Tips for raising cornish broilers

[SesameRoad]

Hi! I'll be raising 5 cornish broiler chicks for fair in around april for the first time. Ive raised chickens for eggs but never meat and never with cornish.

Any tips for lowering cost?
Or making cornish best for showing at fair?

Any input is appreciated.

 

[nuthatched]

Cornish Roc (Cornish X) or purebred cornish?
What costs are you needing to lower?
They're fairly cheap already to raise.

 

[SesameRoad]

Cornish Roc (Cornish X) or purebred cornish?
What costs are you needing to lower?
They're fairly cheap already to

Ill have to buy everything new, as i dont have supplies (i dont have my layer chickens anymore)
So pretty much everything from coop to food.

Im honestly not sure on breed but i can update when i find out next week.
All i know is we will be buying the chicks from the fair itself

 

[Lacy Duckwing]

You could lower your cost by moving them daily in a chicken tractor on pasture. My tip for making the meat better for show would raise the cost by a lot. I always raised mine on Organic grain, which with 50-100 birds, it was costing in the hundreds of dollars. My butcher, who has done thousands of birds, said that my birds' meat was the best looking ones he had ever seen.

How many are you getting? I suggest doing 15-25, even if you have space for more. (Do less if you don't have the space.) To keep the birds clean, I recommend cleaning their coop daily. For weight, I recommend multiple floor feeders and waterers evenly placed around the coop so they can all reach them without going far or fighting over anything.

 

[SesameRoad]

You could lower your cost by moving them daily in a chicken tractor on pasture. My tip for making the meat better for show would raise the cost by a lot. I always raised mine on Organic grain, which with 50-100 birds, it was costing in the hundreds of dollars. My butcher, who has done thousands of birds, said that my birds' meat was the best looking ones he had ever seen.

How many are you getting? I suggest doing 15-25, even if you have space for more. (Do less if you don't have the space.) To keep the birds clean, I recommend cleaning their coop daily. For weight, I recommend multiple floor feeders and waterers evenly placed around the coop so they can all reach them without going far or fighting over anything.

I dont have that much flat pasture for the coop as most is sloped.
I plan on buying one of those used tractor supply coops and dragging it across the flat area which is about 20' by 20' total.
I plan on getting 5-6 cornish broilers, keeping it a super small batch.
Any organic food brands you recommend?
I definitely plan on cleaning the coop daily.
Okay gotcha, ill make sure i have 2 feeders and 2 waterers

 

[Lacy Duckwing]

I dont have that much flat pasture for the coop as most is sloped.
I plan on buying one of those used tractor supply coops and dragging it across the flat area which is about 20' by 20' total.
I plan on getting 5-6 cornish broilers, keeping it a super small batch.
Any organic food brands you recommend?
I definitely plan on cleaning the coop daily.
Okay gotcha, ill make sure i have 2 feeders and 2 waterers

I used Green Mountain Feeds Broiler Crumbles for mine. At the time I was raising them, it was around $30 a 50 lbs bag at my local feed store. For the amount of birds I had, I was going through a bag every 1-2 days. (I was typically raising around 60 birds at a time, but I've raised as many as 100 before.) The amount of broilers you're getting should be super easy to raise. Are you doing straight run or sexed (males or females)? Would you be butchering them yourself?

 

[SesameRoad]

I used Green Mountain Feeds Broiler Crumbles for mine. At the time I was raising them, it was around $30 a 50 lbs bag at my local feed store. For the amount of birds I had, I was going through a bag every 1-2 days. (I was typically raising around 60 birds at a time, but I've raised as many as 100 before.) The amount of broilers you're getting should be super easy to raise. Are you doing straight run or sexed (males or females)? Would you be butchering them yourself?

I think it was straight run but i should be able to confirm that tomorrow. Hopefully they will be bought at fair and the new owners will be in charge of butcher, otherwise, i will have to sell them locally online, i wont be processing them myself.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Hi Lacy I don't mean to hijack, just a quick question please. I have 9 Cornish X Rock Cross, which will be 3 weeks old Wednesday. Will they be old enough to start processing at three weeks of age? I have to do them in groups of three as I only have room in my fridge for three at a time, and plan to space them about four days apart. Thanks.

 

[Lacy Duckwing]

I think it was straight run but i should be able to confirm that tomorrow. Hopefully they will be bought at fair and the new owners will be in charge of butcher, otherwise, i will have to sell them locally online, i wont be processing them myself.

Straight run is good. If you hadn't picked what you were doing, I was going to suggest straight run. With straight run, you should get both males and females, which will even out the weight on the birds. When I did all males, they had weight issues because they were more competitive towards the food, so no one got as big as they would have if I had straight run. (Doing all females is the second best option.)

 

[Lacy Duckwing]

Hi Lacy I don't mean to hijack, just a quick question please. I have 9 Cornish X Rock Cross, which will be 3 weeks old Wednesday. Will they be old enough to start processing at three weeks of age? I have to do them in groups of three as I only have room in my fridge for three at a time, and plan to space them about four days apart. Thanks.

You could do three weeks... but I personally think it's kinda young. I would wait until they're at least four (to five) weeks old before butchering. Otherwise, you'll be getting some small birds that isn't really worth the effort put into them. (Are you butchering them yourself or hiring a butcher?) Also, being so small, they might be hard to butcher properly. (Example, you might not be able to fully clean them out. Chick down will also be an issue.)
If you're only doing three a week, you can raise them longer if you have the means to do so. On average, the big companies butcher at six weeks old. For the ones we raised, we butchered them at eight weeks old (nine weeks at the latest with the smaller birds). I don't know if you’re going for size or not, but I would butcher the biggest at six weeks, second biggest at seven weeks, and smallest at eight weeks.
Are you allowing your birds to rest (keep them in the refrigerator for a day or two before freezing)? That might help with freezer space if you need it.