Thinking about ordering some meat birds

[TamTurkey]

I agree. Mine have plenty of space and between feeding crickets and their personal trainer "buff bunny" they run around a lot.
And get sunshine on occasion when weather permits.

 

[HeatherLynn]

I have considered getting like 10 of each and just seeing how I like each. I just don't know yet. I would like these to be able to run with the rest of my birds simply to make things easier for me. My fear is the cornish might get picked on. There is TONS of space so that should not be an issue. In the early spring they not only have their fenced in coop run which has a perimeter of about 200 feet but then they have the fenced in garden area including the compost pile . Then they also get let out in the field to free range. So I think that part should be fine.

For processing we are actually going to take them to a facility that does them for $2 a bird. The hope is if the are plucked and not just skinned( how my husband does it) my family might be a bit more open about this. the kids are fine but my parents and siblings are complete snobs and only like their chicken when sitting on foam and wrapped in plastic.

 

[Oregon Blues]

[[[[.........the kids are fine but my parents and siblings are complete snobs and only like their chicken when sitting on foam and wrapped in plastic........]]]]]]

That's excellent. You don't have to share, then.

 

[gram of five]

Wow, if this doesn't convince me that we can raise chicks to harvest nothing will. yes, well said with pride and love for your family. Thank you I am more serious now than ever to raise these chicks for my family. I am trying to edit this to get the post on the first page from Hummingbird Hollow on her feelings on raising eating birds, messed it up, but that was my inspiration Thanks!!

 

[gg706]

Not to completely change the subject but it is on the same lines of chicken treatment. I realized today people have NO idea how the human race abuses chickens and it is "OK" in our culture! My children brought up how they will not eat chicken "nuggets" and their Great Grandmother said why it is just chicken breast meat. and my kids said NO IT ISN"T. I told her what it actually was and she responded with " you can believe that if you want to but I don't believe that..... McDonalds would sue the chicken processor if THAT was true!" Then later she asked "WHY would you pay more for cage free eggs...I just get the plain old eggs" I told how chickens are treated in factories and that "cage free" is still not great but better than the treatment of the chickens that lay in egg cages" People have NO CLUE!

 

[Hummingbird Hollow]

Not to completely change the subject but it is on the same lines of chicken treatment. I realized today people have NO idea how the human race abuses chickens and it is "OK" in our culture!

I have to tip my hat to my daughter, who started us down the road to chicken keeping. She read some articles about how miserable the lives of most of the animals we eat are and how miserable their last days, hours, moments are. She didn't want to become a vegitarian, but didn't want to contribute to the cruelty and abuse either. Her decision led me to purchase my first 8 chicks to raise as layers, as well as purchase a large freezer and buy a 1/2 heiffer from a local rancher who's cattle are all grass fed, free ranging, never feed-lotted and slaughtered one at a time at a local butcher just down the road. From there it was purchasing and raising the meat chickens and this year we also bought a 1/2 lamb from another local rancher. I like the idea of a) not contributing to the cruelty of many modern farming techniques b) having a healthier, more natural product to serve my family c) cuting out the big corporate middle man and supporting the rancher directly as well as d) eating something that didn't have to be shipped halfway across the planet in a styrofome container. It makes me feel noble!

 

[HeatherLynn]

[[[[.........the kids are fine but my parents and siblings are complete snobs and only like their chicken when sitting on foam and wrapped in plastic........]]]]]]

That's excellent. You don't have to share, then.

MMm I wish. My parents live with us and I cook for everyone. My sister lives next door and is actually a good bit older than me ( I was a very late life child and she was an early) who is sick a good bit so I end up feeding her too.

If I have them processed though they will look just right to my mom and my sister can get over it. Beggers can't be choosers. I would never say that to my parents, hence having them done elsewhere.

 

[yakibert]

My road block is my wife.

She gladly eats chicken bought from the store - and she knows how they are farmed and raised. She does't like the conditions in which they are raised but she can't stand the idea of raising our own chickens and then eating them.

"I didn't marry to be a farmer's wife", she said.

So no chickens for meat. No goats for milk and meat. - I'm stuck to contributing to how the chickens are kept and raised in horrible environments.

The only thing I can do is to make meals with less chicken meat - making that meat go further, and thus buying less, and hopefully contributing less to factory farming.

 

[mossyhollow]

I can tell you I will order meat birds again! I Our family had quite the crash course on meat birds. My family hasn't bought meat from the stores in 20yrs. We eat wild game, deer, moose, salmon, Halibut etc. (I live in Alaska). This year we were not able to get a moose for the first time in many years so I decided to get meat birds (Jumbo Cornish Rock X). If you live in northern areas I would not recommend a fall ordering of meat birds. It is very expensive to keep baby birds at 90-100 degrees when it is below freezing outside, also they eat more food than normal. When we first got our birds they were the same old cute little babies....that didn't last long, they became the grossest birds I have ever had until all there feathers came in. They get big without having feathers. We lost a few in the first week until we did some research on them. If the birds are aloud the feed all the time that is what they will do. They grow to quickly and large amounts of fat builds up around there hearts and they have heart attacks. So we allowed them to eat as much as they wanted for 4 hours at a time then made them take a break for a few hours. In all they were aloud to eat for 8-10hrs a day. We also taught them at a very young age to come outside the brooder to eat and drink. These birds are the dumbest things since the dodo birds. Once they were big enough to go outside we fed them in the chicken yard, we found that they would fall/jump off the chicken ramp so we made a shoot that forced them to stay on the ladder till they got to the bottom. If not they dislocated their legs and we had to butcher them early. Also with forcing them to free range for much of the day they were leaner birds and had very little fat on their organs. Also we found that these chickens poop more than geese so we had to change their bedding more than I would have liked but it was also fall/winter so they didn't spend much time outside. They don't roost (they try but fall off) so they need a bedding changed more often. When it came to butchering we came up with a system since we had 50 birds. We started butchering them 5-10 at a time over the weekends starting at 8-9weeks. These birds dressed out at about 3-6lbs. As the weeks went on the remaining birds were dressing out at 8-10lbs with little to no fat. We also discovered we really didn't want to eat chicken the same day we butchered LOL. We also had to make sure our butchering station was ready to go. Plucking by hand is a long process and if you can afford or make a chicken plucker I would suggest going that route (I will next time). Our biggest problem with the whole process is.....these birds taste so good that we are eating more of them than I had planned. We still have 9 of them left and we are going to see how they do. The largest of them weighs as much as a medium turkey. We only feed them twice a day and limit the amount so they don't get to fat. It will be a lot less work in the spring and summer to raise them next time. On feeding them I would give them milk to drink along with their water (more milk during the day and more water at night). I used powdered milk and as they got older I added powdered milk to their feed. The high calcium will help them from hip dislocating which is very common. Their bones grow very quickly and extra calcium is the trick to saving the birds. It is very sad to see them when they dislocate their hips. There are a lot of horror stories about raising meat birds out there but if you plan for them and watch for signs of stress (pail combs and faces, dull eyes and rapid breathing) you can raise great meat bird. When we had a bird in distress we would bring it inside kept it quiet and only give it water for 24hrs and that usually did the trick, as over eating that was the main problem we had. As I said earlier, these birds are stupid so don't expect them to act like your layers.

 

[smithshyre]

This was very similar to our story. We used the cones and bled them. We hired a woman to come to our home and teach us. She was really great and had all the equipment. It was a lot easier than I thought. Not bad for some city kids who landed on a farm. This was our first attempt at anything "farmy" and now we are planning on buying a larger property and becoming producers. We raised 25 cornish cross roasters - will not do that again. They were, well - gross. They barely got up to walk around and did not enjoy foraging. But the last week or so of their life, they started to sun bathe and actually run around...it was odd - those big beautiful breasts bouncing around. I could hardly wait to eat one. Luckily, we butchered outdoors - which I would completely recommend. Not sure what we will try next, we are thinking dorkins. I did cry, but only for the last one, he knew what was going on and he ran I was the one catching them to bring to my husband, who did the culling. For each one, I thanked them for their sacrifice and promised them we would cherish their gift - and we have. I also lit incense and played ethereal music all morning before the lady arrived - it helped me I guess. Best of luck to you, it's totally worth it.