Please advise on meat bird chicks

[Timmy59]

Ours are 16 weeks on 1-2-21 and kicking tail.. We have not weighed them but they make dwarphs of the Meyer white rocks.. We purchased for a sustainable meat bird and it looks like they'll fit the bill.. I am very pleased with them and look forward to seeing some hefty breeders come the green season.. Still not a loss 1, bought 25, sold 11 roos and kept 4 and all 10 pullets.. They are not as neat kept as the white rock and will dump on 1 another..

 

[RoosterML]

Ours are 16 weeks on 1-2-21 and kicking tail.. We have not weighed them but they make dwarphs of the Meyer white rocks.. We purchased for a sustainable meat bird and it looks like they'll fit the bill.. I am very pleased with them and look forward to seeing some hefty breeders come the green season.. Still not a loss 1, bought 25, sold 11 roos and kept 4 and all 10 pullets.. They are not as neat kept as the white rock and will dump on 1 another..

What are they?

 

[Timmy59]

What are they?

They are the Welp slo grow broilers..
Nice avatar..

 

[Xouie]

Ours are 16 weeks on 1-2-21 and kicking tail.. We have not weighed them but they make dwarphs of the Meyer white rocks.. We purchased for a sustainable meat bird and it looks like they'll fit the bill.. I am very pleased with them and look forward to seeing some hefty breeders come the green season.. Still not a loss 1, bought 25, sold 11 roos and kept 4 and all 10 pullets.. They are not as neat kept as the white rock and will dump on 1 another..

Those are some good looking birds!

 

[hysop]

Ours are 16 weeks on 1-2-21 and kicking tail.. We have not weighed them but they make dwarphs of the Meyer white rocks.. We purchased for a sustainable meat bird and it looks like they'll fit the bill.. I am very pleased with them and look forward to seeing some hefty breeders come the green season.. Still not a loss 1, bought 25, sold 11 roos and kept 4 and all 10 pullets.. They are not as neat kept as the white rock and will dump on 1 another..

I thought meat birds were supposed to be ready in 8-9 weeks. Or what’s the benefit of them taking longer to grow?*

 

[Timmy59]

I thought meat birds were supposed to be ready in 8-9 weeks. Or what’s the benefit of them taking longer to grow?*

Those said birds are developed for that fast growth and because of such have a short poor quality life or another words a close expiration date.. Hopefully these birds will have a normal chicken life and thrive..
https://www.welphatchery.com/meat-type-broilers/broiler-slow-white-straight-run/

 

[Xouie]

The responses and advice this thread has received are wonderful. I have referred back to many of the posts and learned so much. This was a great experience, but I won’t be repeating it again soon just because we ended up with about 150 pounds of the best chicken meat ever.

We ended up with 25 of the 26 Cornish cross chicks going to butchering age (we lost the free one the first week). Because of this incredible result, we processed in batches at weeks 5-8, choosing from the largest weight group each week. The final average live weight per bird was in the 8 lb range (smallest few were 7.5 lbs, largest were 10 lbs).

Some notes:

• Fed 30% protein gamebird crumble the first week, 24 hours per day.
• Gave daily health checks from day one. This had the humorous result of many of the birds lining up for attention, sometimes more than once.
• Murray McMurray Broiler Booster in the water from unboxing to slaughter. CX go through a LOT of water. They were emptying a 7 gallon waterer daily.
• Fed chick/gamebird blend of about 24% after the first week. I let them have 24-hour access at first, restricting at bedtime after 3 more weeks.
• Attempted outside free range/exercise time, but it was too cold for them. So I would walk from one end of the shed to the other several times at health check time so they would follow.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

The responses and advice this thread has received are wonderful. I have referred back to many of the posts and learned so much. This was a great experience, but I won’t be repeating it again soon just because we ended up with about 150 pounds of the best chicken meat ever.

We ended up with 25 of the 26 Cornish cross chicks going to butchering age (we lost the free one the first week). Because of this incredible result, we processed in batches at weeks 5-8, choosing from the largest weight group each week. The final average live weight per bird was in the 8 lb range (smallest few were 7.5 lbs, largest were 10 lbs).

Some notes:

• Fed 30% protein gamebird crumble the first week, 24 hours per day.
• Gave daily health checks from day one. This had the humorous result of many of the birds lining up for attention, sometimes more than once.
• Murray McMurray Broiler Booster in the water from unboxing to slaughter. CX go through a LOT of water. They were emptying a 7 gallon waterer daily.
• Fed chick/gamebird blend of about 24% after the first week. I let them have 24-hour access at first, restricting at bedtime after 3 more weeks.
• Attempted outside free range/exercise time, but it was too cold for them. So I would walk from one end of the shed to the other several times at health check time so they would follow.

Would LOVE to know how much feed you ran thru in that two month period. That's a fantastic result when compared to my extremely limited and less organized efforts.

 

[Xouie]

The amounts below are approximate and rounded up because our quail and CX share feed.

5 bags each:
30% purina gamebird starter, 40 lbs
20% dumor non-med chick starter, 50 lbs

<1 bag poultry scratch, used about 25 lbs (they didn’t get a lot of corn because they refused to exercise).

So the high end guess is that we fed up to 450 lbs of feed. These guys grew muscle mass so fast their feathers and skin could barely keep up. We had some 10 lb cockerels at 7 weeks. I was super worried they would just keel over, so I was checking up on them multiple times a day.

Edit: in case you’re wondering, in Bay Area dollars the chicks + feed + booster came up to about $200.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

The amounts below are approximate and rounded up because our quail and CX share feed.

5 bags each:
30% purina gamebird starter, 40 lbs
20% dumor non-med chick starter, 50 lbs

<1 bag poultry scratch, used about 25 lbs (they didn’t get a lot of corn because they refused to exercise).

So the high end guess is that we fed up to 450 lbs of feed. These guys grew muscle mass so fast their feathers and skin could barely keep up. We had some 10 lb cockerels at 7 weeks. I was super worried they would just keel over, so I was checking up on them multiple times a day.

Edit: in case you’re wondering, in Bay Area dollars the chicks + feed + booster came up to about $200.

Thank you, doing mental math with local prices now. This was very helpful!