcome to Backyard Chickens.

Thanks for joining us!

 

[rjohns39]

Hi and welcome to BYC We're so happy you've decided to join us

When you say COBB I'm guessing you likely got Cobb500 birds. I feed mine an 18% broiler mix from hatch to process. I have found that feeding what they can consume in 45 minutes twice per day (measured and adjusted weekly) gives me the lowest mortality rate with the largest dressed weight. At 8 weeks they dress an average of six pounds per bird and I'll generally have about 3% mortality rate. Free feeding gave me birds up to 8 pounds and a 10% mortality rate.

The pro's get a 4-5 pound bird in 8 weeks with a feed conversion rate of 2 pounds of feed per pound of dressed weight. So about 10 pounds of feed per bird. I've never been able to get better than 3.5 pounds per pound.