What is YOUR target weight?

[pintail_drake2004]

Hey folks, my wife and I are working on our 1st batch of dual purpose and Red Rangers-29 in total. They always have access to food and water, and are put outside in the run for 6-14hrs a day. I've never had meat chickens before and have seen different opinions on target weight. I was curious about YOUR target weights for dual purpose and meat birds. Here is what we are dealing with:

The first group of chicks (6) were a barn yard mix from a friend who had too many. I know not to expect massive amounts of meat from these 6. But there are 3 rooster and 3 hens, and all of the roosters are approximately 5lb live weight and will be 15 weeks tomorrow.

Then we have 11 barred rock, and BR/BO mixes that we hatched out. They have been growing nicely. We have an automatic feeder in the coop, and feed scraps from the garden daily. It's an even mix of 6 roosters and 5 hens that will be 11 weeks old tomorrow. These are all approx. 3.5# live weight right now. I know dual purpose birds don't grow as quickly as meat birds. But what would be a good target butcher weight for these birds, realistically? I was hoping for at least 5.5-6# plus live weight bird.

Finally, we have our 12 red rangers. One died on Aug 8, but the remaining 11 are lively and healthy. they are approximately 8 weeks old and weigh 5.5# on average. Would it be safe to wait until they are 7-8# to butcher? I am considering keeping a couple hens, to replenish my meat bird stock. I read they breed true enough for a few generations. That are your thoughts?

 

[Hawgfan]

In my limited experience, 5 pounds at 16 weeks is about what to expect from hatchery stock dual purpose cockerels. That is when I cull the extras, and they are great for frying or roasting. Although they're not huge, they are large enough for me. I've tried Barred Rocks and Buff Orpingtons. Breeder stock tends to be larger I'm told, but I can't can't speak to how fast they grow. I haven't tried Rangers yet, but they would grow faster than DP. There are plenty of others here that can comment on that.

 

[Geena]

We've grown out and processed quite a few different kinds of chickens. One thing I've learned is to stop worrying too much about the number of weeks and the size of the birds. They mature at such different rates depending on their genetic makeup, what they eat, time of year, ratio of boys to girls, all kinds of different variables.

Chickens will keep you guessing. I had a batch growing out this spring that refused to make use of their lush pasture. They hung around the coop all day every day. I have no idea why and no matter what I tried I could not convince them to go out and forage. Never had that happen before, silly chickens. As you can imagine, when we processed those guys they were full of fat. I have another batch in there now, same coop, same pasture, and they were all over the place at 4 weeks old.

We do our cockerels whenever they start crowing, That could be anywhere from 10 weeks with the colored broilers to 20 weeks with the dual purpose chickens. You don't want to let them go too long after that because the boys can get tough quick once the hormones kick in. If I have the space I'll let the pullets go on for another couple of weeks to a month so they can put on some more weight.

 

[snow5164]

Oh boy I’ve got 8 grazer roosters crowing at 5 am !!! I finally get to kill them ,

Yes it’s a good day

 

[RUNuts]

Pintail,
My target is healthy birds. Not too obsessive about weights. So sometime after 6 weeks. I'm planning on 8 weeks, but since we ordered 25, we may start with the big ones and work through them.
Best wishes!

 

[Egghead_Jr]

For dual purpose it's all about how you want to cook them. If your want to broil or grill cull before 15 weeks. Red Rangers and the other colored meat birds are target to cull at 12 weeks. Again that's for broiler bird and good carcass. If you wanted to grow them out longer for bigger birds you can. You'll go through a fair amount of feed for tougher bird the longer you grow them out.