questions about meat bird side of the coop

[belibutn]

I am building a large coop divided into 2 sections, meat and eggs. The meat side is twice as large as the egg side (12x6). I have questions though about what all I should put into it. I have been reading Storey's Guid To Raising Chickens, and it says that broilers should not have roosts, since it can cause breast blisters and foot problems. I plan on harvesting the birds between 8 and 12 weeks and they will be cornish rocks crosses. Should I put roosts in. I would think that they would enjoy them and like to use them, but I dont want to do anything that will end up hurting them.

 

[willheveland]

If you put a board on the ground they may perch on it.But you won't be able to have it off the ground because they are too heavy to fly up there.Their bellys are really low to the ground too so a board my be a harm to them also. Will

 

[belibutn]

aaah, OK, thanks. Now, I feel like I just have way too much room for them, but at least we have room to expand

Thanks

 

[suburbanhomesteader]

Having done meat birds and egg birds, I personally would give the egg birds the bigger space.

Most of the meat birds I had sat around 90% of the day (unless they wanted food or water), but they didn't seem to be the curious, active beings that my egg birds are.

Without being cruel, I think you could easily raise your meat birds in just 4 square feet per bird (but you have to have a good method of changing the bedding, which will get disgusting at a rate 10x faster than the egg birds' bedding will get).

I agree; NO ROOSTS for the meat birds. You are not going to believe how huge these things get, and how fast they get there. They are not cut out to be hopping around; in fact, if they have to hop down from a roost (even one 6" off the ground), they look like they are going to break their legs (which are notoriously weak in relation to the size of the bird, anyway).

Also, I processed my cornish crosses at 8 weeks and they ended up being normal chicken size. I held off processing a couple of them until 12 weeks and they were the size of small turkeys! Cooking and taste-wise, veryone preferred the 8 week birds to the 12 week birds.

That's my two cents.