Raising Meat birds on alternative feeds (ie CHEEP-ly)

[ApiaryandAviary]

Hello everyone
I am looking into getting meat birds for a change. I have the egg layers and my beautiful showy fowl BUT I have not a dedicated pen for meat eaters proir to today. Today, I have had it. The local place to get natural chicken breasts have increased the cost just over $21.00 a pound, bone in with skin. A quarter of a chicken and it costs over $21.00. I am now ready to buy chickens to raise for meat. What in your opinion are the best chickens for the job? When it comes to eggs I have that hands down. When it comes to my beauties I have them BUT I have not a clue as to what I should look for in meat birds??? Direction please.

 

[LindaB220]

Sure you've heard of fermenting veggies! Sauerkraut... Lacto-fermented pickles... You can do carrots. Green beans... All sorts of veggies. They normally require salt, but I just threw 1/2inch cubes in with the grain and some pickle juice from bubbies lacto fermented pickles to kick start it. When I say "whole grain" I mean that literally. I'm just not seeing 48hr old chicks swallowing split peas and whole grains of wheat, let alone biting bits of the squash cubes without it being mashed/processed.

Yeah, I see what you mean. I thought you meant grown chickens, but you're talking about your babies. I bought a heavy hand grinder for the whole corn. And it's a pita. I didn't realize how messy it was. Works though and I don't do a lot at a time. Even fermented my chickens will not eat whole corn ever. Spoiled. I thought that it might spoil sooner if you added veggies. Let us know if there is a downside to this. I'm very interested.

 

[RachelJG]

Hello everyone
I am looking into getting meat birds for a change. I have the egg layers and my beautiful showy fowl BUT I have not a dedicated pen for meat eaters proir to today. Today, I have had it. The local place to get natural chicken breasts have increased the cost just over $21.00 a pound, bone in with skin. A quarter of a chicken and it costs over $21.00. I am now ready to buy chickens to raise for meat. What in your opinion are the best chickens for the job? When it comes to eggs I have that hands down. When it comes to my beauties I have them BUT I have not a clue as to what I should look for in meat birds??? Direction please.

There's a forum on here dedicated to just that question that I poked around on before starting, but If you want any significant breast meat and an optimal return for your investment you get cornish/rock crosses and that's pretty much that. They are hands down the most efficient converters of feed to flesh. Most hatcheries don't even offer many (if any) other options for meat birds. If you want to keep a heritage flock then I understand there are some other good options, but that takes a lot more doing. Some day I'd like to try heritage rhode Island Reds.

 

[RachelJG]

Quick update: I think I have the "mold" (which probably wasn't ever mold to begin with) situation resolved and am going to try adding the squash and maybe BOSS back into the ferment. For the time being I have been adding them when I process everything together. My food processor blade is now dull as a butter-knife, so if I do this again I will need to come up with a better solution for grinding it... or at least ferment it longer to make it softer.
I've been messing around with making mozerella again, so whey became part of the concoction too. It's not raw whey bc. you have to heat the milk to 90 degrees F for mozerella, but still a source of protein.
I have not noticed them pecking at one-another, but have been watching closely bc. I think my feed is still low on protein compared to most. They are growing fine too (though some significantly faster than others).
The heat (highs in the mid 90s and sunny) has not been a problem I put their heat lamp on an outlet timer so it goes off in the heat of the day.
One has a bum leg and another is limping. I gave them some nutritional yeast yesterday in case those issues were caused by a vitamin B deficiency, but I think they are just injuries. I can only practically feed them twice a day, so there is a lot of fighting for the feed when it arrives.
I only have two with messy butts! This is a major improvement over last batch when 50%+ had messy butts by this time. I also saw very little diarrhea until yesterday. They are getting big enough that they kick a lot of their deep bedding (and poo) into the chick feeders, so I think that might be the issue. But they aren't quite big enough yet to use the gutter feeder. I'm looking forward to getting them on grass this Saturday and in the mean time I've taped some pieces of wood to the bottom of the chick feeders to raise them a little. Doesn't solve the problem, but maybe it helps. I wish they made the chick feeders with a 3" fin running down the top ridge. That would prevent them from roosting on it or scampering over it.
Got to go work on their pen so it will be ready for Saturday!

 

[LindaB220]

Quick update: I think I have the "mold" (which probably wasn't ever mold to begin with) situation resolved and am going to try adding the squash and maybe BOSS back into the ferment. For the time being I have been adding them when I process everything together. My food processor blade is now dull as a butter-knife, so if I do this again I will need to come up with a better solution for grinding it... or at least ferment it longer to make it softer.
I've been messing around with making mozerella again, so whey became part of the concoction too. It's not raw whey bc. you have to heat the milk to 90 degrees F for mozerella, but still a source of protein.
I have not noticed them pecking at one-another, but have been watching closely bc. I think my feed is still low on protein compared to most. They are growing fine too (though some significantly faster than others).
The heat (highs in the mid 90s and sunny) has not been a problem I put their heat lamp on an outlet timer so it goes off in the heat of the day.
One has a bum leg and another is limping. I gave them some nutritional yeast yesterday in case those issues were caused by a vitamin B deficiency, but I think they are just injuries. I can only practically feed them twice a day, so there is a lot of fighting for the feed when it arrives.
I only have two with messy butts! This is a major improvement over last batch when 50%+ had messy butts by this time. I also saw very little diarrhea until yesterday. They are getting big enough that they kick a lot of their deep bedding (and poo) into the chick feeders, so I think that might be the issue. But they aren't quite big enough yet to use the gutter feeder. I'm looking forward to getting them on grass this Saturday and in the mean time I've taped some pieces of wood to the bottom of the chick feeders to raise them a little. Doesn't solve the problem, but maybe it helps. I wish they made the chick feeders with a 3" fin running down the top ridge. That would prevent them from roosting on it or scampering over it.
Got to go work on their pen so it will be ready for Saturday!

Sounds to me like you are doing it just right. Good luck!!!!

 

[RachelJG]

I modified one of my feeders today so that it is less easy for the chicks to climb around on it. While it doesn't *prevent* them kicking bedding and poo into the feeders (or climbing over/perching on it... one of them aspires to a career as an acrobat...), my initial observations suggests that it does minimize it! I slit the ridge of the feeder with a razor blade and inserted a piece of one of those thin, floppy cutting boards. Then I glued it in place with hot glue. Here's a picture:

The one with the injured leg is now putting some weight on it and hobbling around a bit better. The limper must be better too, because I haven't been able to pick him out from the others recently

 

[carolb5]

Hello, I'm one of the original "alternative feeds" gals. My feed was ground and then fermented oats, wheat and barley bought in bulk. My protein was ground scraps of meat left over from butchering our own beef and some deer scraps also. I freeze it.

I asked and searched for recommendations of how much meat to feed to get enough protein. No solid answers so I guessed. I should have fed higher amounts of meat earlier than I did actually. But I came up with (near the end) with feeding 2 pounds of meat mixed with a feed scoop of fermented grains twice a day plus fermented grains mid day.

I had heavy losses early do to it being cool-cold and wet and improper protein levels. They grew slowly until I upped the amount of meat. No flip here. Ha, Ha. And I fed longer trying to get the weights up for a better return on my investment.

The actual purchase of the chicks was more than the cost of either the grain or dollar value of the meat scraps if I were to purchase scraps.

Will I do it again? Next August!!! I will feed Nutri-balance? vitamin, mineral supplement along with the fermented grains and the meat scraps.

I'm glad I did experiment. I just wanted to see if I could raise meats with the same types of feeds as I do my layers. I have also upped their protein levels some and we are getting more eggs now.

By the way, they did NOT stink like I've heard. The ferment probably helped there. And lots of ventilation. They ran, perched, flew around. They didn't lay next to the feed bowl. They were basically chickens with a waddle.

And the poop!! Yes, is was considerable. I'm a gardener, so this is just a bonus.

I hope this will help someone, just wanted to report in.

Carol

 

[Findtex]

Hello, I'm one of the original "alternative feeds" gals. My feed was ground and then fermented oats, wheat and barley bought in bulk. My protein was ground scraps of meat left over from butchering our own beef and some deer scraps also. I freeze it.

I asked and searched for recommendations of how much meat to feed to get enough protein. No solid answers so I guessed. I should have fed higher amounts of meat earlier than I did actually. But I came up with (near the end) with feeding 2 pounds of meat mixed with a feed scoop of fermented grains twice a day plus fermented grains mid day.

I had heavy losses early do to it being cool-cold and wet and improper protein levels. They grew slowly until I upped the amount of meat. No flip here. Ha, Ha. And I fed longer trying to get the weights up for a better return on my investment.

The actual purchase of the chicks was more than the cost of either the grain or dollar value of the meat scraps if I were to purchase scraps.

Will I do it again? Next August!!! I will feed Nutri-balance? vitamin, mineral supplement along with the fermented grains and the meat scraps.

I'm glad I did experiment. I just wanted to see if I could raise meats with the same types of feeds as I do my layers. I have also upped their protein levels some and we are getting more eggs now.

By the way, they did NOT stink like I've heard. The ferment probably helped there. And lots of ventilation. They ran, perched, flew around. They didn't lay next to the feed bowl. They were basically chickens with a waddle.

And the poop!! Yes, is was considerable. I'm a gardener, so this is just a bonus.

I hope this will help someone, just wanted to report in.

Carol

Enjoyed the read, well done, it is good to hear about how other people do it. I use a lot of fish as a protein source in an attempt to get Omega-3 chickens http://www.findtex.com.au/

 

[Findtex]

My new chicken feeders, made 3 today from offcuts I scored.

 

[AKCharle]

How do you calculate your protein percentage in your homemade feed? I need another source of protein since I don't have access to enough meat scraps to use as a protein source and we don't grow alfalfa here. I can get barley, oats, and wheat here in Alaska but I need a protein. How do you make bone meal and blood meal? To be clear I guess what I'm asking for is a recipe for my feed.
Recipe:
1 gallon barley
1 gallon oats
1 gallon wheat
??? protein of what kind???