tips for getting meat birds

[my21chickens]

hey all! so ive been interested in getting meat birds for a while now, but this year I'm thinking I may decide to actually do it. but I was just wondering if anyone had any tips to make it easier. how much room do they need, whats a good number to start with, best breed, where to get them, best ways to cull and process, etc etc? the stuff I need to know and bonus tips?
thank yall so much!

 

[Molpet]

Most hatcheries were sold out.
I did 6 from the local Big box farm store to get the hang of them in 2016.
The sticky post has lots of links for reading also.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/meat-section-sticky-topic-index.248648/

 

[my21chickens]

Most hatcheries were sold out.
I did 6 from the local Big box farm store to get the hang of them in 2016.
The sticky post has lots of links for reading also.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/meat-section-sticky-topic-index.248648/

yeah it seems like everywhere is sold out of everything this year. okay thank you!

 

[Ridgerunner]

so ive been interested in getting meat birds for a while now, but this year I'm thinking I may decide to actually do it.

You are probably talking about chickens and not ducks, quail, turkey, or something else. People raise a lot of different species for meat. For chickens there are three basic types: Cornish X, Rangers, or Dual Purpose. Do you have anything specifically in mind?

The CX quickly grow to butcher age. If you try to keep them any longer than 8 weeks you risk them dying or their breaking down. How you keep them is important. If you manage them for optimum weight gain you have definite timelines for butchering. If you manage them differently then you can delay butchering some. If managed for optimum weight gain they are the most cost efficient to raise. You butcher them so young you can cook them using any method.

Rangers grow slower than CX and are better at foraging. They are typically ready to butcher at 12 weeks but can usually be kept longer if you wish. If you butcher by 12 weeks you can cook them using any method but the meat might have a bit more flavor and texture than the CX. They can't match the CX food to meat conversion ratio but aren't that bad, especially if they forage for some of their food. Details matter.

Dual Purpose cover a huge number of breeds and give you a tremendous number of options. For their own reasons people may butcher them anywhere from 12 weeks of age onward, though you usually don't get a lot of meat until they are around 16 weeks old. That's just approximate. Some early developers have a lot of meat for the breed at 16 weeks, some later developers still will not have fleshed out well. That's with cockerels from the same flock raised and fed together. A lot less consistency with them. I have a dual purpose flock for dual purposes. I hatch my own replacements and eat the surplus.

but I was just wondering if anyone had any tips to make it easier

I'm not going to try to answer this. I'd be typing all day and most of that would not interest you. All of your questions are answered in this forum but it will take a lot of digging and reading to find it all.

My suggestion is to go through the stickies mentioned above and scan this forum, the decide if you are talking about CX, Rangers, or Dual Purpose. Then ask specific questions that are pertinent to your decisions. Start a new thread for each specific question, you are more likely to get your specific question answered that way. This is a huge question, there is an entire section of this forum devoted to Meat Birds.

Good luck and welcome to the adventure.

 

[my21chickens]

You are probably talking about chickens and not ducks, quail, turkey, or something else. People raise a lot of different species for meat. For chickens there are three basic types: Cornish X, Rangers, or Dual Purpose. Do you have anything specifically in mind?

The CX quickly grow to butcher age. If you try to keep them any longer than 8 weeks you risk them dying or their breaking down. How you keep them is important. If you manage them for optimum weight gain you have definite timelines for butchering. If you manage them differently then you can delay butchering some. If managed for optimum weight gain they are the most cost efficient to raise. You butcher them so young you can cook them using any method.

Rangers grow slower than CX and are better at foraging. They are typically ready to butcher at 12 weeks but can usually be kept longer if you wish. If you butcher by 12 weeks you can cook them using any method but the meat might have a bit more flavor and texture than the CX. They can't match the CX food to meat conversion ratio but aren't that bad, especially if they forage for some of their food. Details matter.

Dual Purpose cover a huge number of breeds and give you a tremendous number of options. For their own reasons people may butcher them anywhere from 12 weeks of age onward, though you usually don't get a lot of meat until they are around 16 weeks old. That's just approximate. Some early developers have a lot of meat for the breed at 16 weeks, some later developers still will not have fleshed out well. That's with cockerels from the same flock raised and fed together. A lot less consistency with them. I have a dual purpose flock for dual purposes. I hatch my own replacements and eat the surplus.


I'm not going to try to answer this. I'd be typing all day and most of that would not interest you. All of your questions are answered in this forum but it will take a lot of digging and reading to find it all.

My suggestion is to go through the stickies mentioned above and scan this forum, the decide if you are talking about CX, Rangers, or Dual Purpose. Then ask specific questions that are pertinent to your decisions. Start a new thread for each specific question, you are more likely to get your specific question answered that way. This is a huge question, there is an entire section of this forum devoted to Meat Birds.

Good luck and welcome to the adventure.

thank you so so much!! yeah, i was thinking cornish cross because they are quick and I just wanted to experiment and get a little bit of chicken in my freezer for a start. again, thank you for the advice, it really helps!

 

[Ridgerunner]

Ordering from hatcheries can be rough, especially this year. Check with your local feed stores and see if they will tell you when they expect shipments. You may need to be there early that morning to get in line early enough to get a few.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

As another novice I would recommend starting with CornishX simply because they are fast and easy. We typically get ten or twelve and start having them processed at about six weeks, doing three at a time because that's all I can fit in my fridge at a time. After three or four days they go in the freezer in the basement and we have three more processed, finishing the last batch at about 8 weeks. So far we are happy with the Cornish and see no reason to change, although I am tempted to try some Rangers next year. The CX tend to have small, weak legs, so I suggest you sprinkle a little scratch around their pen at least once a day to encourage them to get up, walk and scratch, to develop those leg muscles.