Survivor broiler chick?

[Debs55]

About a week ago I received an order of chicks. An assortment of broilers and layers. Long story short all but 8 died and one of the survivors was the only broiler. After nursing it back to health I don't know if I will be able to kill it. Especially if its a hen. Will this chick have a happy life or will its size cause problems? What kind of layer will it be? I'm clueless

 

[Aunt LoLo]

What type of chicken is she? Some breeds are dual purpose....

 

[Debs55]

I'm not sure. The hatchery just called them white broilers

 

[happylittlehens]

Found this on Wikipedia....

"Broilers and egg laying hens are the same species and share many characteristics, however, due to the rapid growth and selection for enlarged breast muscles, broilers are suceptible to different welfare concerns, particularly skeletal." "Modern commercial broilers, for example, Cornish crosses or Cornish-Rocks, are specially bred for large scale, efficient meat production and although they are the same species, grow much faster than egg laying hens or traditional dual purpose breeds."

Found this on Yahoo Answers...

Can broiler chickens lay eggs?

Yes, female broilers can and do lay eggs if they manage to live that long. However, most people don’t keep them till that age for several reasons.

1. They aren’t very profitable animals in egg production when it comes to food vs. feed ratio. In other words they eat so much that it isn’t affordable to keep them for egg production. Also, most broilers are crossed with Cornish which isn’t a very good egg production breed.

2. They don’t tend to live very long. And I don’t mean just because we kill them around six weeks. The broiler bird isn’t very healthy. How could they be putting on all that weight? Very often these bird’s organs, and legs will give out due to all the weight gained. They have a better chance of survival if put on a diet, but sometimes still have health issues.


Hope these help!

 

[Debs55]

Thank you that info was very helpful. I guess that means it would be more humane to butcher him or her

 

[ancdwc]

Just another newbies advice. We had a boiler chick last year that got mixed in with some others. After about a week we realized it wasnt what we thought. Lol the kids grew extremely attached to the fat half naked bird and named her chunk.

Chunk was a great chicken but had some serious issues. She couldn't roost with the other birds cause she couldn't fly to the perches. She also had to go on a diet with us paying a lot of attention to what she ate.

At about eight months she started to get raw for lack of a better term. She was so fat her belly rubbed on the underside on various things. We isolated her and tried to nurse her back to health. She was doing better and after letting her out of her chicky jail she was attacked that evening by the other birds. Back in chicky jail she went.

I guess the blood or maybe just herself attracted a bear. That night we woke to her screaming and the chicks jail flipped over and her body gone except for a few feathers and bits. Now this was a sturdy wooden built box type container that takes two adults to move.

Moral of this long sad story is they are sweet birds but prone to illness and harm and they seem to attract predators.

 

[Debs55]

Thank you very much. I guess I know what I will have to do. Even though I did nurse her/him back to health

 

[SweetPromise]

Sad :/. This is my first year raising the broilers (I have done dual purpose only previously) and I was thinking of keeping one of the hens but knowing eveyone says they do not do well... sigh.

 

[Debs55]

Well my single broiler chick was just beaten bloody by my other chicks so now I have saved her life twice. Would it be awful if I kept her?