What age do you slaughter?

ETA just realized this is a 3 year old thread that got resurrected. Never mind.
 
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The killin cone looks great but not final enough for the beginner. Not for me anyway. The first animals i killed, i did it with a rock. That way, you can draw a dot on your concrete or wtv and practice hitting your mark. Once its done its very easy just to look away. Just make sure you do it on a hard surface so rock definately kills it. And make sure youve got a big rock and alot of force behind it. Alot of people choose the axe (i would have but i didnt paractice my aim and i didnt want to maim the poor critter if i missed) in which case, draw a line or dot on your chopping block and hone your skills by using it as target practice so you dont miss. The finality is best cause theres no goin back and if you do miss, correct it immediately as the bird is surely suffering. One thing that helped me was to educate myself on the living conditions of storebought chickens and look at my own chickens lives. No way i could botch a killin bad enough to amount in the same suffering a commercial chicken endures. Poor babies
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Our Chickens turned 16 weeks today and the one Roo started crowing at 0530 this morning, wlhat a funny sound he is making! It isn't at all refined yet and I'm sure the neighbors won't want it to develop into a full. My question is this: Is it too soon to slaughter? He has been fed grain and steamed rice w/ vege mix. How big are they before they are big enough for table? I think he is too little for a good meal as he seems only a few pounds. He's either a Cookoo Maran or a Barred Rock.
 
Glad to see a thread on this topic. I built a small henhouse and run to r aise a few hens. I wound up taking in seven "easter chics" thatturned out to be cornish x birds. From what I have gleaned from these forums I didnt follow propper meat bird raising proceedures. I assume the flock is 6weeks old being easter chic but they have been fed medicated chic starter untill yesterday. The birds dont look filled out yet. I am going to feed them out for two more weeks and see what happens. Mabey I can manage to raise and process this batch so I can move on to raising hens and eggs. This is not the way I wanted to start my chicken raising experience, but we do what we must. I have never proscessed poltry, but have proscessed game birds and other game harvested
 
I raise CX for slaugther and start that process after 10 wks. At that age or after they have very little pin feathers and their meat is very flavorful and more dense, more compact and with more texture.
 
i for 1 am a meat eater.an i have no problem eating what i raise.i mean you get meat an eggs out of the store.an they all started out on a farm somewhere.im not ranting.but people need to realize where there food comes from.
I agree completely! I shutter every time I think of all the people that will tell me (online, I haven't ran into one since I left Colorado) just how mean I am for hunting or raising my own animals to butcher and eat and why didn't I just go and buy my meat at the store, where it's made!
I swear, those people are out there! They haven't a clue as to where their food comes from! Here in Iowa, thankfully, most people understand where their food comes from. They believe in know your farmer, know your food. No farmer, no food!
 
I know this is an old post but I've seen the question a lot. I butchered Cornish crosses at 7 weeks, and I think my next batch in line (currently about 3 weeks old) I'll try to hold off until 8 weeks to get some bigger carcasses. Once two of them began having the heart/liver issues I butchered them all to prevent any suffering or premature deaths. I also have a batch of red rangers, barred rocks, and sagittas that I just picked up yesterday, and I plan to butcher them somewhere around 12 weeks or so. If they need more time I'll let them go a bit longer, seeing as the barred rocks and sagittas are dual purpose and will take a while to be full size.
 
I think Jersey Giants don't actually make very good meat birds (that is, raised strictly for meat, to be slaughtered at a young age) because they take so long to develop to size. If you want to raise birds strictly for meat, you'd be better off going with Cornish or Cornish Rock crosses. Those I believe are slaughtered commercially at around 6 or 8 weeks old.

Orpingtons, Barred Rocks and so forth are considered dual purpose birds because they lay well, and after their "useful" life as layers, they are large enough to still have good table qualities, whereas birds like Leghorns that are strictly layers don't really have any meat to them at all (although they may be good for soup).
6 to 8 weeks...?

Really?

I know this is old but I was reading this and...wow. Maybe some of that is the 'medicated feed' (steroids).
 

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