Tried raising them "Corn and Soy FREE"

[KeilFamilyFarm]

IT DID NOT WORK. I was feeding my meaties tonight and thinking they should be a bit bigger by now.. Came inside and realized their set butcher date (8 weeks) was May 29th! WHOOPS.

I need them to catch up.. FAST. Ideas? This was taken June 5th. They are maybe 1 or 2 pounds?

 

[Sami]

Mine were a little under weight but have now caught up. I bought a grower with higher protein 18% as well as a turkey grower at22% and just mixed them together. My original feed was only at 15% which I didn't realise.. Can I ask why you are feeding them layer feed?

 

[Elke Beck]

IT DID NOT WORK. I was feeding my meaties tonight and thinking they should be a bit bigger by now.. Came inside and realized their set butcher date (8 weeks) was May 29th! WHOOPS.

I need them to catch up.. FAST. Ideas? This was taken June 5th. They are maybe 1 or 2 pounds?

I think the problem is the low protein. I raised mine on 22% organic chick starter, and they grew like weeds.

 

[bigredfeather]

I can tell you from experience that it's tough to raise the CX on a soy free feed and I'd imagine taking out the corn makes it even harder. I've been trying for 2 years to accomplish it, and have yet to be successful. I've been in your position and fixed it by resorting back to a soy/corn based feed. You won't see much difference in growth rate between an 18% to 22% feed. As a matter of fact, I'd suggest using the 18%. I'm guessing these birds are very lean right now seeing as your feed only has 2% fat(it needs to be closer to 8%). The 18% will put some intramuscular fat making them juicier when cooked. After the switch, you will notice them growing immediately. So the good news is you can salvage this batch, but it will take 4-5 weeks to get them up to butcher weight.

I admire and think I know your reasoning for going with this type of feed. Unfortunately the Cornish doesn't do well on this regimate. It's like trying to put 87 octane fuel in a top fuel funny car. There are soy free/non GMO feeds that work almost as good as soy based, but it's very expensive and hard to find the ingredients. The studies I've seen reveal the Cornish still gets outperformed by slower growing breeds on soy free feed. To be honest, I have given up on it. I am going to switch to organic feed and be done with it. I can buy the ingredients and make organic feed cheaper than soy free, and I will have much better results, I'm sure. I did a batch of Freedom Rangers on soy free last year. They got to weight, but it took 14 weeks and the meat was really dry. They also ate almost 30 pounds of feed each which was not cost effective. I figure even if the CX's have to eat a little more organic feed to get to weight, I'll still be money ahead. With the organic feed, I am still avoiding GMOs, so that's most of the battle won.

Goodluck!

Are those Buckeyes or RIR in the picture?

 

[Eggcessive]

Chicks need at least 20% protein. Layer feed is for egg layers over 20 weeks old, plus it has way too much calcium in it. I would think just getting them on the right food, they will catch up.

 

[bigredfeather]

Chicks need at least 20% protein.

That isn't true. I've raised plenty of batches on 18% and they maintained a good rate of growth. They may grow a little quicker with a higher protein the first couple weeks on something higher, but they don't need that much protein.

Oops, I see you wrote chicks. OP doesn't have chicks, his birds are over 8 weeks old.

 

[Lazy J Farms Feed & Hay]

The problem is not the Corn and Soybean Free is it the fact that the birds were fed a nutritionally deficient ration that did not meet their specific and high nutrient requirements. As BigRedFeather stated, they don't necessarily need a 22% crude protein ration but they do need something higher than the 15% ration you provided them.

From a nutritional standpoint the layer feed you fed was 25% deficient in lysine, contained 4 times more Calcium than typical broiler feeds, and had a crude fiber level that probably limited feed intake.

You might get some compensatory gain if you feed them a normal 18 to 22% CP broiler ration but I doubt you will have a carcass as meaty as you would if they had been fed properly from the beginning.

 

[KeilFamilyFarm]

Unfortunately it's slim picking for food out here and since we have all our egg layers on the corn soy free we were hoping to raise out treaties this batch that way as well.. from my past experience and research i don't feel the extra calcium is a problem for their growing bones but i should have thought it threw way more intending of just like the idea of corn soy free. I haven't found broiler food locally, it's pretty much scratch or layer. I picked up turkey grower to see if that will get them growing.. live and learn hopefully this batch isn't completely wasted :/

 

[KeilFamilyFarm]

Those are RIR same age same food :/

 

[KeilFamilyFarm]

Layer was the only corn soy free we could find figured we'd give it a go.. wish we wouldn't have, been so busy and just feeding them daily not thinking about how old and little they still were