Trials And Tribulations Of Suburban Meat Bird Production

[aart]

yes, two heating pads right next to each other, making it a total of 12/48". I am north of Seattle in WA state. the cobb 500 cornish cross gets plenty of feathers/fluff early on, so that may be a factor, they are well covered at this point and we are going through a long dry and hot phase.

Sounds good.....can they get in and out from all sides?

Yeah, warm ambient temps help a lot...fall is a good time to do meat birds.

Nice rack! Wire 'floor' adds much stability for legs and probably lets poops drop thru(until they get to a certain size anyway).

Thanks for your thread here, lots of good info documented,
was fun to read the whole thing and now follow along.

 

[biophiliac]

he cobb 500 cornish cross gets plenty of feathers/fluff early on, so that may be a factor, they are well covered at this poin

I've got to think that their larger body mass also enables them to retain heat and not need so much supplemental.

I too really enjoy following your thread. [and the lovely pics] You are getting good at this - how many batches have you raised now?

 

[Birdinhand]

they can get out from all sides, I cut holes in a towel for each MHP, which holds the edges just above floor level, creating a bit of a thermal dam effect. I did lose two in the first day or two, not totally sure why but suspect they got wedged deep under the low end and could not find their way out in the middle of the night. I promptly raised the low end an inch. that said, two had splayed legs right out of the box so I was expecting a fatality or two. I'll be curious to see how the spring grow out goes, I started pretty early this year with chilly temps in February, some freezing nights. I did run a batch in hot weather and it was pretty miserable for the birds, so I won't be doing that again if I can avoid it.
As for the poops, the MHP I made has the hardware cloth on the bottom for stability, it does allow the poops to drop down. the substrate I use is a partially composted wood chip that seems to work very well. it gives them something to scratch and dig around in but also does a great job evaporating the moisture. I do not clean it out regularly, instead I just allow it to get turned over, then about week 4 or so, they start producing a lot of volume and I removes the "cakes" and throw them in the insulated composter where they burst into biological activity producing puffs of steam coming out the sides... it makes me happy! ... and it produces mulch in 3-4 weeks of two times a day turning of the tumbler.

glad you are finding this thread helpful!

Sounds good.....can they get in and out from all sides?

Yeah, warm ambient temps help a lot...fall is a good time to do meat birds.

Nice rack! Wire 'floor' adds much stability for legs and probably lets poops drop thru(until they get to a certain size anyway).

Thanks for your thread here, lots of good info documented,
was fun to read the whole thing and now follow along.

 

[aart]

As for the poops, the MHP I made has the hardware cloth on the bottom for stability, it does allow the poops to drop down. the substrate I use is a partially composted wood chip that seems to work very well.

Looks to be 1/2" x 1"...or maybe even 1x2 14ga??

Yes, that type bedding works good to absorb/decompose poops,
it's what I have in my run.

 

[Birdinhand]

well today is cooler and here they are, back on the heating pad. I'm still kind of wowed by how much less heat they need than the average chick. these cobb 500 feather out pretty nicely vs the naked pigeon squab look of some of the other CX strains. I feel that all that extra duff helps them stay resilient right from the get go, less coddling.

below is a shot for size reference of how stout these are, this is Day 15 from hatch. I am allowing 24/7 access to food now, thinking that having no light on at night creates a natural break for them. I'm keeping a close eye on their mobility and if they get too constrained by weight I will start holding back the food, going to a 12 on 12 off regime. so far, the MHP seems to take a lot of the stress off, at least for me. I just don't feel a need to tend to them as often as they are just humming right along. I did finally have to pull the towels, hose them down, send them through the sanitary cycle of the wash... for this brief moment, the towels are picture perfect clean :~).

 

[Birdinhand]

I've got to think that their larger body mass also enables them to retain heat and not need so much supplemental.

I too really enjoy following your thread. [and the lovely pics] You are getting good at this - how many batches have you raised now?

thanks! It's really nice to know folks are finding value in this thread, it feels like the meat bird section is kept out of the "new posts" feed and sometimes I wonder if anyone is listening.

we are on our fourth batch of CX. we had a bad start with a different strain, then I got more serious about finding something better. I decided against going with a slower growing dual purpose breed or something like the Freedom Ranger after talking with the owner of Jenks hatchery in OR, he shared invaluable info I had no idea about with regards to their being so many strains of CX. I've been buying COBB 500 from them ever since and having pretty decent success. I'm mostly pleased with how much more enjoyable these guys are to care for, they run and jump and dig and flap around like regular chicks till about week 5 or 6 where the weight finally slows them down a bit. keeping them from becoming gross seems to have a lot to do with how much protein is in their food, if you push it too much (too high), they get the runs and get messy, and if you keep the water far enough from the feed and keep raising it and give them lots of space, they stay active and have fewer issues all around.

One of the cools things for me about the heating pad approach is that there is no longer a red glow coming from my coop at night. it's just one of the down sides of trying to do this in the suburbs, you always feel like you have someone looking over your shoulder, ready to call the city if they see something they don't like. I run a pretty clean and discrete ship and the lack of heat lamp lights helps reduce the attention I draw. I'm pretty confident I am within the spec for the city, as the clerk told me specifically I can grow meat birds in addition to my six layer limit because the limit of 6 applies to adult birds and meat birds are harvested way before the 6 month limit. that said, I try and keep the impact on the neighbors to a minimum because at the end of the day an inspector is given full powers to call it as he sees fit and I want to be on the safe side. I'm fine with my neighbors not even knowing I've had a batch growing out.

 

[Birdinhand]

these photos are from two days ago, day 22. things are going quite smoothly at this point. I can't say enough about how much better The
cheery Chick "Chicken Cooler" is than others I have tried. as you can see, there is some dampness below it but not tons of water like the others. for some reason, this waterer must use a better nipple... so I got a second one and it too works this well!

this here is a happy and relatively clean CX, growing, growing and growing with each day. It makes me happy that my efforts to improve their day to day life seem to be working, they are staying clean and active!

this never gets old, here they are enjoying the autumn evening sun. I really do value the creature comforts, there is no question that they have the capacity to be happy or miserable.

I can barely keep up with their growth when it comes to raising the Mother Heating Pad, it's been working wonderfully. it's getting down into the low 50's upper 40's at night and what's amazing is that some of them are choosing to sleep away from the heating pad with a couple buddies. these birds feather out so fast and make lots of heat!

Ok, so sorry for the picture of the poop but lets talk about poop for a second. CX get a bad rap, mainly because of the extraordinary amount of poop that they can produce and the fact that with super high protein food the contents of their bowels often go hypertonic, meaning they draw a lot of water from the intestinal walls, causing diarrhea and it doesn't take long for that to stink up a repulsive storm. It is my observation that this is the main thing that ends up disgusting keepers, since it gets on their feathers and can make them seem like smelly slobs. lets be clear, they don't like being covered by their own poop and with some care, it's possible to see tremendous growth without them having diarrhea! There are a couple of things I have stumbled upon to help with this and I have been pretty successful through to about week 5-6, at which point we are in the home stretch and they still get messy. But during these early weeks when they still have lots of get up and go and can run around, there is a significant improvement in their quality of life if you keep an eye on the consistency of their poop and make adjustments. One of the main things I've done is that I switched to a partially composted wood chip. what ends up at the surface is quite course and helps keep them dry and creates a lot of surface area for drying. keeping things dry is so important, if for no other reason than to reduce volatile ammonia levels in the air, which can be very hard on their sinuses and lungs. I have had good luck in the past with cutting back a bit on the protein when I see them get "the squirts". I also have a hunch that the partially composted chips come with their own "pro-biotics" that improve gut health and perhaps the bits of broken down wood also add fiber, which seems to allow me to maintain a higher protein count for longer in the grow out. I feel like I still have a lot to learn on this front but I think I'm on to something! So far, these guys are producing nice firm poops with minimal water, which makes keeping things dry, much easier... that and not having water going all over the place, the nipple water I'm using is hugely helpful!

 

[RUNuts]

Birdinhand,
About to embark on the CX raising. I'm finishing my batch of DP birds and while the effort is minimal, I'd like to try the CX meat for comparison. Your thoughts are making me take notes for mine. I do like the MHP. Already using the partially composted wood chips and much happier with them than pine shavings. Will try them for the next batch of chicks.

You mentioned changing the protein content of the feed? How do you "cut back on the protein?"

 

[aart]

perhaps the bits of broken down wood also add fiber

Slaughtered some cockerels this week and found a rather large chunk of wood in one's gizzard, was barely smaller in diameter than a #2 pencil and about an inch long. Wonder if this affected his feeding as he was obviously smaller than his 'twin'.

 

[Birdinhand]

...
You mentioned changing the protein content of the feed? How do you "cut back on the protein?"

if enough of the birds start going hypertonic, I'll throw in some egg layer formula or other lower protein feed. I haven't played around with it enough to have any sort of regime to recommend, but as I like to say, it's like sailing, "keep tacking!"