Well Tuesday is the day for at least 12 of our CC. I can't wait (is that horrible?) I'm just so ready to be done. It feels like the end of a pregnancy almost, you nurture it and care for it and at around 8 months you just want it over!!!! Well I've taken care of these darn things, fed them, cleaned them and they smell horrid With all the rain we've been getting they are almost brown now and uber icky looking. They are eating a ton of grain now too, I'm almost to the point where I can't keep up with the cost. A 50 pound bag is lasting me 3 days and there are 23 birds At $17 a bag that's alot of grain! Next year I think I will get my batch of meaties around this time and be done in early Oct. Avoid all the summer rain. It's a real mud/poo pit out there. Tuesday, hurry up!
I hear ya. What you're thinking isn't horrible, to me they are so unnatural in they way they live it seemed almost merciful to put them out of their (my?) misery. It's why I'm hoping I'll be satisified with just extra roosters of other breeds in the future. If not, DH says he'll build me a chicken tractor next year and I can atleast keep them out of the garage!
I know how you feel. We have 26 meat birds that will be 6 weeks old on Mon. They are weighing in 6 1/2- 7lbs right now and we have two weeks left until fair. They are fed twice a day now and no more light on all night. They cannot go over 9lbs for the fair. I feel for you on your feed cost. $17 is a lot. We pay $14.73 for Purina show chow, up $2 from last year. But, they sure will taste good!!
Well I just weighed one of the Roos and he weighed 7.5 pounds. They will be 8 weeks on the 4th. Is that good? Keep in mind he had a pretty full crop, is it safe to assume that I'd get a dressed out weight of about 6 pounds on him losing a pound and a half for feathers and innards? And he wasn't the biggest, just the first I grabbed.
A 7 1/2 lb. live weight bird is likely to dress out closer to 5 lbs. You can expect about 2/3rds live weight.
Congrats. I did 10 this morning, 6 tomorrow, and 13 next weekend and then I am done!! Feed bill finally going down.
We just finished the rest of our CCs this weekend... and I know exactly what you mean with the smell and the mess - I call it shmud. After putting 32 birds into the fridge and freezer, it is finally nice to be able to go out into the back yard and NOT kill anything. One word of advice though, don't eat chicken on kill day. Let them age for a couple days before hand. They taste sooooo much better and don't smell of death or, heaven forbid, nicked intestines anymore. Kill day is definitely a day to order pizza
It's really the ammount of feed they eat in the last week or two which makes/breaks your profitability for a batch. Let them go evern a few days too long and you've likely 'eaten' your already scant profit margin.
