Wanting to start raising meat chickens.

[Backyard Bob]

Hello, I was wanting to start tinkering with some meat chickens. But I literally know nothing about meat chickens.
How much do you sell your meat for per pound?
What breed/cross do you use?
What do you feed?
How much space is required?
Do you butcher them yourselves?
Do yours free range?

Any other tips would be greatly appreciated! I would like to learn all I can before I even think about purchasing.

 

[Hummingbird Hollow]

Hello, I was wanting to start tinkering with some meat chickens. But I literally know nothing about meat chickens.
How much do you sell your meat for per pound?

What breed/cross do you use?

What do you feed?

How much space is required?

I think that depends on how whether you have a mobile tractor-type coop or a stationary one. After my FR chicks were about 5 weeks old I moved them out to a 6'X12' tractor (only a little over 2 square feet per bird) They spent only a few days there before we had to evacuate due to a forrest fire for 9 days. By the time I got them back home, they were about 7 weeks old and way too big for the tractor. I put 15 of them in a stationary pen that was about 120 square feet (more than enough room) and had the remaining 25 (then 21 when I a predator killed 4) in the tractor...so that was about 3.5 square feet per bird. That seemed to work pretty well if I moved the tractor every day or two.

Do you butcher them yourselves? - Yes
Do yours free range? - My egg birds get to free range for an hour or two a day, but my meat birds did not.

Any other tips would be greatly appreciated! I would like to learn all I can before I even think about purchasing.

 

[Backyard Bob]

Thank you very much. Which breed do you like better?

 

[Hummingbird Hollow]

So far the only one's I've raised from chick to freezer have been the Freedom Rangers. I would happily have done them again but have promised my husband that we'd have no more than 15...OK 18 at a time and I couldn't order less than 25 FRs. Perhaps I'll post a cost comparison when I'm done.

 

[paridisefarm2009]

You will love to get this once start to finish it is so rewarding

 

[kingsfarm]

Beautiful...love your set up...what breed of chicken did you butcher?

 

[kingsfarm]

sorry .. visited the pics again and the breed is obvious...thanks for the pics...

 

[ozarkchicks]

meat birds grown fast, faster on feed than if you free range. cornish x are easy and seem to grow very fast. be prepared though, cornish x are some of the sweetest most docile chickens there are, you may fall in love. are you wanting to sell the chicken or just keep it for your own personal use?

 

[Backyard Bob]

I would start out keeping for my personal use. Then I would sell the meat. The Cornish X you buy from hatcheries, can I keep a few hens back for breeding purposes?

 

[ozarkchicks]

I think it would be really hard to keep a few hens for breeding. most cornish x don't even survive to egg laying age so I don't know if that would work