Washingtonians

[KMoran]

This is our first batch of cornish's, as you know I am really new to chickens and general. I didnt want to kill them either. But after long talks with my husband and a bunch of youtube videos we decided to give it a try. Yes we have to kill them and yes it will be hard and I will probably cry cuz its taking a life BUT the way we saw it is that at least we know our birds had a better quality of life no matter how short it was and that gives me peace. They have fresh food water and fresh air. They will get to play in the grass n eat bugs if the choose. Store bought chickens are treated so badly many never seen the light of day. Plus my husband and I are really trying to be self reliant with gardening, canning and all that fun stuff. But yes they are big blobs. My son whos 2 says they are like aliens cuz they dont act like normal chickens. Not to mention the look kinda freaky. Here they are at 2 weeks and 5 days. They weigh in at 1lb 5 oz

 

[Chickielady]

This is our first batch of cornish's, as you know I am really new to chickens and general. I didnt want to kill them either. But after long talks with my husband and a bunch of youtube videos we decided to give it a try. Yes we have to kill them and yes it will be hard and I will probably cry cuz its taking a life BUT the way we saw it is that at least we know our birds had a better quality of life no matter how short it was and that gives me peace. They have fresh food water and fresh air. They will get to play in the grass n eat bugs if the choose. Store bought chickens are treated so badly many never seen the light of day. Plus my husband and I are really trying to be self reliant with gardening, canning and all that fun stuff. But yes they are big blobs. My son whos 2 says they are like aliens cuz they dont act like normal chickens. Not to mention the look kinda freaky. Here they are at 2 weeks and 5 days. They weigh in at 1lb 5 oz

Yup, they are meat birds...and their body cavity does not grow as fast as their meat.
So the liver, kidneys & heart remain smallish compared to the enormous amount of flesh they will develop.
We raise ours as soon as the weather gets decent, since the Cornish X has few feathers.
They went out on free range & were therefore forced to eat grasses.
I then fed them a scoop of feed mornings & a scoop evenings consisting of Flockraiser or similar 20 % protein or higher.
As they develope more flesh, faster than average laying birds, these Cornish need a higher % protein feed.
To keep them lean & active, I rationed their feed intake & removed the feeder after 20 minutes, otherwise the gluttons will park their butts at the feeder 24/7 and never move out of their own poo.
Our birds dressed very nicely with much tender felsh and hardly any fat and fantastic flavor no commercial poultry has, that due to the free range.
So, end of March, we get out 50 "CornBalls" and raise them in the brooder til about mid April when I can no longer stand the poopy dudes...and out they go to a "grow out" pen with high soft new spring grasses.
At 8 weeks we butcher most all but smallish cockerels.
At 10 weeks we butcher the hens.
Good eating all year long.

 

[Chickielady]

KMoran: If you were not at the other end of our WA universe from me....I'd have you come down to participate in a "Freezer Camp Day" where you can witness & learn butchering techniques.
But your dinners will be ready far earlier than that.

 

[Hawgdawg]

what
is your address?

 

[Chickielady]

So, does anyone know if CR was at a Swinery selling his metal work this week end ? Wonder how he did.
I am experiencing issues all day with the 'enter' key: when I hit enter, the cursor goes back to the beginning of my sentence !
Irritating !
I have to keep stopping & resetting the d&^%#!!!! cursor at the END of my sentence...
Driving me nuts with every day a different weird issue.
Seriously, I get to the end of the sentence as here, & hit period. then enter
and the cursor will fly UP to infront of 'Seriously' above...so when I keep typing the new sentence it will appear ABOVE the old one.
Same issue if I am typing & hit a mispelled word, and hit backpace, the cursor flies up the beginning of the sentence.

.............................................

 

[Chickielady]

what
is your address?

To whom do you speak to ?
Better question, where are you at ? I post where I am.

It works good if you hit 'quote' then below it, ask you question or answer someone else's question.

 

[KMoran]

Yeah I have watched a lot on youtube and read alot online so I think I will be ok. *fingers crossed* I think the first few times actually killing them will be hard but knowing I am treating them good helps me alot. I feed them Purina Flock Raiser and only feed them in the morning and at night. They will also have free range of my backyard once they get a little bigger. We plan on butchering them on March 18 2 days before they are 8 weeks depending on the size. I only have 10 so I am thinking of doing another batch in April when the coop gets the cornish's in.

 

[Rainwolf]

[COLOR=0000CD]Yeah I have watched a lot on youtube and read alot online so I think I will be ok. *fingers crossed* I think the first few times actually killing them will be hard but knowing I am treating them good helps me alot. I feed them Purina Flock Raiser and only feed them in the morning and at night. They will also have free range of my backyard once they get a little bigger. We plan on butchering them on March 18 2 days before they are 8 weeks depending on the size. I only have 10 so I am thinking of doing another batch in April when the coop gets the cornish's in.[/COLOR]

ever come to north Seattle?
I have 2 I'll be butchering this week

 

[Cowgirlgrace]

I posted this the last time you asked but I guess you missed it. You HAVE to move them to a folder. Once you do that you can delete them from the folder. Thats what I did anyway and it worked for me. Just takes a while because you have to move one at a time and then delete one at a time. Sucks but works.

hey, I have looked all over & still cannot find an answer to the ever growing issue of old messages in my PM box.
There is 2 1/2 years of messages in there & no way that I can see to delete them...I am still amazed they popped up here as I deleted on a regular basis on the OLD BYC...but here they are, like magic !


How do we delete old messages ? I can see move to a new folder....but I want to delete them all !

 

[Chickielady]

I posted this the last time you asked but I guess you missed it. You HAVE to move them to a folder. Once you do that you can delete them from the folder. Thats what I did anyway and it worked for me. Just takes a while because you have to move one at a time and then delete one at a time. Sucks but works.

Arghh!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thanks CCG !! I wondered about that !