I want to share exactly what our first experience of raising meat chickens was like – the good, the bad, the ugly!
The mistakes we made were not all drastic. In fact, we were quite prepared and had done lots of research beforehand, and overall, everything went really well! However, now that we have our first year of raising meat chickens under our belt, we want to share everything that could have been done better and what we will improve on next year!
To start, we purchased 60 male Cornish cross broilers from McMurray Hatchery. They arrived the first week of July and were butchered the last week of August, at about nine weeks old.
Four died along the way and now 57 (they sent an extra) are sitting in our freezer! Next year we would love to raise 60 again for ourselves and an additional 60 to sell to customers locally.
Let’s dive into the rest…
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Ordering
When I first checked out the website of the hatchery, we were planning on purchasing the meat chickens from it was February. They had a huge selection and availability.
I can’t remember exactly why I didn’t purchase them then. Perhaps the funds weren’t there, or we needed to figure a few other things out first. But when I hoped back on in April to purchase them the availability was super limited!
I had no idea that ordering the chickens needed to be done so early. The demand was high for them!
It still worked out in the end. We were originally wanting them to arrive the first week of June, but the soonest we were able to get them was the last week of June.
Next year, since we are planning on raising meat chickens every year in the future, we will be purchasing our meat chickens as soon as we are able to!
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Building The Tractors
If you look at the images below you can see that we built the chicken tractors to be like a short box on the ground. The roof is slightly tilted to help with rain and snow falling off of it. We have two of them that fit 30 birds each with adequate room for them to roam around.
We had every intention of purchasing wheels for the tractors so that we could pull the tractors along our pasture with our four-wheeler; however, we never got around to it. What we ended up doing was pulling and wiggling them to their new clean grass every night.
By the time we had done that for a week and could have wheels purchased, we figured we’d just wait till next year. And next year we will for sure have the wheels ready to go!
We used wood that we milled from our own land, so the tractors were also a bit heavier than anticipated. But, I think the strength will help them last longer, especially since they are staying out in the pasture all winter.
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Arriving
When the chicks arrived we picked them up from the post office and moved them to their brooder area upstairs in the barn. I had no idea how fast they would actually grow, how much food they would actually eat, and how much they would poop!
I had to daily clean out their poop because it compounded so quickly! Basically, I expected the chore load to go up slightly, but it was a rude awakening to realize I needed to carve out quite a bit more time out of my day to keep them fed and happy.
Now I have a good expectation for next year.
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Moving Them Outside
We moved them outside when they were two weeks old. This was the soonest I felt comfortable with but also, they were outgrowing their brooder space by then!
The outside temperatures were around 70 degrees during the day and around 50 degrees at night. I was worried it may be too cold for them, but we didn’t have any that died from the cold. They did quite fine outside and honestly preferred it cooler than hotter.
I now know they are just fine in this temperature, and I may even move them out to pasture sooner next summer!
We also thought they would be smart enough to use the nipple waterers our laying chickens’ use but they were not! They are much dumber than we anticipated and instead we had to purchase this waterer when they moved outdoors.
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Different Feeds
Meat chicken feed is extremely confusing! Well, it’s simple to feed it to them but it’s not simple to find what works for you. There is so much different information online and basically, the conclusion I came to was that everyone does what has worked for them.
Some people do half turkey feed and half 20% protein. Some do 24% protein the entire time. And some slowly decrease the protein content as the weeks go on, all the way down to 18%.
We ended up going with a 20% starter/grower feed for the first half of their life and then switch to an 18% feed for the remainder. However, whenever we purchased the 18% feed (at three different instances) it was moldy and had to be returned. We just stuck with the 20% for the remainder of their life and we may just do that same thing again next year.
Although we will for sure be doing an organic feed next year. We decided to not do organic feed this year because we didn’t save up enough for it.
Meat chickens are a tricky balance of not feeding them too much so that their organs can’t keep up and they have heart failures, while also feeding them quite a bit to get them to grow to a great butchering weight.
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Feeding Schedule
Many people will remove the feed for 12 hours and then leave them with it for the other 12 hours. Because we can’t remove our feed containers from our tractors, we tried to do this by just filling the feed with the correct amount, but it was not quite this accurate.
And on that same note, when we first put our meat chickens into our tractors we just set the food container on the ground. We realized they were becoming extremely lazy and just sitting and eating.
This is not good for their health and you want to encourage your meat chickens to walk around and forage as much as possible.
To encourage them to stay active we tied a string from end to end and put the food container on it. It lifted it off the ground, so they had to stand to eat. We will be doing this again in future years!
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Shade
The meat chickens had shade most of the day when we were pulling them west. But, when we turned them around to start pulling them back east, the sun was at a hard angle, and they did not have much shade at all.
It was stressful for them and we had to use items to provide temporary shade. Next year we will be only pulling them west to ensure they receive enough shade during the day!
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Almost Running Out Of Pasture
This year we had the meat chickens in the pastured area available to our laying chickens. We figured we would have plenty of room but as we began moving them daily, we realized how quickly the space was shrinking.
Thankfully we had just enough to get them through, with even a bit left over, but next year we will be giving them pasture outside of this area where there is more room for them to be moved and pulled along.
Related Post: 11 Fun Things To Consider When Introducing A Rooster To Your Chickens
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Butchering Day Set Up
It took us quite a while to get everything set up for butchering day. This was our first time doing a mass butchering production like this. We had to figure out what system worked for us.
Next year we will find a way to transport the chickens from the pasture to the killing cones or bring the killing cones to them. They were heavy to carry!
We will also streamline it better for two people. It took us about four hours from set up to tear down each day to butcher 30 birds. Next year we have ideas of ways to make it better for our specific needs.
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Scalding/Plucking
One of the biggest hiccups on butchering day was figuring out how to scald the birds best before putting them in the plucker.
We had a large steel drum that we put over an open flame. It took quite a while for the water to reach the right temperature. Then, it was hard to maintain the temperature. Unfortunately, we accidentally cooked two birds because it was too hot.
We also noticed that if it was slightly too hot, the skin on the chicken tore in the plucker. We finally found the sweet spot but next year we are going to find a better solution for this!
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Do What Works For You & Next Year
Raising meat chickens and processing them looks so different for everyone. Even though we all use a similar process and machinery, we all have different systems. We learned to problem solve as we went and just do what works for us.
You can’t copy someone’s ways on the internet or book completely. Problem solve and find the best solution for your family.
Everyone who can raise meat chickens should definitely do it! It was the most satisfying feeling to see all our hard work pay off. And to have a year’s worth of chicken ready to go whenever we need it!
To get started read this book – it has everything you need to know to get started and will convince you immediately!
Next year we plan on raising another 60 meat chickens for ourselves and then selling 60 as well. If you are local and are interested in purchasing some from us we will have more information soon. Follow us on social media so you don’t miss anything or comment below!
Kelsey at GoodPointGrandma
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