Weeks #4 & 5 Raising Meat Chickens

These past two weeks have flown by for our family.  The chickens continue to grow at an astonishing rate. These are from somewhere in week 4...

And these are from week 5...

As we continue our regular routine of feeding, watering, and moving the coop around; we are looking towards the first weekend of November for harvest day... This will make them about 9 weeks old.  We are continuing to prepare and gather needed equipment.  Expenses for the past two weeks include...

Two bags of feed $30

Food vacuum sealer $40

And a deboning knife $10

They use about a bag of feed a week... Maybe even a little more.  We only fill their feeder once a day and it lasts them about 12 hrs, which is perfect. As I've said in previous posts it can cause health problems if they have access to food constantly, since they have no off switch when it comes to intake.  

Josh will be working on the plucker in the next few weeks!  We had to get another barrel since we weren't sure if the one we had was food grade, but thankfully we found one for free!

Week #3 Raising Meat Chickens

Early this past week we came to the conclusion that these birds could no longer stay in the garage... The entire house smelled like poop.  It was real bad.  So Josh threw together their coop and they moved outside.  Thank goodness it's warm during the day and we are keeping the lamp on them at night.  They seem to be doing well and my house smells a lot better!

As you can see, Josh had some help with building the coop!  So proud of my husband's patience with my boys, they made some good memories putting this thing together!

They continue to grow and get larger... That's the whole point!  Still amazing how much they can change and grow in just a day or two! I won't go into details but we did lose two of them this week.  One was by dog and the other was one of the two smaller ones we've been watching... We still have a small one that continues to amaze us!  

The work is not to overwhelming thus far.  Mostly just checking on their feed and water.  We've moved the coop once and that was stressful since I was scared we were going to smoosh one.  They are not big on moving around.  I honestly think moving the coop is going to be the biggest job, but hopefully it will be better once they get larger.  Plus we have a better game plan for next time to do it in the morning when we set their food out so they will move with the feeder.

This week we have spent some money...

1. Coop-we had most of what we needed for the coop, but still had to purchase some hardware and chicken wire... Everything totalled $87 including the$12 wheels from last week... I'm very pleased with that!

2. Plucker- Josh is going to construct a Whizbang plucker to take much of the time out of processing.  I highly recommend watching a YouTube video of one of these in action, seriously amazing!  We purchased the plucker fingers and a switch for the motor which totalled $45.  We have most of what we need to build one already, but still probably going to need a few more things for this, but it's going to be well worth it... Go to YouTube and you'll see what I mean!

3. Bag of food, grit, and pine shavings all totalled about $30. 

4. Our gallon waterer is fast becoming too small so we ordered some cup waterers to make a 5 gallon one...$10

This week's total (subtracting the $12 wheels I accounted for last week) is $160.

It was our most expensive week so far, but the coop and plucker are going to be the biggest expenses and will be able to be used from year to year or sold for a profit.  

Our other expenses (besides feed) that we are anticipating... Vacuum sealer, bags, butchering knife, larger feeder, plus probably some parts for the plucker!

Week #2 Raising Meat Chickens

Week two has been a bit of a blur for me, since I had to have an emergency appendectomy.  During my recovery over the next several weeks I am told no lifting anything over 10lbs... So that means I'll have to just give orders and blog! 

Anyway, their care has remain fairly simple, especially since obtaining the larger feeder and waterer.  Mostly they just need attention once or twice a day.  We are still on the same initial bag of chick food.  Josh had to make a larger box for them today in the garage since they are growing at a rapid pace, but still not ready to be placed outside.  He just did this from scraps we already had laying around, so no money spent!  With the weather getting into the 80s this coming week, we might be able to get them into the coop during the day, once it's made.  But 60s at night is probably still too cold since they aren't yet fully feathered.

This top picture is the beginning of the week. They have grown an amazing amount in just 5-6 days, it's incredible!  With this breed of chicken(Cornish Cross) basically all they do is eat, sleep, and poop.  They are bred to put on the pounds fast!  Growing to butchering size in just 6-10 weeks!  

We started restricting food at night after the first week, as I have read from multiple sources that this can help moderate growth and avoid leg and heart problems.  They have no off button and will keep eating and gaining weight so fast that their internal organs cannot keep up, leading to health problems.  

These two pictures are just a few days later than the top one and they are in a much larger pen.  They have grown so much that Waylon got me this morning to tell me the chickens have "grewed up overnight!". We have two chicks of the 25 that are not growing nearly as fast nor looking as healthy as the others.  We've been thinking they may not live, but so far they've survived.

This is the larger box that Josh built today.  It's probably close to three times as big as their previous Amazon box, so much more room to grow!

As far as expenses this week we have purchased just a couple of things...

1. A set of wheels for the coop for $12. (Hoping to build the rest of the coop with things that we have mostly laying around)

2. A turkey fryer pan set off Amazon for $12.  I mostly got this bc it was so cheap that I felt it was worth it to go ahead and purchase it.  It also came with a thermometer that we would be needing and is by itself $5-6.  So we'll see how it works, planning on trying it out before butchering day bc a couple reviews said they had burners actually burn a hole in the pan.  Mostly it was really good reviews, but for $12 it does make you wonder.  Since we don't need the water boiling, but just a scalding temperature, I really think it will do just fine.

So there's week two!  I'm guessing over the next week or two they will be losing all signs of being chicks and turn into ugly chickens.  From what I've seen they are not the most beautifully feathered bird and many times don't even get all their feathers in before being large enough to butcher.  Which is fine because we definitely aren't raising them for their feathers or beauty.

Week #1 Raising Meat Chickens

We decided this summer that we were going to do a flock of meat chickens in the spring.  We've been switching to a more organic diet and in order to afford this on a single income that means getting creative.  A back yard flock seemed like a good way to start saving in the meat department, since an organic chicken is about $12-15 in the store! Yikes!  In addition to harvesting chickens, we also hope to harvest a deer or two this fall (instead of eating beef) and are purchasing half a hog from a local farmer.  We split half a hog last year with friends who have some connections and it was some of the most delicious meat we've ever put in our mouth!  So we're definitely going back for more again this year!

Since Tractor Supply had some Fall chicks, we discussed it and decided to do a small flock this Fall to get our feet wet with all the different aspects of meat chickens.  Most of you know we have 8 egg layers, but meat chickens are similar but different.  We were planning on a flock of 30 this spring so we decided to do about 15... Which grew to 17ish when we did some research and found out how dumb they tend to be and we would likely lose a few to stupidity (theirs and ours).  We didn't figure less than 15 in the freezer would even be worth our time. 

So off we trekked to TSC to purchase our Cornish chicks!  Upon entering the store, the boys announced we were there for chickens, this made the manager VERY happy.  When we asked if they still had some, he replied "Yes! And I'm going to sell you all of them!". Once we get to the back, they had 25 Cornish chicks and he said if we took all of them we could have them for $1/each...50% off and cheaper than 15.  How could we say no?  We grabbed the other things we would need as well- lamp, heat bulb, feeder, waterer, feed, pine shavings, etc and headed home!  Grand total of $75 (some of which can be reused next time)... We went back a few days later for a bigger waterer since the small one was being refilled 3 time's a day... Making our start up cost$80 total. 

We're using our large Amazon subscribe and save box as a brooder for now. I'm guessing they will be outgrowing that soon and we may need to figure something else out, but it's working well.  We're cleaning it out once a day and feeding twice and watering... Hopefully once or twice a day with the new waterer.  So I would say about 15 mins a day of work the first week... And a mild odor in the basement.

So that's week one... Hoping to do weekly updates until slaughter on how we're all doing and to help me keep up with costs.  Besides feed cost we are building a coop and possibly making a plucker... I've been watching a lot of you tube videos and with 25 chickens a plucker seems necessary, but we'll see.  Hoping to borrow or buy a turkey fryer to scald with and either a vacuum food sealer or shrink bags to protect the meat. 

Anyway, I'll keep you updated on weekly expenses to see how cost effective this project turns out to be.  We are thinking that we might build and sell a coop with each flock to help offset that expense and actually pay for the whole enterprise.  If we make a nice plucker we could probably rent it out to other people to help offset that cost as well.  Trying to make this thing as economical as we possibly can!