Winter Broiler Projects-share your progress :)

[KaPaDeLeo]

I plan on starting my Winter batch of Cornish Cross in January. with a second batch started in October. I've picked these months mostly because butcher days will be mostly fly and meat bee free (especially meat bee free!). It was no fun in late October fighting the meat bees for my chickens.

 

[TamTurkey]

Getting my cornish rocks in 2 weeks. I can't wait! Meanwhile I have been trying my hand at BBW turkeys. I live in Texas so I think winter birds are better. It's easier to keep them warm than cool here. We don't get below freezing very often so warming them up isn't hard. Cooling them down in 110 degrees is tough! Good luck to everyone!

 

[milleryardchx]

Well a hawk took down two of my crosses made me mad! my two biggest because their the slowest! So now they are in the finishing pen and Im processing them on Monday. I guess waddling white chickens in a 1/2 acre pen don't just look tasty to me

 

[debir1966]

I just posted this on another thread, but thought I would post here too since this seems to be the thread for cold weather meat birds!

We are doing the same thing, raising our own meat chickens. We raised two batches this year, one we got at the end of June and they did great, even with temps soaring to over a 100 this summer (however, we had them in a shady spot and always kept plenty of fresh water supplied).

Our second batch we are still raising, we got them the end of September and they just turned 9 weeks old yesterday. They are doing so poorly! We have been trying to figure out why they are not doing as well as the first batch and have come to the conclusion it is two things - cold temps (down in the 20's at night - we do have a red-light heat lamp on them, but they are still using valuable growing energy to stay warm) and less sunlight so they are not getting as much feed as the first batch.

Because we use a Brinsea EcoGlow heater instead of a heat lamp when they are young, we never even considered adding supplemental light as that was one of the many reasons we decided to go with the EcoGlow. When it got colder and they outgrew the EcoGlow and we added the heat lamp, we decided on the red-light to prevent any pecking problems.

Now we are considering adding a light to increase their eating hours because they are not even close to the size of our first batch and we wanted to process them about the same age (10 1/2 weeks)... now we are looking at atleast 12-14 to get them just to process size of at least 4ish pounds! (our first batch carcass weight was about 8 pounds each!)

We want to raise at least 50 meat chickens a year, and wanted to be able to do that in 2 batches of 25 (so as not to have too many to process each time). I had planned on doing a spring and a fall batch, but after this experience, I am going to do early and late summer batches. I am hoping a batch in April to be ready by July and a batch in July to be ready by October.

Our plan for this coming year is to build a hoop coop. Part of it will be covered either with a tarp or with something more permanent/solid and part left open for the run area. We are going to make it 3 panels (so I think that would mean 8 x 12). I am planning on letting them free range some of the time - we free range all of our birds. We may or may not move the hoop coop around, we will see how that goes (we do have a pasture space that we can move it on). I want the chickens to process at 6-8 pounds carcass weight, so I am planning on them being 10-12 weeks old.

Next year we will raise Cornish cross meat chickens while I experiment with breeding our own dual-purpose meat chicks. I want to be able to let a few hens raise several batches of chicks each year and see how long it takes them to get to a 4-6 pound carcass weight. I have mostly dual purpose hens and will be putting a White Plymouth Rock, possibly a White Giant and maybe a White Laced Red Cornish roos over them.

I have even had the idea of waiting until one of my hens goes broody to order the Cornish Cross and stuffing them under her when they arrive I have read success stories of people doing that - and have had my own success story putting a turkey poult under a broody chicken. If I am able to do that, I would get only 10 or 15 cornish chicks at a time and once they are big enough they would be free ranged with the rest of the chickens, penned in the coop at night.

 

[TamTurkey]

I'm in Texas if it gets in the 20s we will all live inside my house lol. I raise for show so mine have light 24/7 I keep ours temperature controlled (they actually have a digital heater that kicks on and off). You are very right Temp and light have EVERYTHING to do with them eating. A digital heater is well worth the money. ours is off the floor where they can't get to it and it can't get to the shavings. Ours don't free range though. If you are free ranging I suggest you add a second heat light. My turkey's have an infared heater that has 3 lamp you can turn on 1,2,or 3 and it's making me crazy trying to keep the temperature right and we are only in the 40's I can't mount a heater in there because of the coop they are in and the danger of it falling over with the turkey's loving to roost. Good luck.

 

[Pearce Pastures]

Well, we went ahead and processed our birds early. We lost far too many from heart failure (blue skin and comb, then feet in the air). It is fairly disheartening but I at least learned a lot from this batch. Best of luck to you all with your birds. See you in the spring.

 

[debir1966]

We have moved the meat chicks to another building (where our old chickens were living - we moved them into the new chicken house) and we added a light (24/7) and kept their heat lamp on. We did cull one so far that was unable to walk and wasn't perking up, but the rest have perked up a little and they are starting to eat more. I hope that they will be up to a semi-acceptable weight in 2-4 weeks, that would make them 12-14 weeks old, but I doubt they will ever get to the size of our 10 1/2 week olds this summer. I have a couple who are wobbly legged - we are keeping a very close eye on them to make sure they get around ok and are not suffering.

Honestly, I just want them to get up to a 3 pound carcass and be done with it. It has been an overall mess.

 

[milleryardchx]

Well I did a test batch today of 5 of my cornish, my first time processing chickens I did do turkeys a few weeks back at a friends. I did 5 chickens in a little over an hour plus clean up and set up. Shrink bagged them then weighted them 4lbs 6oz for the biggest and 3lbs 14oz for the smallest. I have ten more that I will let grow for at least one more week. Everything went smoothly but dang! they stink!

 

[TamTurkey]

Winter? My Fat Annie! it's a high of 80! TRYING to keep turkey's cool in December... Ya gotta love Texas weather! Get my chicken on the 12th, wonder if I need to make sure the AC is working, Good grief!

 

[City Chicken]

ours are ridiculously different in size....
supposed to be ready to butcher friday, but they won't be. need at least another 3 weeks.
i got them back from my sister (my portion anyway) and i will be feeding them more while still pasturing.

i hope to have a couple ready for christmas.