We have lots of poultry right now. Like LOTS. We have 39 Cornish Cross meat chickens, 9 broad breasted white turkeys, 11 broad breasted bronze turkeys, 6 barred rock chickens (these were supposed to be Julia's 4-H project until we realized that a barred rock is entirely too big for her to show at only 8 years old.) 1 silkie chick (we got it for free and it is a far better breed for Julia to show) and 23 assorted layer chicks. This is in addition to the 4 Moscovy ducks, and 1 Peking duck. We have acquired all of these birds in the past 3 months. We have a current laying chicken stock of 10 hens and 2 roosters. That is over 100 birds on the property!!!
Raising these animals humanely is the top priority for us. It is important that our birds are able to eat greens and bugs in in addition to the feed and water they get. Protecting them from the dogs and the raptors that fly around is also important. Our answer for our meat birds is chicken tractors!! They are 3x5x2 cages with no bottom and a hinged top. I do all the building here because spacial relations are not Leigh's strong suit. But I do use him for the heavy lifting.
Look! It's a picture of Leigh!
The added benefit of the chicken tractors are mobility. Coincidentally (well, it's not really a coincidence) the tractors fit into our garden beds. Every two days we move the tractor 5 feet down the bed and this gives the birds fresh greens and bugs. The birds also drop delightfully free fertilizer onto the beds. Their scratching tills the fertilizer into the soil and then we can go through with a hand tiller and dig it a little deeper.
These Cornish crosses are 5 weeks old. Harvest age is 6-8 weeks. We will harvest closer to 8 weeks as we break ours down into breasts and leg quarters. We have found that this makes the meat go farthest when feeding a family of 7.
These are some of the younger chicks. The darkest birds are the bronze turkeys, the whitish fluff balls are more Cornish crosses, and the light brown birds are layers. We splurged on our brooder this year. We bought a galvanized tank for $135 at the feed store. It was one of our better extravagant farm purchases! We like that the birds don't have to live on cage floor for any portion of their life. It is easy to clean and disinfect in between batches of birds and I'm not worried about my shoddy workmanship biting me in the butt. If you can purchase one of these with cash I highly recommend one!
We are very proud of the growth of our poultry program this year. We plan on running another round of 50 Cornish crosses and another round of 40 bronze turkeys. Now, if we could just get our goat milk to be as productive!!
I love our birds! The Cornish Crosses, to me, are hard to like. I think it is the fact that their lives are so short. I love my layers. Their personalities are great. You have your hands full with all of those feathers! How do you like the taste of homegrown turkey? I'm a little sketchy on it, but I think one day I would like to give it a whirl.
ReplyDeleteI am not a fan of Cornish crosses (alive), but you are right, you cannot beat 8 weeks from start to finish! They smell bad, and are not super personable, but we got some from the 4-H auction last year and I have never had better tasting chicken!
ReplyDeleteThis is the first time we have tried to raise turkey. We started with a "commercial" breed and not a heritage breed because we currently do not have a coop that they cannot fly out of. Broad breasted cant fly like heritage breeds can. Eventually we would like all heritage breeds, and I may be mistaken, but I think that's where the big taste difference comes from. We are not expecting a huge shock in taste because we have not eaten commercial turkey in months and months, so the contrast should not be that prevalent, but we will let you know in July!! :)
Please do let me know. I need to get my butt to a 4H auction. Sounds fun.
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