Meat Birds

Fall of 2013 was my first experience with chickens.  I bought 10 White Rock meat birds through my local feed store.  The reason for this was simple, we wanted chicken that had no antibiotics in it and knowing how your meat was treated when it was alive is important.  Unmedicated feed, grass and bugs, and lots of sunshine.

Just picked them up from the feed store

Meat chickens grow fast, up to 8 lbs in 8 weeks.  Lots of eating, drinking and pooping.  They grow faster than their feathers, really, this is the day I took them out of the brooder and put them in the tractor.

4 weeks old

The feather growth catches up at about 6 weeks.  I lost one at 5 weeks (heart attack) another at 7 weeks (same) and a huge rooster the day before processing, again heart attack. They grow so fast their organs can`t keep up. The plan was to get them processed at 8 weeks but it was just before Thanksgiving (Canadian) and they were only doing turkeys.  I decided to see how big they would be if I take them to 10 weeks. So I ended up with 7 birds. When I picked them up from the processors the smallest was 7.6 lbs the largest 10.8 lbs.

Commercial meat birds only live to eat and die.  Sad but if you don't take them to be processed they will die from a heart attack.  They have no personality, more like slugs with feathers.  But man do they taste good!  Next batch in the summer (2014) will be 7 or 8 weeks no longer.  A cooked chicken that weighs nearly 11 lbs is too big for the 3 of us. Lots of left overs though. I just need 5-6 pounds on the table.