Oboy, I've done it now!

[TyrannosaurusChix]

i only hope your calcs are correct! LOL that means my feed bill will only be about $280. that would be awesome!


They will be in tractors and will have grass to contend with

only brooders for the first weeek or so.


ive figured worse case scenario, ill have $672 tied up in the 100 birds.. ( if i make $30 back out of the 50 im gettin gfor free thats just abonus)

thats 6.72 a bird, when im spending over 5 for 3lb birds at the store... still sounds like a good deal



will update after butchering

the worst that could happen is that i wont buy meaties again.

 

[Keens2050]

"The worst that could happen is you won't buy meaties again" is what you said and I couldn't agree with you more! It was an interesting lesson on raising birds for meat. And now when we get a bird out of the freezer, we will think back to the fact that we actually bought, raised, and butchered this meat. That's way more than some people can say they've done in their lives. We paid 50 cents each for them plus the feed - probably $50 total for us, too = $5/bird. But our birds were weighing in at 5-7 lbs dressed! They were monsters!!

 

[terri9630]

I googled broiler feed conversion and most of the rates were 2.5lbs feed to 1lb gain so it SHOULD be close. I wouldn't count on them eating much grass. Granted we don't have grass here but we do have lots of weeds with the monsoon rain and they never eat them. They just poop all over them.

 

[Ariel301]

Hahaha I'm considering doing the same order you did. I want to make an order of meatbirds, just deciding if I want the cornish cross or something more like a Freedom Ranger, and that Mt. Healthy deal with the free rooster chicks sounds like a great way to get the best value for the money...150 chicks for $130 is not bad. But then I think about how annoying the excess roosters I have now are...and I imagine the 12 of them greatly multiplied, because even though the meat chick order would be split between several families, I have a feeling no one would want to take the roosters, leaving me with all 50 of them for 5 months! That's a lot of crowing!

 

[dsqard]

Quote:
Would you have to wait 5 months until the other roosters would be ready for slaughter? Just wondering if you can get the deal without the roosters or could you slaughter them earlier? Just curious

 

[TyrannosaurusChix]

LOL.. i plan on taking the extra roosters to an auction the first week of october. Ill also get to pick if i want to keep any-- i doubt ill be lucky enough to get any free hens.

If some of them get large quick , they might stick around for mealtime.

i think its important for us to get meaties at least once. i know an animal has to die for my meat. I can help.. but i dont want to inflict the killing shot unless it has attacked me or my kids. Dh is more than happy to do the slicing. After that, to me its just like a dead bird from the market.( not really but you know what im getting at)

 

[Peruvian]

Lots of questions in the OP that really should be stickies.

Square ft per bird: about 1.5 sq ft per if in a coop, 2ft+ if in a tractor. I raise batches of 30 birds in a 80 sq. ft. tractor and it's getting busy by the 8th week.

How long for lights: depends. Chicks should start in brooders at 95 deg. which can be lowered 5deg. per week until the feather out. CX feather in about 3 wks.

How much feed: CX have approx 3 to 1 feed ratio. Every 3lbs of feed should equal about 1lb of processed bird. Therefore a 5lb bird eats 15lbs of food. 15 x 100 birds = you need 1500 lbs. of feed. My batches of 30 birds and go thru 500 lbs of feed so YMMV.

 

[Ariel301]

Quote:
Would you have to wait 5 months until the other roosters would be ready for slaughter? Just wondering if you can get the deal without the roosters or could you slaughter them earlier? Just curious

Depends on the breed and bloodline, probably. I've got some barred Rocks from a friend's flock that are super chunky now at just 6 weeks old, but the big New Hampshire rooster we butchered last week at 6 months old was nothing but bones and tendons and maybe a half pound of meat, though you'd think by that time he'd be a good size, especially since he was fed on high protein feed and corn. I'm still deciding what to get...one the one hand, that's a ton of meat to get for a low price, especially since we can get a lot of free feed (brewer's grains and pasture), but then again, not sure how the family and neighborhood will stay sane if they all start crowing long before butcher time lol. I'd like to think I could sell a bunch of the freebies and cut my price per bird even more that way, but I've got several nice bantam roosters and a very pretty goat that I can't even GIVE away right now, so I don't think I can count on that. And then with getting something like Freedom Rangers or Kosher Kings that grow slower, maybe I could work on breeding some of them, which would be nice. The cornish cross will not survive July/August here once it gets very big, it is just too hot. Maybe I'll be able to get enough people interested in splitting an order to make two orders and get both lol. It might be interesting to have a pen with cornish cross, rangers, and heritage roosters all on the same feed and compare them.