Somebody stop me!

I am thinking of offering 3 close friends to go in with me and split cost 3 ways to order 150 cornishX for delivery in september..
to be buchered in november.. not by me, there is a place south of here bout 30 minutes.

Key... I get to do all the work, but I need the other folks to help with expenses.

questions
1. where do I keep them - shall I make a large pvc / field run, or do I make a nice large pen in the garage. I do want to be humane.. but want to beat the price increases due to floods.. (right)
2. How do I transport them to slaughter, how many to a cage?
3. I DO understand the HUGH amount of mess, food & smell they will go through.. thats why I am choosing the time of year I am choosing.

i would build something fo rthe garage... for starters. then ahve DH build three separate chicken tractors. i have heard of some chicken ranchers having success with cornish on grass... i am thinking you have grass?

you owuld have to move them out during the day, then back in at night. also, get lots of those long metal feeders. or i saw plans for a huge one at www.guineafarm.com made of wood... to keep your costs down.

be prepared, they wil eat you out of house and home!

have you considered a straight cornish?

i won't stop you becasue you are being smart about this. i even recently talked a friend into it. where most chicks doulbe in size every week, hers had doubled in three days. she refills their feeders 3 times a day!

if you want them to eat grass, you need to start them that way. how about a battery operated light for their tractor?

i am in the middle of stuff right now, or i would look it up for you. but search for a page on attra free range poultry housing. they are just small little houses about the size of a pickup camper shell...

good luck!

frans530,

tf covered that part of it. All I'll add is make sure you get everyone's share up front because with the best of intentions people often end up leaving you high and dry (no pun intended) and footing the bill. Make an estimate of all the expenses and collect that money with the understanding that if it ends up being more they chip in the difference later. if it's less you'll reimburse.

Good luck,

MollyD

Amen to that Molly.. I was born at night, but it wasn't last night!

Oh if I had a nickle for every time I was left high & dry...

I had read a few items of grazing them like that tf. In fact when I would take them for processing.. they have a program they participate in. Up near chicago, the city has donated a small parcel of land, the people (Not sure what people) take care of the chickens then bring then down for processing.. then they are sold as locally free range Chicago chickens!
will have to refind that webpage.. it had a lot of good ideas.. I would want my birds to have a bit more room though.

Had it done to me a few times when I trusted 'friends' !

MollyD

yeah, these 58 bantams i have are supposed to be only halg mine.... which half?

the back half...

so then she has to feed them?

headed to the feed store with my new flyer... i used a pic of a chick from february, similar to those i have now.

i am planning on ordering keets to sell and layers and meat birds to. havne't broke the news to DH yet. he needs a mental break LOL...

if you get the cornish cross, you really need to keep them in a small tractor. if they get too far from their water dish, they will die of thirst...

yea, I have heard that..

explain "keets" to me.. I am sure you don't mean parakeets.. or do you?

Keets=Guinea Fowl "chicks".:0)

right on about the water thing.....and they go though A BUNCH! We have a about 80 cornish (around 3 weeks old, maybe closer to 4) and they are going through 5 gallons plus a day. I've never seen anything like it. All I can figure is will all that feed they have to have so much more.

Fran.....glad you know about the extra smell and poo.....that is for sure true! (blaaaahhh!) :)

how much food Lady?

After thinking about what all you say, buying the bird, feeding it out, having it slaughtered, the price we pay at the grocery store isn't all that bad is it?

Of course, the ones you raise yourself are healthier than those from the store. I've seen pictures of these poor chickens in cages with no room to even turn around in. How healthy can they be in that condition? I've also read some horrible things about how they are cleaned. It didn't sound too sanitary or appetizing.

Raising and killing your own chickens is a great thing to do, but I'll probably never do it, unless I was starving, or my family was hungry, or you convert me. With this group, I'd say anything is possible. I still haven't eaten any chicken in two months. I quit eating pork years ago because I noticed it made me feel bad. I may end up a vegetarian.

I will still eat the eggs though !

I loved Fran's comment about the lineup. Classic.

Karen

Karen, I understand you’re not being able to imagine yourself processing your chickens.. I myself am having a little trouble so I am working on desensitizing myself.
Hunters know the difference between "murder" and processing.. now I have to teach that to my inner-self. I don't believe it is anything anyone can teach you or talk you into, you just have to be ready.
I find by reading, learning and understanding.. I believe with time I will be able to handle things.. in time.

Never having had the trouble of processing either game or domestic animals including chickens, I really wouldn't know about being able to handle things, with or without time to get used to doing it. I do, however, have a sister who had to learn how to handle dead chickens so she could cook them. LOL

GG

She hated it!!

Hi Fran.....I just bumped up a thread on cornish cross's that you might like to read.

With our feeding practices we haven't really kept up with exactly how much they eat. We have a lot of chicks at different ages, and they all get the starter. We are also feeding them off and on, a high protein turkey starter, but once again, we have turkeys and keet that also eat that, so its hard to really know.
I went and did some web surfing and found it written somewhere that you can expect 1 cornish cross to eat 8 lbs of starter in 6 weeks. For 150 chicks, you could expect to go through 1200 lbs of starter, or 24 bags. Of course you may go through a little less, as you may have some losses.......how many is very hard to say. Out of our first order of 100 cornish, we have only lost 1 so far. We later got some more cornish that was that ended up being included in a 'grab bag' special and ended up with 20. Of those we lost 8. We have no idea why.....they were from the same hatchery. You can never really guess on what your losses may be, so I would not buy ALL the expected feed amount right away, unless you can use it yourself.

That said, please make sure you discuss with your friends that you will do your best with them and anything left to take to the butcher will be divided equally, no credit for losses. I don't know if you have talked to them about that yet, but it would be awful if they felt like you should have to pay for the dead and they shouldn't . I hate to say it, but it seems that a lot of people think they should only have to pay for what they get, not what they lost. I just don't see how that is possible with this situation.

If you have never raised cornish cross and are used to 'regular' chickens, you will absolutely blown away by how fast the cornish grow.......I know I still am. It is almost unbelievable! They grow so fast that their skin and bodies grow out before they can even fully feather.....so they have quite a bit of bare skin in places. They are very tasty though and very plump, that is why we are raising them. Well, and they are super fast to raise and get in the freezer.

I hope this has been helpful to you in some way!


Christy

Thanks for the added info Christy. It helps a LOT! Great info.
I am aware of their growth rate and poor sanitary habits and what nice birds they are. Bout the sweetest things...
But only a pair of them.. so 150.. I really have NO clue.. lol I am sure the shovel would never leave ny hands.
As I said in the beginning, it is a thought.. Might be one to save for next year.. or not.. sometimes just jumping in.. I do belive splitting the cost (up front) is the most econimical way to go though.

Your welcome Fran. I glad it has helped you. Yep, a pair verses 150 would be a whole lot different! And you are right....if you had them inside the shovel would be working double time! We have ours in a little building we built to use for a brooder house and we have to shovel out the mess every 3-4 days and put in new litter. It's almost like taking the whole 6 months (give or take some) off feed, water, clean up, bedding, and growing that a rooster takes to finish out and condensing it into 6 weeks or so.

I hope nothing you have learned about them has put you off raising them! I can't tell you how much I admire you for looking into what is really involved in taking care of them. I think a lot of people leap and then look. When we got our 1st set of cornish years ago, that's what we did. We had and knew about 'regular' chickens, but we had no idea these were so different.........we figured it out in about a week though!

Please make sure to let us know what you decide!


Christy