Meat Birds - Take Two

First round of meat birds was pretty awful. they were aggressive, drew blood on me several time, stunk so badly they made my stomach ill, were hard work caring for, and were just overall dirty and disgusting.  They were also expensive! It would of cost less per pound to simply buy chicken at the grocery store. Not a good experience at all.

Second round of meat birds happening now. They go to get processed in three weeks. Can't wait! I was very tempted to not do the second batch of meat birds as the first batch was such a bad experience, but as they were already paid for and I like to give everything a fair try, I figured I'd try one more time. 

We did a few things different this time and things are going better. The first time we penned them for almost their entire time here. this time we freeranged them with the other birds. So much easier and better! The birds are healthier, not as aggressive and way easier to care for. They also don't stink as bad.

Unfortunately due to freeranging, we've lost ten of them to predators :( They are super easy prey; big, fat, slow moving, and white. However, one of the reasons they have been easier and more enjoyable is because there is less of them. 20 meat birds is much nicer to raise than 30! That's a good lesson, if I had raised less the first time it probably wouldn't of been such a bad experience. 30 was too many birds at once.

Round 2 with meat birds is still expensive, but a little less expensive this time for us as we did better sharing expenses with our friend who owns half of the meat birds. First round we paid 100% of the cost for their bedding and corn. That added over $80 to our meat bird expense on the first round. This time, we are only purchasing about 60% of the corn, which helps to cut costs for us. :) The meat birds will be a bit less per pound for us this time, but still more than what we would of paid at the grocery store.

The timing for the second batch was much better. First batch had to go through extreme heat while they were big. this time we had extreme heat while they were chicks, but nice cool temps while they are adults. so much better! However, way more predators in fall than in summer, so we've lost more meat birds than we would of in the summer time. 

Overall this time around with the meat birds has been a better experience. Freeranging them makes life way easier, and raising them from August-November is easier than raising them from May to August. If we ever try them again, we'll be sure to keep numbers down. Raising around 15-20- meat birds at a time is a much better idea! 30 is too many, especially when you already have 60-70 other birds and chicks/duckling etc to deal with. 

Everything is a learning lesson! I'll post with final costs once they get processed .

Hugs and love!