Raising Meat Birds in Suburbia?

jennyf

Songster
Apr 24, 2016
440
143
121
Missouri
Anyone have any tips or can share what setup works for them? We just have a 1/4 acre lot and most of what we can sacrifice out of that for run space has gone to our six layers. We would definitely start small, five or so? I'm thinking I could build a 5x5 garden coop that could also be used for a grow out pen if this endeavor doesn't turn out to work. I don't mind scooping poop a few times a day, do that anyway now for our layers. For now we'd be either using a nearby processor or hopefully a guy at the local deer processor who's willing to let newbies use his equipment and provide some guidance (offsite). Or is raising meat birds in the city a totally bad idea and I just need to wait a few years till we have a place in the country?
1f642.png
 
Lots of people have good luck with a movable pen. Cover the top with a tarp and move it at least once a day. Hoop coups are pretty light weight. Look on YouTube for ideas or if it is pretty well secured you might just let them free-range with the layers. Meat birds actually are healthy and less problems if allowed to free-range.
 
Awesome! I'd love to see how it goes for you!

I can't believe it but we're considering adding 8 meat birds to our layer order just so that I can have them arrive Feb 6th instead of April 3rd! Craziness! I can't find a processor locally easily enough so it may be me processing them with my city-boy (but willing to try and be brave for $2 a bird) 13 year old....I can see it being comically disastrous, lol!
 
8-10 is what I'm thinking too. I think I'm going to need to abandon the tractor idea (little kids in backyard and loads of chicken poop in backyard not a great mix). I plan to use the garage as their coop and make an connected outdoor area. There's a processor who is supposed to be good about 2 hours away but probably just need to suck it up and do it myself, since one of the whole points of this is that I know they had a good life and a quick end. Wish I had a 13 year old helper--mine's 6 and not likely to be much, um, help. :)
 
Well, I did it. I added 10 meat birds to my order for the beginning of March!

I'll be brooding them in the garage in a separate (from the layers) tall brooder - tall to keep the dog away from all of them should she get into the garage on accident.
Once I'm sure the temps are high enough midday to not shock them, they will make "field trips" into a temporary garden run to enjoy some sun and scratch around in safety. I'll be able to reuse the run for the layers to till portions of the garden, so I'm happy to go ahead and build that. Then they'll go back to the safety of the garage brooder once the sun or temps go back down. I'm hoping to get my hands on a few of those huge display boxes that they have watermelons, pumpkins, and big bags of oranges in in the grocery stores. They are big, strong, and once connected up they would become plenty of room as the meaties grow!
 

New posts New threads Active threads

Back
Top Bottom