We love our Meat Birds
WARNING- GRAPHIC POST!!!
This year we chose to raise meat birds again. This is our fourth time raising our own chickens that are bred for specific meat purposes. The purpose of these birds is for meat, not eggs like many of our other feathery friends, or my middle little love's "best fwiends" as he calls them. (Insert gagging from me). Anyway, if you haven't ever had the pleasure to witness these meaty little suckers. Let me introduce you to them and the process.
This year we ordered ours from Stromberg Hatchery, this was the only website I could find that had reasonable prices and that shipped/delivered during the time of year that we wanted to fill our freezers. Unfortunately, this website did not give exact dates (until it got closer) when the chicks would be delivered. So it was an order and wait sort of thing. Patience is not my thing. They emailed soon after to alert me that the 50 chicks would be shipped on my Big Love's Birthday. Happy Birthday Sweetie! 😂😂😂 He really must love me.
Anyway, these little guys shipped out on 9/3 and was then delivered by mail to our local post office. We have the best post office staff who are always great when odd packages get delivered for us. Chirping or non-chirping type packages. 😳
I didn't really realize how many 50 chicks were until they came in... Oops. Have I mentioned how much my better half loves me? Or rather our middle little love and his love for chicks... 🐥
These are Cornish Rock Crosses from Stromberg Hatchery. They "should" be ready to harvest between 6-8 weeks and will weigh about 5-6 pounds each. Whoa! I was so excited to read that. I marked on my calendar the exact dates that we "should" be able to butcher and hit order. Little did I know, while I was busy making plans. God was laughing. Hard. Upon arrival these chicks were very well loved and ate very well. Soon enough, they began to outgrow their very classy plastic tote in our garage apartment. We then put them in a hen box. Well, these suckers decided that standing on one another is a lot of fun. Oh and get this gem, these guys poop. A freaking lot. I believe they go more than the average egg-layer or any other bird out there. I think it is because they eat so much more. Either way. NASTY.
Unfortunately, their game of leapfrog/cheerleader pyramid began to turn into homicide as they would soon crush each other. Often. We lost about 4 until we decided that "Heck, we have this GIANT blue water trough that doubles as the kids' pool during the summer. Let's use that!" Brilliant right? Yeah we thought so. For a minute. There was plenty of room for all of these meat heads, unfortunately you know the whole God laughing bit? Well, he must have gotten quite the chuckle. My father-in-law tells my kids to pray for rain every time we talk to him because the cows need it. The cows may need it, but the chicks don't. In fact, these birds don't even really swim very well. I guess they aren't ducks... We had planned when we were going to butcher chickens. We planned that we would complete it when we got back from our hunting trip before we got busy with getting animals ready for a national stock show.
The weather had different plans. As soon as we got back from our hunting trip in November, it has been rain storm after rain storm. We are thankful for the rain, sure. However, our birds had different thoughts. We didn't think too much about them during one particular storm as we checked all of our other animals by making sure they were warm and dry. We didn't think about the chicks or their heat lamp. The water filled up fast in the blue water trough and the rain popped the heat lamps. I'm so thankful there wasn't any sort of electrical issues/mishaps other than the lamps. However, it was a very sad and traumatic experience for us all. The middle little love was heart broken. The Big Love was so upset with himself for not checking on them at the beginning of the heavy storm. I was heartbroken over the lives lost and the money that just got flooded. Once we removed the still living ones, we immediately put them under the carport/garage with an intense propane heater. We had about 23 left. After a few days of monitoring them and keeping them as warm as possible, we were down to 22 birds left. Out of 50. That's over 50% lost. 😔 This project was meant to fill our freezer for the next year of fresh, home grown meat. Anytime something sad happens with our livestock, I always go back to my FFA days and learning the FFA Creed by E.M. Tiffany. "I believe that to live and work on a good farm, or to be engaged in other agricultural pursuits, is pleasant as well as challenging; for I know the joys and discomforts of agricultural life and hold an inborn fondness for those associations which, even in hours of discouragement, I cannot deny."
This was a prime example of this type of discomfort of agricultural life. It was so sad. Once we knew that those still living were not sick and were feeling better, the job of harvesting them had to be done. Not to my Big Love's satisfaction. He avoided it for quite a while. The day came where my nagging loud reminding got to be too much where he finally set out to harvest. He conned asked a good friend to come and help. I said I'd help but I hate touching birds, dead or alive. I don't mind the processing part but the touching them, I would rather not.
We harvested 22 birds. Well, they did 22. I just cleaned/bagged them. But wow. Check out the size of these chicken breasts!!!
Below is a breakdown of our price per bird. I did the math both ways, one way based on if we had harvested all 50 birds versus what each bird cost at 22 birds. Who said we don't use math on the regular?? 😁😁
Unfortunately, this time I did not weigh our birds regularly or the meat afterwards to be able to actually figure out a price per pound. If we would have had all 50 birds survive, then yes $12.88 for an entire bird that we raised from a chick and know exactly what we fed and for our children to learn this lifestyle? Yes. 100% worth it. For $29.27 a bird for only 22 birds... I guess we are paying for the life lessons right?
Let me know your thoughts or if you have done the meat bird thing! I would love to hear your successes and learning! Comment below!
This year we chose to raise meat birds again. This is our fourth time raising our own chickens that are bred for specific meat purposes. The purpose of these birds is for meat, not eggs like many of our other feathery friends, or my middle little love's "best fwiends" as he calls them. (Insert gagging from me). Anyway, if you haven't ever had the pleasure to witness these meaty little suckers. Let me introduce you to them and the process.
This year we ordered ours from Stromberg Hatchery, this was the only website I could find that had reasonable prices and that shipped/delivered during the time of year that we wanted to fill our freezers. Unfortunately, this website did not give exact dates (until it got closer) when the chicks would be delivered. So it was an order and wait sort of thing. Patience is not my thing. They emailed soon after to alert me that the 50 chicks would be shipped on my Big Love's Birthday. Happy Birthday Sweetie! 😂😂😂 He really must love me.
Anyway, these little guys shipped out on 9/3 and was then delivered by mail to our local post office. We have the best post office staff who are always great when odd packages get delivered for us. Chirping or non-chirping type packages. 😳I didn't really realize how many 50 chicks were until they came in... Oops. Have I mentioned how much my better half loves me? Or rather our middle little love and his love for chicks... 🐥
These are Cornish Rock Crosses from Stromberg Hatchery. They "should" be ready to harvest between 6-8 weeks and will weigh about 5-6 pounds each. Whoa! I was so excited to read that. I marked on my calendar the exact dates that we "should" be able to butcher and hit order. Little did I know, while I was busy making plans. God was laughing. Hard. Upon arrival these chicks were very well loved and ate very well. Soon enough, they began to outgrow their very classy plastic tote in our garage apartment. We then put them in a hen box. Well, these suckers decided that standing on one another is a lot of fun. Oh and get this gem, these guys poop. A freaking lot. I believe they go more than the average egg-layer or any other bird out there. I think it is because they eat so much more. Either way. NASTY.
Unfortunately, their game of leapfrog/cheerleader pyramid began to turn into homicide as they would soon crush each other. Often. We lost about 4 until we decided that "Heck, we have this GIANT blue water trough that doubles as the kids' pool during the summer. Let's use that!" Brilliant right? Yeah we thought so. For a minute. There was plenty of room for all of these meat heads, unfortunately you know the whole God laughing bit? Well, he must have gotten quite the chuckle. My father-in-law tells my kids to pray for rain every time we talk to him because the cows need it. The cows may need it, but the chicks don't. In fact, these birds don't even really swim very well. I guess they aren't ducks... We had planned when we were going to butcher chickens. We planned that we would complete it when we got back from our hunting trip before we got busy with getting animals ready for a national stock show.
The weather had different plans. As soon as we got back from our hunting trip in November, it has been rain storm after rain storm. We are thankful for the rain, sure. However, our birds had different thoughts. We didn't think too much about them during one particular storm as we checked all of our other animals by making sure they were warm and dry. We didn't think about the chicks or their heat lamp. The water filled up fast in the blue water trough and the rain popped the heat lamps. I'm so thankful there wasn't any sort of electrical issues/mishaps other than the lamps. However, it was a very sad and traumatic experience for us all. The middle little love was heart broken. The Big Love was so upset with himself for not checking on them at the beginning of the heavy storm. I was heartbroken over the lives lost and the money that just got flooded. Once we removed the still living ones, we immediately put them under the carport/garage with an intense propane heater. We had about 23 left. After a few days of monitoring them and keeping them as warm as possible, we were down to 22 birds left. Out of 50. That's over 50% lost. 😔 This project was meant to fill our freezer for the next year of fresh, home grown meat. Anytime something sad happens with our livestock, I always go back to my FFA days and learning the FFA Creed by E.M. Tiffany. "I believe that to live and work on a good farm, or to be engaged in other agricultural pursuits, is pleasant as well as challenging; for I know the joys and discomforts of agricultural life and hold an inborn fondness for those associations which, even in hours of discouragement, I cannot deny." 
This was a prime example of this type of discomfort of agricultural life. It was so sad. Once we knew that those still living were not sick and were feeling better, the job of harvesting them had to be done. Not to my Big Love's satisfaction. He avoided it for quite a while. The day came where my 
We harvested 22 birds. Well, they did 22. I just cleaned/bagged them. But wow. Check out the size of these chicken breasts!!!Below is a breakdown of our price per bird. I did the math both ways, one way based on if we had harvested all 50 birds versus what each bird cost at 22 birds. Who said we don't use math on the regular?? 😁😁
Unfortunately, this time I did not weigh our birds regularly or the meat afterwards to be able to actually figure out a price per pound. If we would have had all 50 birds survive, then yes $12.88 for an entire bird that we raised from a chick and know exactly what we fed and for our children to learn this lifestyle? Yes. 100% worth it. For $29.27 a bird for only 22 birds... I guess we are paying for the life lessons right?Let me know your thoughts or if you have done the meat bird thing! I would love to hear your successes and learning! Comment below!
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