Sustainable Meat / Standard Bred Dual Purpose Bird Thread.

[Chaos18]

Not sure if this is the right place or not but I figured I'd ask anyways.

For those of you that process extra cockerels do you feed them anything special the closer to butchering time they get to get them to add a little extra weight on?

 

[Egghead_Jr]

I feed a straight 20% protein. The chick starter crumbles and turkey finisher pellets available to me are both 20% and currently $13.15 a 50# bag. If I could find 22-24% feed for same price I'd go that route. My youngest birds are 8 weeks now and just changed the flock over to pellets in hopes they use less feed. Or the wildlife steals less, either way the pellets are lasting longer.

 

[Chaos18]

Do you restrict there exercise or is it business as usual?

 

[Egghead_Jr]

No special treatment. Have been moving the pullets up to the layer coop. By next week the cockerels will have the grow out coop and large run to themselves.

 

[Chaos18]

Thanks.

 

[DesertChic]

Not sure if this is the right place or not but I figured I'd ask anyways.

For those of you that process extra cockerels do you feed them anything special the closer to butchering time they get to get them to add a little extra weight on?

I've been instructed by more than one sagacious poultry owner to feed them grains soaked in buttermilk to flavor the meat and fatten them up. I know this is the technique used to improve the French Bresse in France along with restricting their access. Unfortunately I'm not set up in the most ideal way to employ this technique completely, but with the dozen Austra White cockerels I purchase specifically for extra meat, I did feed them soaked grains of only 14-16% protein (no buttermilk because of our intense heat) and kept them contained in a smaller run. The rapidity of their weight gain was quite noticeable and the meat was quite tender and juicy.

EDIT: I butchered those birds at roughly 14-18 weeks.

 

[Chaos18]

I've been instructed by more than one sagacious poultry owner to feed them grains soaked in buttermilk to flavor the meat and fatten them up. I know this is the technique used to improve the French Bresse in France along with restricting their access. Unfortunately I'm not set up in the most ideal way to employ this technique completely, but with the dozen Austra White cockerels I purchase specifically for extra meat, I did feed them soaked grains of only 14-16% protein (no buttermilk because of our intense heat) and kept them contained in a smaller run. The rapidity of their weight gain was quite noticeable and the meat was quite tender and juicy.

EDIT: I butchered those birds at roughly 14-18 weeks.

Thanks. Was it just scratch grains?

 

[DesertChic]

Thanks. Was it just scratch grains?

A combination of standard layer feed and scratch grains. All of the feed I get is pretty freshly ground, grown organically, and contains fish meal and peas for protein rather than soy. I'm a firm believer that supplying chickens with animal protein makes a difference in development.

 

[MorrisRdFarms]

I had my second batch of freedom rangers processed recently. They were 13 weeks, averaged 6.45 dressed, and netted 303 lbs of meat. Although my average weight is a little lower than my first batch from this summer, I am quite happy with them. This should get us through until early next summer when I finish my first batch next year.

 

[lcertuche]

I don't have any way to weigh my birds but I would imagine they would be around three pounds give or take a few ounces. Mine are mostly free range cockerels. They do get a few scraps thrown out to them and sometimes FF or grain, but mostly free range. Come winter if they haven't went to freezer camp then they will get more FF. I wish I had a goat for milk to give them. My BSL's have long skinny legs but their breast, though not large are plump. They have small amounts of yellow fat, but not much at all. I have been surprised at how meaty they are. We got them for tick control in the spring and they definitely did their job. I spent more money of chick starter than anything. I'm sure penning them up and giving them steady feed would have resulted in bigger, fatter birds but they would have cost more too. My pullets range much farther out than the cockerels. They are production reds so I don't know if it's because of their breed or gender.