Meat Chickens 2021

 Butchering is slated for 9 weeks of age, two have been taken early at 3 lb, 3 oz and 4 lb, 12 oz.

Feed---20 fifty pound bags of Organic Start and Grow @32.65 each for the last 8, the first 12 were slightly cheaper.  I believe the total was $620.03 for food.   I also bought a propane burner ($30.00 + tax), two more waterers ($11ish),  fed them 2 huge beef livers, and a part of left over meat bird bag from last year.

Birds were butchered over 2 days at exactly 9 weeks old, first morning we started about 6:30-6:45 and by  9:30 or so the butchering of 37 birds was done.  It took 3+ hours to do the final picking (crop pulling mostly) and to bag and weigh them.  This year we used poultry bags from flpoultryshrinkbags.com and they worked great once we did a couple.  The biggest birds just fit, but with our somewhat smaller overall size they were fine.  I'm hopeful it will give us less freezer burn overall than the big storage bags or butcher paper.  Second morning we started about the same time, but moved along very quickly.  We did 23 birds in less than 2 hours total with the final cleaning, bagging, weighing and organ clean up/freezing being done well before lunch time.  Aiming for 20-30 birds a morning is very doable, 37 exhausted me a lot more.  We had our youngest (age 9) doing the butchering, our 13 year old as our chicken chaser/runner, my dad on the plucker and for gutting we had one adult just doing legs and oil glands, 1 adult gutting, and our 11 year old with me gutting when I could and holding for the butchering.  A small crew, but one that worked really efficiently.

First time ever, the night before butchering I had 4 birds with wings break through.  Not sure what happened, but they weren't bothered and the other chickens didn't even act like they cared about the blood.  They were from the small tractor.  Also had a few in that tractor that wing contusions that were green and gross looking.  Not sure why, most likely injury, but we didn't see excessive fighting.  Did they grow to fast at the end?  Injury from moving the tractor?  Hope it doesn't happen again!

Total cost for birds: $114 for 60 cockerels (definitely had some girls in the mix though and they stayed smaller, probably due to getting less food.)

Total for food: $620.03

Total number of birds butchered: 62 total, 2 taken early and 60 done over two mornings.

Total of 62 birds: 349 lbs   (Average weight 5.6 lbs, or 5 lbs, 10 oz)

Hearts: 2 lb, 12 oz

Liver:6 lb, 5 oz

Gizzard:6 lb, 5 oz

Cost/lb of chickens only: $1.77/lb

Cost/lb if including the organs: $1.70/lb

Definitely increased in price, but these are 100% organic for about $.30/lb more.  And the other feeds have increased this year as well, so the price cost might not have been as much as we think.  These were about the size of the 8 weekers from last year, smaller than the 10 weekers.  But, these were more work with the soaking and the pushing the last two weeks might have caused the wing issues.  Lots of variables, but overall just glad to have the meat in my freezer!

15 birds went with Mom and Dad, a total of 79 pounds/15 birds.  We have 47 birds total.