Red Broiler question

[Merryment]

I live in town and am allowed 6 hens and 15 immature birds. We have the full complement of hens, but I wanted to get some red broilers for meaties. Thing is, they only come as straight run, and we're not supposed to have roos in town.

My question is, if I send these birds to freezer camp at 10 weeks, will I be processing them before they are likely to crow?

Thanks for any advice.

 

[Jschaaff]

Hello! I am unfamiliar with the red broilers, but I have 6 week old Cornish X's (6 weeks yesterday) and several days ago, the largest roo started crowing about 5:30 am. He does not do it every morning, but is definitely finding his voice. We can not have roos, so processing day may be coming a little quicker than expected. I am not sure if its the same for reds, but yes, my Cornish X's definitely crow.

Good luck!
-Jessa

 

[luvanimals2]

Hopefully, others will answer but I know the Red Broilers were not ready to be processed until around 13-14 weeks. I have had the roos crow right around there so you should be okay. Otherwise, the Cornish are processed around 6-7- or 8 weeks and they are no where near mature to crow.

Nancy

 

[luvanimals2]

I was typing at the same time. WOW! Granted I have not raised that many Cornish but I have never had them crow. Never say never I guess.

Nancy
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[Jschaaff]

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Too funny!! Yes it was quite unexpected, and perhaps it is not the norm, so maybe others with more experience than I have, will chime in here and tell us I'm nuts

!! But yeah, that little (okay..at this point, there is nothing little about him!) guy decided to let us know he's there. He's the only one though, the others, male and female, just kind of "chirp".

-Jessa

 

[Merryment]

Thanks! Yeah, I know the Cornish X males are sometimes very precocious, but I'm hoping maybe not so much so with the Reds. Guess we could 'go to Talequah' (where the processor is) twice if we have to.

I feed out our extra pullets every year, but that's 18 weeks, and I don't want to have the meaties around that long. So I may just roll the dice with the straight run chicks & see how it goes. Fortunately, I'm on pretty good terms with my neighbors as well.