raising 100 cockerels

[Me & My Peeps]

Quote:
When our local Tractor Supply has it's Chick days, they get them from Mt. Healthy. I have12 from hem and no complaints at all.

 

[crowdad]

So our chicks arrived today. We received 102 barred rock cockerels, all of them are alive and appear healthy. After reading up a bit on barred rocks I should be able to achieve 4-5lbs of dressed meat in about 18 weeks, give or take a little. Does this sound right?
How much of their own food can I expect them to gather after 12 weeks or so, will I be able to cut back on their feed? or should I continue keeping food out at all times to achieve those weights?

 

[rufus]

My father used to get little roosters for a penny a piece from the local egg farms. When they got big enough, he had an Italian guy come and fix them. Google "caponizing." My mother never let us help out because the fellow was a drinker and nasty talker.

I am not sure how they did it, but it made for a juicy, large bird.

I see the caponizing kits for sale on ebay sometimes.

We started out with them in two or three 4' x 10' tractors. We moved them to fresh grass every morning. They would pick the area bald. After a while they would be getting crowded, and we would move them to other tractors until we had about ten to a tractor.

We would eat a few as we needed them, but eventually the rest all met their fate at a meat processor.

Make sure you have a good local processor before you get too deep into this project. In my area, the health department has shut down almost all poultry processing. You have to find someone that can do them without being licensed or inspected. They have virtually forced people to deal with illegal operations. You take your chances.

If you have a carneceria or Latin American market in your area, ask them. They will tell you where to go and who to ask for.

Good Luck,

Rufus

 

[Dogfish]

I have 5 BR hens, that at 16 weeks, are about 3lbs each. I would guess that roos put on weight quicker, but I have no idea how much foo it has taken to get these birds to weight, but be prepared to buy 100lbs per week during the last few weeks near butchering.

 

[Jeremy Parker]

I did a large batch of roos before and found that you need to take them out at about 16 weeks!

if its a mix of roos they will be different sizes at harvest time!

Specials like that are normally dual purpose birds ?
There should not be any fighting if you harvest them before they are mature roos.

If you let them reach maturity they will start to get tougher and tougher (the meat I'm talking about!!)

Blessings,
Jeremy

 

[Ridgerunner]

One thing to watch for is that the hatcheries only guarantee 90% accurate sexing for a reason. It is hard even for a professional to get it right all the time. You probably have a few pullets in your flock. If you have 100% males, the fighting will be pecking order fighting and no worse than having all pullets, but with pullets in there, it can be flock dominance fighting, which can be worse. Barred Rock are not sex links so you really can't tell by looking when they are young, but the pullets tend to be darker than the males. When they are raised together, the roosters often work out the dominance issues without serious fighting, even with pullets in the flock with them, but sometimes they don't. You may want to watch and pull your pullets out and separate them from the cockerels once you are sure of sex. It will reduce fighting.

I don't weigh my birds, but I do find a pretty big difference in size amoung individuals, especially in hatchery birds. To maximize growth, you will need to keep food out at all times.

Good luck!

 

[malignstar]

I am fortunate to have a friend that picks up her orders from Cackle and is going to get some cockerels for me that are surplus. They are apparently even cheaper than the frypan special. I told her to get me 100. I want to do this once, stock my freezer and have dog and cat food for the year or two since I'll be raising other things too after the batch of chickens are gone.

 

[mstricer]

My dual roo's don't get very big till they hit around 24 wks. I did a marans over the on Monday and he only weighed 41/2 lbs, and was not what we were expecting. We let it set on ice for just around 48 hrs and his legs and thighs were alittle tough. And the breast wasn't that white and the skin, ohhhh shall I say really bad. But all in all if you didn't have anything to eat its better then nothing and all natural. Question for those who have raised dual birds, what do you feed them, that might be our issue? Crowded the noise will drive you insane, that is unless you like a boat load of roosters crowing all day long.

 

[mstricer]

opps double post

 

[D'Angelo N Va.]

Meyers has 100+birds assorted roosters for [email protected] think I am going for that in August and keep them until November, early Dec..then ...hey family come on over christmas dinner is at my house this year.