As we continue to develop and refine what Mediocre Acres is and what we need and want with the current property, one thing continues to come up: Poultry. We have discussed raising pigs and goats again. We have played with the idea of a Dexter cow. We have explored the possibility of expanding the rabbit colony. We have talked about kitchen gardens and market gardens. We have talked improving the structures on the property and everything falls by the wayside except poultry.
There are a couple reasons for this. Number one is poultry is easy! A close second is it's inexpensive. Meat poultry grows out fast: 10 weeks from hatch to harvest. This year we have a goal to harvest between 50 and 75 meat chickens.
We have learned from past failures that ordering 50 in one run and raising them all at once is a recipe for disaster. We have done that twice and only about a half to two thirds make it to slaughter.
This year we are planning on ordering 15 ever five weeks from now through August. Our last harvest will be the second week in October. That enables us to take the winter off meat chickens as the heating and feeding expense is high in the winter.
Today we got our first batch of 15 meat birds!
I always forget how small they are. They grow so fast!
And they are so stinking cute!
In addition to ordering meat chicks we have been collecting fertilized eggs from our own flock and hatching them in our incubators. We have been having pretty good luck too!
A wide variety of chicks have hatched. Both our roosters are Rhode Island Reds so the are all red crosses. This one is most likely a RIR/cornish cross. Two others hatched with this one and they and the meat chicks are living quite happily in the shed.
In about five weeks we hope to move the meat birds into outdoor chicken tractors. We hope to allow them to graze and in return allow them to fertilize the property.
I am so looking forward to having this chicken project in full swing in about 10-12 weeks!
Have you thought about finding a heritage breed?
ReplyDeleteWe have. We have tried two. We have done Cornishes as well as Javas. Because this is our primary source of meat we have to find a balance between philosophy (we would love to have all American Heritage breeds of all species) and practicality. The cost of growing out a Cornish or Java is higher because they take several more weeks to grow out and their meat:bone ratio is lower. I was not impressed with the flavor of the Java either. We specialize in some heritage breeds. We are breeding American Chinchilla rabbits which are on the critically endangered list according to livestockconservancy.org. We are also toying with the idea of getting a pair of Guinea Hogs. Once we can diversify our meat projects and don't have to lean so heavily on chicken as our primary animal protein, we plan on moving to Cornishes.
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