The Meatie weigh-along!

[ChickenAlgebra]

My children weighed the CX for me. Average weight for the boys is 3 pounds right now. The girls are hitting 2 pounds but have slowed down a LOT and act much more like normal chickens now that they are with the DP girls.

The capon project boys are SMALL yet, so we may wait till week 5 for anything. Will see how the behavior goes.

 

[backyardmenagerie]

Thanks for the new weights! And ChickenAlgebra, I can't wait to learn the outcome of the capon project.

So my chickens have lived to see another week. They will for sure be going to the butcher next week, and I got another bag of food that hopefully will last until then. We have had non-stop rain here for a week now, and I moved the meaties to a horse stall. It's actually stayed fairly clean in there, but I'd like them out now. I'm sure by the time I take them to the butcher we'll get a sunny day...

 

[backyardmenagerie]

Oops, forgot to add that they are now 4 lbs 12 oz. I'm hoping for 6 lbs by processing time.

 

[In His Service]

I have had to change my plans several times..hoping to process this weekend. . .at least some of them. There is one runt, we may leave a couple with her and let her grow a bit. Starting to get hot here. I won't be getting more this year, but may get some next year. It depends on how we like these versus hatching our own dual purpose birds and processing roos, and whether I get a chicken plucker made. If I get meaties next year, I would like to have a larger flock, but we will see how the plucking goes...

 

[tgrlily]

Well, we lost another one! The smallest this time & the only pullet. We're having them processed Saturday & hope we don't lose anymore between now & then.

Smallest 8 lbs, 2 @ 8.5 lbs & the largest is 9 lbs.

 

[backyardmenagerie]

Quote:
I'm sorry, that stinks. Any idea what they are dying from? (And those weights are HUGE! Good luck with the processing!)

 

[tgrlily]

Quote:
I'm sorry, that stinks. Any idea what they are dying from? (And those weights are HUGE! Good luck with the processing!)

If I had to guess, I'd say heart gave out. My 11 year old went to check on the chickens after school & came out of the barn with her & handed her off to his Dad. I was kinda shocked & impressed by him. Growing up into a nice sensible boy.... my little man!

I wonder if he'll stay with Dad to watch the deed being done on saturday?

 

[PotterWatch]

We weighed our birds this morning. We have now switched them all over to an all-purpose game bird grower that is 20%. We have also decided not to restrict their feed once they are out of the brooder and in the tractor. We had one bird get injured in the race to get to the food and after doing a little more reading, we are going to rely on the natural darkness they get by being in the tractor.

Our 4wk olds have been moved to their tractor and have an average weight of 29.5oz

Our 2wk olds are still in the brooder and have an average weight of 11.5oz. (We did lose one earlier this week and so are down to 27 in this batch)


I'm going to be interested to see if there is a bigger jump between now and next week since we have switched their food to a slightly higher protein.

 

[backyardmenagerie]

I'm thinking I should add a losses column to the chart. So many people are reported deaths, so it would be interesting to see if the factors that contribute to faster growth also contribute to higher mortality rates. (PotterWatch, do you know what your loss died from?)
Group 1 should be finishing up soon, and I'm looking forward to seeing everyone's finished weights, as well as being able to start comparing the different factors to our final results.
Thank you everyone who has taken the time to weight their chickens!

Hopefully we will have gathered some useful data for ourselves, and future meatie raisers. Lets keep the weigh-along going!

 

[PotterWatch]

No idea why our one died. They all seem perfectly healthy. It didn't appear to have died from being squashed or anything like that. None of the rest of them seem weak or in any way at risk. Other than that one, we haven't lost any.