keeping meat birds well past their recommended harvest time of10-12 weeks

[Dok]

Hey y'all, newbie here just working on my plan. I'm in central FL (bit east of Orlando). I was thinking about starting with a dozen or so broiler chicks. I want to go easy and harvest 1 every week or 2 starting at week 10 or so. So the last ones to harvest might be at week 25 or so. Is this a BAD plan? OK-but-probly-not-the-best? Or no issues?

Q1. meat quality - would I be doing the meat/taste/texture a disservice by harvesting at week 25 vs week 10? (Or even later?)

Q2. health/longevity - I've been reading some birds don't do well past their recommended harvest date (Cornish cross for example) due to health reasons. Is there a decent meat bird + decent health + heat tolerant (Florida) that I could expect to do OK with this plan? I was thinking freedom rangers?

Q3. I suppose I should start with all girls, I wouldn't want a bunch of roosters maturing in the same flock?

I'm completely open to your recommendations, just thinking through the plan at this point. Thx!

 

[Molpet]

Some one in Minnesota has. Basically feed 2x a day for 20 minutes.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/raising-large-table-birds.68027/

 

[DemeterAD9]

For meat birds I don't think gender really makes a difference as roosters shouldn't start causing problems till they are around 4 or 5 months old. If you decide to get mixed gender then just be sure to butcher the males first.

Keeping meat birds healthy longer is all in how much/often they are fed. You want to restrict feeding so they are not gorging themselves, which is what they are genetically predisposed to do. I'm new to chicken myself and do not have meat birds but I've read up a lot. There are methods to keeping meat birds in decent shape by restricting diet. You'll want to google that yourself and read up on this site to get the finer details.

All that being said, many meat birds are often already at a disadvantage due to their breeding. They can have leg/joint and other physical health problems that only become more apparent as they age. So be sure to process them sooner rather than later, especially if they are showing mobility issues.

Meat quality is up to the individual's taste. I haven't had chicken (or any other store bought meat) in about 10 years. I just got into chickens this year and plan to butcher the extra roos later this fall/late summer. I'm so used to eating all sorts of wild game that I really don't expect a sexually mature roo to taste all that different from a wild turkey. If you are not into the somewhat wild or gamey taste then you'll most certainly want to butcher them while they are on the younger side. Then there's the preference for how you cook it. Broiler, fryer, or roaster are all different terms for how old the bird is and how best to cook it. Young birds are your tender broilers and fryers, older birds you'll want to slow cook to make it more tender.

 

[Dok]

Some one in Minnesota has. Basically feed 2x a day for 20 minutes.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/raising-large-table-birds.68027/

That's an insightful article thx for sharing.

For meat birds I don't think gender really makes a difference as roosters shouldn't start causing problems till they are around 4 or 5 months old. If you decide to get mixed gender then just be sure to butcher the males first.

Keeping meat birds healthy longer is all in how much/often they are fed. You want to restrict feeding so they are not gorging themselves, which is what they are genetically predisposed to do. I'm new to chicken myself and do not have meat birds but I've read up a lot. There are methods to keeping meat birds in decent shape by restricting diet. You'll want to google that yourself and read up on this site to get the finer details.

All that being said, many meat birds are often already at a disadvantage due to their breeding. They can have leg/joint and other physical health problems that only become more apparent as they age. So be sure to process them sooner rather than later, especially if they are showing mobility issues.

Meat quality is up to the individual's taste. I haven't had chicken (or any other store bought meat) in about 10 years. I just got into chickens this year and plan to butcher the extra roos later this fall/late summer. I'm so used to eating all sorts of wild game that I really don't expect a sexually mature roo to taste all that different from a wild turkey. If you are not into the somewhat wild or gamey taste then you'll most certainly want to butcher them while they are on the younger side. Then there's the preference for how you cook it. Broiler, fryer, or roaster are all different terms for how old the bird is and how best to cook it. Young birds are your tender broilers and fryers, older birds you'll want to slow cook to make it more tender.

Thx for the explanation, that's very helpful. Considering both responses it sounds like less food and more exercise could help stretch out their harvest date if I'm intent on doing that.

 

[ChickenCide]

The only ones that really dont do well are the cornish cross because they are genetic freaks that blow up like balloons and get to heavy and can have issues like heart attacks, broken legs, etc. if you let them go to long. Other than that pretty much any other ones you can feed as you like and harvest them on your schedule, you may even want to wait a little longer than 10 weeks, 10 weeks is sort of the later end for cornish cross but a little early for anything else. If you start harvesting that early for any other breed even your broilers you wont be getting the full potential. I think even the rangers the recommended time is like 16 weeks but you can figure that out they always tell you and you can decide once you pick your breed. If you have not buchered a chicken before though, I would buy one somewhere that I could butcher before I spent the money and the time raising a bunch for months and then find out I didn't have the stomach for it. I live in the city and the first time I butchered a chicken, right around the plucking/gutting part everyone around me decided they wanted no part of it and ordered pizza.
But your schedule should be fine, and you dont really have to worry about overfeeding them if they arent the cornish cross.

 

[Molpet]

I live in the city and the first time I butchered a chicken, right around the plucking/gutting part everyone around me decided they wanted no part of it and ordered pizza.

lol so true. People are horrified that I kill my "babies"... they think I should buy from the store. When I ask how they feel on how big ag raises, they are clueless.