Showing a meat pen

[happyfeetfarm]

My daughter did a meat pen of broilers last year...that is all our county show does. We have to purchase them through 4H and they order through Ideal I believe. We ordered 25 this round. Any advice as far as feed and care? We have been told to start them with chick, then another says turkey starter.....what should we do?

Also, they are banded on the wings is there anything we should look for or be concerned with these type of bands, they sure look uncomfortable?

 

[roostercruiser]

My son showed meat pens this past year and won champion. We fed them turkey starter the whole time.

 

[the simple life]

You may want to post this in the meatbird section, I have seen a few posts about showing the cornish x and people giving advice on it.

 

[feedstorechick]

We raised meat pens last year in Central Texas. All the meat pens for a county show are ordered in advance through our FFA and I believe come from a hatchery at Texas A&M. All the schools in our county order from the same source so all the chicks are from the same hatchery, all hatched the same day. That way the competition is based on how the birds are raised since everyone starts with equal stock. The chicks come banded, and if the bands fall off, they are not eligible for the show.

You can order broilers directly from Ideal too, but I don't think they have a program to band and time them for the County Fairs.

If I remember correctly, we may have used one bag of chick starter, then turkey starter, then went to turkey grower, then Purina "broiler complete". I can't remember the exact time on each one. We relied on our Ag teacher to set the feeding schedule.

Those birds were huge by the County Fair!

 

[happyfeetfarm]

I think I am going to go with turkey starter...........I'll keep yall posted on how we do. Yes, for the bigger shows they are ordered through A&M and I think it is kinda good that all have a good even start.

 

[4-H chicken mom]

My daughter showed meat pens for years in 4-H. She won reserve champion three yrs. in a row. She would feed Purina's Poulty Show Chow from the beginning. She also used a broiler booster in their water as well. The show chow always produced nice healthy chickens that had nice yellow legs. Our fair required them to be purchased by July 1 so they would be ready to go by the end of August and they could not be over 9lbs. We also only purchased roosters. They get bigger faster than a hen will. Hope this helps. Also, a tip a judge told us once about split wing. He said not to start them out under to high a temp. The normal temp for chicks is 95 degrees. We learned that by starting them out a little cooler, they don't develop the so called split wing that doesn't lay nice along the body.