Where do you get your meaties

[vermontgal]

My locally-owed feed store sells them; they get them from Ridgeway. One good thing about getting them through the feedstore is that they get bulk pricing, and you get a chance to pick out healthy birds - the feedstore works out any dead or unhealthy ones with the hatchery, not you.

 

[Lazy J Farms Feed & Hay]

We have had great success with the White Broilers from Meyer Hatchery in Ohio this year. Out of over 500 chicks, we and our customers have onl lost 4 chicks. Plus they are growing extremely well and producing nice carcasses.

Jim

 

[chixrus]

i ordered from welp hatchery (http://www.welphatchery.com/cornish_rock.asp) and they came in at about five pounds dead weight at 12 1/2 weeks. they really grow during those last couple weeks!

 

[tackyrama]

We hatch our own from a core flock of 12 to 24 hens. Right now we have 74 total with two hens still setting. We have a mixed flock of dual purpose breeds with mostly orpington and americauna mutts with a couple other breeds thrown in. They free range so I'm not concerned with how long it takes for them to grow. I am creeped out by the cornish Xs. We started out with purchasing eggs on ebay. This year we bought 15 Silver laced wyandottes from cackle hatchery . They are really beautiful hardy dual purpose birds. In the future our flock will be built around them. We are also thinking about getting a few sussex. The orpingtons are doing great but we find them too loosely feathered.

 

[annanicole18]

awesome thanks alot everyone. i don't have much space to have free range none until i just finished my goat paddock. how much space would 25 birds need if they were going to primarily forage? how much would you grain them a day? why are the cornish so creepy to some? do they seem "souless" with no personality or is it their appearance. has anyone ordered the frying pan special from mcmurray? the price for 25 birds is really low and would make be great if the birds get to a decent size in 4 months. does anyone know if there is a chart anywhere about how large certain breeds get?

 

[mommahento5]

I order my meaties from Welp. I have ordered from McMurry for the past 2 years in a row, but this year switched. Our fair judge last summer made the comment that Welp's cornish x's are superior to most other hatcheries birds that he sees , and that is the only place he uses to order his birds from. So, we gave them a try. So far they are only 3 1/2 weeks old, and are doing great. They are already more lively than the batches we got from McMurray. We ordered 25, got 26, and lost one at day 3. They are out on pasture now and we strictly adhear to Welp's feeding directions. They have a growth chart for their meaties that you can check out here:
http://www.welphatchery.com/cornish_rock_care.asp

Can't wait to see how these guys stand up to the competition at fair this year.

Opps. To answer some of your other questions, we have our 25 birds in a 6'x12' tractor that we move twice a day, possibly more as they get larger. That is certainly plenty of space for 25 birds. We just move the tractor down the yard, turn to the next lane and move it back down the yard again. Bonus of nice lawn fetilizer too! Also, ours are going through about 3 lbs of 22% ration a day. We will only have our birds for about 6-7 weeks, and then we will butcher. We prefer our birds to be "broilers" and not "roasters", the difference being the former are less than 5 1/2 pounds and the latter, more. So if you went with cornish x's you would most certainly be done in less than 4 months.

I think many people say that cornish x's are "creepy" because they are more similar to little pigs than chickens. They are breed to gain weight quickly. That means they eat and poop A LOT. For the time invested though, their is no dual purpose that will come anywhere close, either in growth or amount of meat.

Good luck with your choice!

 

[Sitka]

Note that McMurray's "Frying Pan Special" consists of male White Leghorns.