Raising orpingtons for meat

PandaGirl

Chirping
Jan 27, 2021
96
73
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Hi there!
I have a flock of Buff/White/Lavender Orpingtons. They should be starting to lay for me any day now. I had the hope of raising some birds for meat this summer and had some questions. 1) How long do you grow Orpingtons before they are ready to butcher. 2) How many meals could you get out of a one Orpington ( I know that they are big and I hoping that I can get more than one) 3) How many do you butcher per year to provide chicken all year round, ( also, how many people do have to feed because I know that it will affect it.) 4) Obviously I only have so big a coop, and so big a yard and if I am raising 15 birds they will not all fit into my coop. What do you guys suggest? Also, would I need to worry about keeping them apart from my layer? Thanks, I know that there are a lot of questions!
 
How you want to cook them goes by age.
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Me and our family also want to start raising our own meat chickens and we were thinking about getting Orpington‘s or Wyandotte’s because those are pretty big breeds. We just don’t know where we would butcher them because we live in a small neighborhood. But we found lots of meat chickens on craigslist for the people actually butcher them at their farm. It is a bit more pricey but at least you know where your meat came from and that they were raised good!
 
I have an orpingtom hatched in about may. She is huge. Bigger than the chickens I can buy at the store. And easily my largest pullet by far.

I have 2 hatched on Aug 8 with a mixed bunch of other chicks. They are easily the largest of the batch. I would compare them to the chickens i buy at the store now.
 
I have an orpingtom hatched in about may. She is huge. Bigger than the chickens I can buy at the store. And easily my largest pullet by far.

I have 2 hatched on Aug 8 with a mixed bunch of other chicks. They are easily the largest of the batch. I would compare them to the chickens i buy at the store now.
Where did you get your birds? From what I can see, if you get your bird from a breeder they will be bigger than a hatchery bird.
 
It would be both.
So I’m copy/pasting from a googled site. You aren’t raising Cornish Cross chickens or alternative meat chicken.
Orpington would be in this category: “In general, any breed that is not a Cornish Cross or alternative meat breed can be processed between 4 and 10 months of age without it getting too old and tough.”
 

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