Trials And Tribulations Of Suburban Meat Bird Production

[aart]

and apparently when the electricity comes back on, the pads default to having the auto off function back on

I think it's the digital controls....you have to manually turn it back on after a power interruption.

 

[Molpet]

I have a manual 3 different temperature slide control pad. It doesn't have an auto off.

 

[Birdinhand]

well today was D-day for this group. this was week 9. I do have some interesting things to report. there were no blisters on their feet. all around, the use of potting soil is a winner! It has all summer to dry and turned out to be very absorbent, helping to keep things nice and dry and keep the smell down. I'm sure the aerobic bacteria it came with helped. 32 made it to harvest, a record so far. I will have weights in a couple of days when they finish resting in the four coolers on the back deck. I plan to vacuum seal them using a food saver and load up my freezers, fingers crossed I have enough room. the big win this time around was getting a tip that there is a feed store up in Conway WA that sells organic grower formula at basically wholesale prices. sure enough they sell organic feed at about 40 cents a pound, that's less than half what I've been paying. I am very curious to see what the actual price per lb of meet turns out to be.

 

[Morrigan]

Nice work. Good find on the organic feed store. I need to keep looking around my area, I feel like I pay a lot for feed.

Looking forward to hearing the final weights and cost break down. Thanks for keeping us updated.

 

[Birdinhand]

well, I've been going full tilt this summer raising a lot of birds! A local friend runs a "Little Free Pantry" and since Covid has wiped out the income of a lot of folks around here, particularly single parents with kids in our local school, I decided to start growing CX to donate to the food pantry. I've donated 30 birds so far and have another 35 growing out right now. The way we do it, the birds are cleaned and bagged and frozen and an email goes out to people who signed up, they get a pick up window time and the chickens are placed in a cooler for pick up at the pantry. I would not be able to swing this if not for finding a place that sells organic feed at wholesale prices with no minimum. I'm picking up another 800 lbs of grain on wednesday... the garden is very happy about all this, I've added many new beds, Hugelkultur style, all the chicken manure goes directly onto the first layer of wood. I've been having the most productive year yet as a result, huge pumpkins coming. the kids are home full time, helping quite a bit.

 

[greenwos]

Thank you so much for this! I discovered the MHP thread two days ago and was wondering how effective it would be for the 40 meat birds (30 CX and 10 Rangers) we are planning on getting in June.

 

[Mrs. K]

Truthfully 40 meat birds are only going to need heat for a few days, they grow so fast, their metabolic rate really produces heat.

 

[Birdinhand]

Truthfully 40 meat birds are only going to need heat for a few days, they grow so fast, their metabolic rate really produces heat.

while it was hot I got to thinking and decided to try not using any added heat at all and instead made them a nest. it was rough the first night or two, a few got trampled each night. it's not unusual to lose 3-5 over the course of the grow out, this time overall, I lost about double. my conclusion is that for the warm summer nights if i can create an adequate nest, that there will be no need for added heat since they generate so much. in contrast, it's winter now I began the last batch I got about 2 weeks ago inside with the mother heating pad, because it was dropping down near freezing at night and I've noticed in the past that even a few days of coddling makes a difference with these guys, they literally tripple in size in that time. after about 4 days inside getting started under the MHP, I moved them outside to the coop. this is the first batch of CX where I have not lost a single one from either shipping stress or the initial start up. they are now handling freezing temps outside no problem. It's amazing to me that after doing this year after year after year, I still keep learning tricks and improving. I grew out my largest bird yet that has been put aside for our pandemic pod thanksgiving, it is 11 lbs dressed, the size of a small turkey!

 

[aart]

Thank you so much for this! I discovered the MHP thread two days ago and was wondering how effective it would be for the 40 meat birds (30 CX and 10 Rangers) we are planning on getting in June.

Glad you found this thread @greenwos , Iwas going to go back to your other post and link it.

 

[Arthaey]

I grew out my largest bird yet that has been put aside for our pandemic pod thanksgiving, it is 11 lbs dressed, the size of a small turkey!

Hi there! I just came across your thread here, and I'm really enjoy it! We're in Seattle as well, so it's nice to see others in the PNW.

We just raised our first set of 4 Cornish Crosses this year. The oldest/biggest one weighed in at 16 lbs dressed!! We are, in fact, going to eat that bird as our Thanksgiving dinner this year!

Did we just get crazy-lucky to raise one so large on our first attempt, without even trying to maximize size?? (In fact, we maximized for bird health instead, limiting their food access to only during daytime.)