Twenty Cornish Cross meat birds have come to live with us for the next 8-10 weeks. We will be raising them on a non-GMO and organic feed, and at the end hope to stock our freezer with fresh pastured chicken. Not an easy feat, but we have decided to forgo store-bought, chemical filled and confinement raised chicken…..so here we are.
First step in raising your own meat chickens? Getting the babies. We decided to order our chicks from Hoover’s Hatchery, a small family run hatchery in Iowa. I was super excited. This was our very first time….everything was set up and ready. I even called the post office a day ahead to leave my number so I was sure to be called right away.
Guess what….
They got shipped to the wrong address……two states away!
Yep, apparently PayPal decided my address was back in Louisiana, where we’d moved from a year and a half ago. I panicked….ummmm what was I going to do?
“The chicks are at WHAT post office?”
“The one on Canal Blvd….in Thibodaux.”
“Umm……hold on a sec…..I’m gonna have to call you back.” click.
Well my family is still back in La…….so it my younger sister to the rescue. She drove the 30 minutes down to pick them up and I drove in that night to visit for the weekend….and to pick up my baby chicks.
Caring for your babies.
Temperature:
Chicks need to be kept warm. To do so you need a heat lamp and bulb like the ones pictured. To keep chicks healthy and warm the temperature should be 90-95 degrees for the first week. The rule of thumb is to decrease the temp by 5 degrees every week after. I never had a thermometer in there, but you can tell if they are too hot or too cold by how they behave. If they are all huddled under the lamp, it’s too cold. It’s easy for you to lose a baby chick because they will huddle together and the chick at the bottom gets suffocated and trampled on. If they are as far away from it as they can get, it’s too hot. They should be evenly distributed throughout the brooder. We choose a baby pool for our brooder that we keep in the garage away from any drafts. Also, not pictured are higher sides we attached (out of foam padding) so that they couldn’t jump over the sides as they grew bigger. Hey, whatever works!
Food and Water:
Make sure the chicks have access to clean fresh water at ALL TIMES! I keep the water away from the heat lamp so it doesn’t get hot. For our feed we have chosen Rouge Organic Chicken Starter Crumbles. We also plan on pasturing them as soon as I feel they will be safe outside. I’m guessing at 3-5 weeks depending on the temperature outside.
Won’t be long before they are outside foraging in the sunshine and green grass!Look forward to a complete cost breakdown of pastured organic chicken in a few weeks.
Do you raise your own meat? Let me know how you do it!
Although we don’t raise our own meat, I think it’s a great idea to do so! Saves money, and it’s so much healthier.
It totally is!
I used to raise my own chickens, but that was another lifetme ago. I would get 20 laying hens and 20 meat birds every year. I also raised goats for the milk. A regular city/farm girl. That was over 20 years ago. Those were good days. Thanks for sharing. 🙂
We have goats coming super soon! I posted a picture on my FB today of sweet Hanna….the new Nigerian Dwarf doeling that will be ours soon!
I like this idea and the I don’t. I see all the benefits of healthier chicken but I would be the person to grow attached to the little fella’s and end up keeping them as pets and seeing how there are two pit-bulls in my house, I can see them becoming their dinner. lol Great idea though!!!
I did that one time when my children were still young. They got too attached to the chickens, giving each one a name. When the chicken were big enough, my mom got one and used it to make dinner. My children were unable to eat. They cried and cried because they said their Grandmother killed Tinkerbell.
I love my chicks and just had to get all this goodness! But boy do they water their water often!
Just picked up my chicks today! So excited. This is our first year raising chickens and turkeys for meat. One hint I learned is to add one drop off oregano oil per gallon of water. It eliminates the need for using antibiotic feed.
That’s a great tip! I have been putting a tablespoon of ACV in their water, but I’m going to check into the oregano oil. Especially since I already have some on hand!
We are planning on getting our first flock this spring. I can’t even wait!!! I’ve been pestering my hubby non stop about it. In fact, yesterday he told me, “we can’t get them TODAY. We haven’t bought any kind of tank for them yet. So I sent him your link with the note – “Look! A wading pool! We have a wading pool!” LOL
Thanks for sharing on HomeAcre Hop. I’ve often thought about raising some or meat, but haven’t done it yet. I think I would go with dual purpose, though, because I don’t like the way we humans have bred “meat birds”.
We have raised our own chickens the last couple years. It works for us. The meat is good & I haven’t bought chicken from the store since. I used to buy chicken breast only, so cooking an entire chicken took some getting used to. But, it hasn’t been a problem for anything I’ve wanted to cook.
We are going to be getting our first meat birds soon.. We have laying hens for years but want to put some meat in the freezer. We may not butcher them ourselves though but may hire out to a local farmer to do the deed… so to speak.
Good luck with your chickens.
The pool is a good idea!
We are thinking of getting meat chickens this year as well.
Thanks for sharing at the HomeAcre Hop!
Good for you! I’ve been raising all of our poultry for our table for about 3 years. I’ve butchered my own chickens, turkeys, and ducks. All of our old laying hens are made into soup. Thanks for sharing on The HomeAcre Hop!
We’re raising meat birds and are on week 3. We had to order 25 chicks at a time and they threw in an extra one and a free ‘exotic.’ This is from McMurray hatchery. Two chicks had pasty butt. You have to clean their butts every day or you will lose the chicks. We had to give them little soaking baths in warm water to get the poo caked on their bums off. We cleaned the two chicks every day for 8 days when they finally grew out of it. I’m glad we did this because we didn’t lose any of our chicks (knock on wood). I won’t raise Cornish Cross because we bought them from the local feed store once and they were the most miserable creatures. They wouldn’t forage, they couldn’t roost, and many had their legs break under their weight. One had a broken neck when it arrived and had to be killed right off. I don’t know if others have better luck with these birds, but they are so viciously bred to get fat fast that they just end up too miserable for us to endure it. We got 12 week broilers instead: half Red Rangers and half Pioneers. They are surly little chicks! I think most of them are roosters. They need to behave! >.<
I may try Freedom rangers next time, but our Cornish X are great. They all survived, forage well and no broken legs here! I limit their food and they go digging in the grass for bugs etc. It’s almost butchering time so I’m excited to tally up our costs and see how we did per pound 🙂
Maybe I’ll try some Cornish next time. We wanted to breed them though…I dunno how hard that is with Cornishs.
I raised Cornish X a couple of years ago. I don’t care for them either, they grew so fast they couldn’t stand up for a while and the older birds never laid an egg 🙁 I am raising Buff Orpingtons this year, they are a larger bird, can be used for meat and for laying. I have used a kiddie pool as a brooder for years. It’s especially good for ducks who are so much messier with their water 🙂
This is my 6th year of rasing meat birds, but I have never had this many. 450 chicks! I have never had so many die. I am looking for solutions to the problems I seem to be having this year. I feed my little chicks shredded onoins and garlic with mashed hard boiled eggs. previously I have always had good results. But this year I have lost too many babies. Don’t know what the problem is. They are 2 weeks old. Oh and it’s not cold here in northern Mexico!