Meat Birds

It's crazy to me that these little fluff butts can fill your freezer in just 8 weeks. They quickly grow from the fluffy, cute stage to the large, not cute at all stage very, very quickly. We built a large chicken tractor to be moved around the yard each day to give them fresh grass and feed them organic, gmo free food. 

Here they were when we first got them:

The chicken tractor:



Processing chicken is harder and more rewarding than I could have ever imagined. I am an AVID animal lover who also loves meat, so I can't in good conscious eat meat that comes from a store (even the *organic* or *free-range* stuff- trust me there are many loopholes). I had to raise it myself, watch them scratch around for bugs, flap around, and get sunshine, ensure that they had a quick, humane death, and know that as much of their body is used as possible. I have a much greater respect for the meat that I eat and home grown meat doesn't even compare to store bought meat- it is a BILLION times better! I truly think everyone that eats meat should at least raise and process a few chickens once in their life. It is amazing to see that 8 weeks for one chicken is a SHORT amount of time- you never think about how much work and effort goes into just one bag of chicken wings until you realize how long it would take to grow and process all of those chicken.

During our first bigger batch of chicken raising we lost a few birds due to human error and one due to a genetic deformity that it was born with. After the coop had sat in the same spot for three days (we were moving it every 2-3 days) there was a huge rainstorm. The interior of the run got so slippery that two of the chickens slipped and broke their legs. We tried to mend them and let them grow but since they grew so fast it was impossible and eventually they had to be put down. We also left the food with the birds 24/7, not realizing that you had to remove it for at least 10 hours at night. This led to one chick essentially eating itself to death. We quickly amended both of these problems and didn't have any more losses and ended with 22 birds. I'm writing this here so that other people can learn from our very silly beginner mistakes that had very sad consequences. Next year we will move the chicken tractor every day and remove feed at night.

Next year when we do meat birds I will follow the process closer in terms of photography and track the exact cost of raising them.

Here they are, 8 weeks later! We got so much meat, and let me tell you, it was so, so much more delicious than ANYTHING store bought! They were only fed organic feed and pasture raised/free range. After the cost of chicks and feed (including 3 losses) it came out to $2.89/lb for 109.4lbs of meat. 



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