Seems this thread is largely dead, but figured I might as well hop on anyways.
We're out the back of Stratford in the beautiful Taranaki hill country and have a mix of 20 Orpingtons (blue, black, and splash) in the incubator right now. Currently no chooks of our own, but that's clearly going to change rapidly.
Anyone here harvest their chooks for the freezer? We're trying to figure out which strategy makes the most sense in our climate (harvest once a week, once a month, twice a year, once a year, other...), and thus how many birds we should have on hand at any given time and I'd appreciate some feedback from people who understand our climate/weather patterns.