need info on chickens

lbequ4002 · 07-07-2008, 11:19 PM

does anyone actually raise them for meat and eggs? My husband really wants to try this and as long as the dogs don't kill them it might be ok. How hard are they to take care of and is it really worth it? I don't think i'd have a problem culling them but I need more info first. How many is a good number for 2 people? Do they stink? How old do they need to be before culling or laying. Thanks for any info.

Sunlei · 07-07-2008, 11:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lbequ4002

does anyone actually raise them for meat and eggs? My husband really wants to try this and as long as the dogs don't kill them it might be ok. How hard are they to take care of and is it really worth it? I don't think i'd have a problem culling them but I need more info first. How many is a good number for 2 people? Do they stink? How old do they need to be before culling or laying. Thanks for any info.

Some people have dogs that were farm raised and they don't chase the chickens. Some dogs really love to chase chickens, can train them but that's a lot of time. Best to fence the dogs, hawks,possoms and other things that eat chickens out.

I have hens for eggs, they have a hen house with a bunch of wood chips and hay and it stays dry so no smell. They are easy care animals. At sundown they go in their house themself. Food, clean water, air and space and a safe dry shelter and chickens are happy. Easy to raise from baby chicks if they don't get chilled when young. Most of the mail order places make you buy 25 chicks. They even give you a 26th free mystery chick.

To me 26 chickens by 3 months old were to many. I sold half on crags list really fast. The 2 roosters were sold too, I don't want crowing. There's a lot of people out there who want rhode island red hens for the large brown eggs.

Far as meat goes, chicken is so inexpensive I prefer to let someone else butcher and pluck feathers and I just have hens for fresh eggs. So much better than store eggs, once you have them you'll never go back.

Chickens are teriffic fly catchers! and they are sweet and love their people, especially if you bring them goodies.

I edited to add a warning about horses and chick starter food. I learned this on HT, someone posted. Chick starter medicated feed can be toxic or even kill horses. I came so close a few times to letting my horse have a taste of the chick starter. I could have killed her. God bless the HT poster who posted that warning.

farmergal · 07-08-2008, 05:07 AM

I've tried raising the cockerels for meat. Let me warn you butcher them while young. For one thing they are roosters and roosters are mean and for another the meat is tough when they get older or at least mine was.

Now when I raise chickens for meat I buy cornishXrock hens. The ones I didn't butcher grew to lay the extra large eggs. Although I'd recommend an egg layer breed if you want eggs. The number of chickens to have depends on how many eggs you wish to eat. Eggs need to be collected daily and if the coop isn't kept clean the eggs with be dirty. I never eat a dirty egg. Nor do I eat an egg that I find and I have no clue how long it laid there.

Large numbers kept in small spaces are VERY smelly. A brooder that is not kept clean on a daily basis can knock your socks off.

They are eating, pooping machines.

If you have the time, money and space I'd give it a try. I'm not comfortable butchering myself so I pay my butcher to do the deed for me.

Your feed store should have a pamphlet on raising birds for meat.

edited to add: It's kind of expensive but you should try raising your turkey dinner. In my opinion it was worth the 30 bucks I paid per bird. But then that was several years ago. With the way prices are going up

I doubt you would save much if anything by raising your own birds (chickens or any bird) but it could be fun.

Jadelover · 07-08-2008, 05:48 AM

We raise chickens for eggs and meat. We don't save much money, if any, but I know exactly what went into my food. Our chickens are cooped most of the time, but have "free" time out of the coop everyday for several hours. During that time they help rid our farm of unwanted bugs, young snakes, and help speed up the composting process of the manure pile by scratching around in it. We keep them cooped when we are not out and about because of hawks, and neighbor dogs. We have a border collie who LOVES to help herd them back into their coop at night.

We have 20 hens that lay, 4 formerly mystery birds that are for the freezer.(They turned out to be roosters) and one rooster for breeding. I keep him with two hens that have hatched out their own chicks this year. This way, I don't have to keep buying hens every year.

I don't pluck chickens, but I was recently told of a way to make the butchering process much easier. I just skin them, as I don't want the skin anyway, and would only buy boneless, skinless in the store anyway. This makes it MUCH easier. The key is, keep a vat of ice cold water on hand when you are butchering. If you want furthur info on the butchering, let me know...I don't know that you want all that detail here.

Good luck, I think it's nice having them around, and if you keep their area clean, they can be quite helpful on a small homestead like ours!

mandelyn82 · 07-08-2008, 08:22 AM

I always bought chicks so that I'd have tame hens... they were free range, lost a total of 3, one to a fox, two to hawks. That was in the suburbs, so I'd imagine it would be higher losses out in the country. Oh, two to raccoons... I had them caged on the porch in what I thought was a safe cage, came out to headless chickens from coons using their hands to pull as much of the bird out as they could. Fancy African Crested hen and rooster pair that I paid $40 for too.

Free range only works if they'll be reasonably safe. If there's a good number of predaters around you'll want to coop them and give them layer pellets and/or chick grower. Corn fed chickens lay fairly tasteless eggs. A well fed chicken will lay an egg with a deep orange yolk. If they're lacking in important vitamins, they'll eat their own eggs.

There were three roosters who got stewed (they were over a year old.. had to stew them) and we did the process ourselves. Messy and time consuming, even on just one. If I raise chickens again I'll get a couple of them together and take them somewhere. That was the fate of mean roosters who attacked me. The rest were very friendly. Maybe they put two and two together?

If I could have some again, I would purchase one of those wooden sheds, or have my husband build one. Something tall enough to stand up in to make egg collecting and cleaning easier. I would dig a trench a foot deep along the line the fencing would go, and set the fencing into it to keep critters from digging into it.

I'd do the fencing about 6 foot tall with a roof of fencing as well. Walk in gate for humans. I was thinking some branchy type bushes in there for shade, keeping the bottom trimmed up so the chickens could get under it, but thick up top so they couldn't get in it.. if that makes sense.

I'd have the roosts in the house going up the back wall, starting two feet off the ground, each one behind it up two feet and back two feet. (to keep them from pooping on each other in their sleep.) Then the nests would be down each side wall, about 4 foot off the ground. Food and water would be up front where I could get to it easy each day.

The yard of the coop would be done in round, smooth gravel. Something that'll drain good and can be hosed off. Left as grass it will turn to dirt, then subsequently mud. Then it'll stink over time since you can't clean dirt. You could rake it, but it'll still get muddy.

The square footage would depend on the number of chickens. But I'd like 5 to 8 laying hens and one or two roosters for breeding. That way you should get atleast 4 eggs a day, depending on the breed. So for that I'd keep the shed the same size, and the outdoor pen would be 10x10x6. 3 square feet added after that per chicken.

RIReds, White Leghorns, Dominiques, a couple others are fantastic daily layers. They'll lay all year if you keep a light on them in the winter tricking them into thinking the sun is still out. It's best to give them some time off though. So 5 hens means 5 eggs a day. Pennies a day to feed them.

Well, a 50 pound bag of layer pellets used to be around $10 and it lasted me 3 months. Cracked corn was $5 per 50 pound bag, and chick grower was $8 per 50 pound bag. That was 12 years ago though... don't know what it is now. I know the cost of eggs has gone up.

farmergal · 07-08-2008, 10:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mandelyn82

Pennies a day to feed them.

Well, a 50 pound bag of layer pellets used to be around $10 and it lasted me 3 months. Cracked corn was $5 per 50 pound bag, and chick grower was $8 per 50 pound bag. That was 12 years ago though... don't know what it is now. I know the cost of eggs has gone up.

The cost is double that now. I'm happy when I see it only costing me $18 for 50 lbs. That's one good reason to have the egg layers free range.

If one is raising chickens for the freezer factor in the fact one is eating a chick. They are butchered at 8 to 12 weeks of age. Then the cost isn't as bad but to raise for egg production you are feeding for approximitely 6 months before you see your first egg.

WiggyBug · 07-08-2008, 10:19 AM

Good information here, just want to add you can expect 1 egg per chicken every 36 hours or so, hope that helps you determine how many layers you need for 2 people! We have a family of 4 that likes their eggs, so have 10 layers (RIReds).

Ducks are really fun, too. They keep us cracked up with their antics at my place! I hear their eggs are good for baking with, if you don't like to eat duck eggs, but mine are for the freezer, and have a DWD (date with death) on the 18th, along with my CornishXs.

Go for it, it's entertaining!

And like someone posted above, you know exactly what is in the meat and eggs you eat.

ToveroMom · 07-08-2008, 10:55 AM

LOL I have 2 duckies..but they are for amusement purposes only.
I did come across a webpage that shows you how to basically fillet the dead chicken and skin it so no plucking.
I hate the smell of the chickens when you dunk them to loosen those feathers..ick,gag,puke.
We may try this way and see how it goes. They want way too much money here to process them-cheaper to buy organic chicken at the butcher.

Glad you folks have located a good price on that.

carlagsd · 07-09-2008, 05:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ToveroMom

They want way too much money here to process them-cheaper to buy organic chicken at the butcher.

Glad you folks have located a good price on that.

I just put in an order for 25 Cornish X meat chicks. Found a guy willing to butcher and pack them for $1.50 each. I guesstimated that the birds will cost me around $6.00 each by the time they go to slaughter in 8 weeks. It might not be any cheaper, but as others have said, I know exactly what they ate.

I'm on a health kick right now. Reading all the news reports about bad food got me to thinking, so I'm going to raise as much as I can on my own. It makes me feel better about the food on my dinner plate.

Karen Cole · 07-09-2008, 06:37 AM

We really like the Isa Brown hens for egg laying they will lay an egg sometimes two per day. They are worthless however if you want something to butcher. Seems we might have gotten some breast meat but not much before deciding it was just not worth the effort.

Ours don't free range anymore the neighbors dog culled alot of them when they were. Also they decided they liked the goat barn better than the chicken shed and started to roost there. I didn't like getting pooped on at midnite baby checks or milking does that had poop on them.

Right now I think we have 6 chickens and 1 duck which gives us more eggs than we can use in a week. I sell them for $2 a dozen or give them to friends/family. In the winter you need to put a light out for them or they stop laying, last year we didnt' lite the coop. My husband ate store eggs I gagged just cooking them. After having fresh for so many years the store eggs stink.

Karen

Thekidsmum · 07-09-2008, 06:53 AM

We eat lots of eggs. Love fresh eggs. We also supply the old couple down the road for free.

We have 5 hens and get up to 5 eggs a day. It costs me about $12 a bag of chook feed that does them easily for a fortnight. Plus they get let out to forage around every afternoon. They also eat the food scraps for us.

With eggs running $3 - $5 a dozen it certainly is cheaper to run our own chooks.

ToveroMom · 07-09-2008, 09:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by carlagsd

I just put in an order for 25 Cornish X meat chicks. Found a guy willing to butcher and pack them for $1.50 each. I guesstimated that the birds will cost me around $6.00 each by the time they go to slaughter in 8 weeks. It might not be any cheaper, but as others have said, I know exactly what they ate.

I'm on a health kick right now. Reading all the news reports about bad food got me to thinking, so I'm going to raise as much as I can on my own. It makes me feel better about the food on my dinner plate.

Yeah BUT I am not paying a 6 dollar processing fee here..that is nuts
If I found a guy for a buck and half that would be different.

Similar Threads
Thread	Thread Starter	Forum	Replies	Last Post
We Have Chickens!	Texas Paints N Arabs	Farm Animal	3	05-02-2008 01:29 PM
New chickens	rms0706	Farm Animal	10	01-31-2007 01:34 AM
Chickens	iluvmyhorses	Farm Animal	10	03-07-2005 06:14 AM

07-07-2008, 11:19 PM
lbequ4002 Yearling Member Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Central AL Posts: 792	need info on chickens does anyone actually raise them for meat and eggs? My husband really wants to try this and as long as the dogs don't kill them it might be ok. How hard are they to take care of and is it really worth it? I don't think i'd have a problem culling them but I need more info first. How many is a good number for 2 people? Do they stink? How old do they need to be before culling or laying. Thanks for any info.

07-08-2008, 05:07 AM
farmergal Seasoned Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: New York Posts: 4,818	I've tried raising the cockerels for meat. Let me warn you butcher them while young. For one thing they are roosters and roosters are mean and for another the meat is tough when they get older or at least mine was. Now when I raise chickens for meat I buy cornishXrock hens. The ones I didn't butcher grew to lay the extra large eggs. Although I'd recommend an egg layer breed if you want eggs. The number of chickens to have depends on how many eggs you wish to eat. Eggs need to be collected daily and if the coop isn't kept clean the eggs with be dirty. I never eat a dirty egg. Nor do I eat an egg that I find and I have no clue how long it laid there. Large numbers kept in small spaces are VERY smelly. A brooder that is not kept clean on a daily basis can knock your socks off. They are eating, pooping machines. If you have the time, money and space I'd give it a try. I'm not comfortable butchering myself so I pay my butcher to do the deed for me. Your feed store should have a pamphlet on raising birds for meat. edited to add: It's kind of expensive but you should try raising your turkey dinner. In my opinion it was worth the 30 bucks I paid per bird. But then that was several years ago. With the way prices are going up I doubt you would save much if anything by raising your own birds (chickens or any bird) but it could be fun. __________________ Last edited by farmergal : 07-08-2008 at 05:19 AM.

07-08-2008, 05:48 AM
Jadelover Weanling Member Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Central New York Posts: 247	We raise chickens for eggs and meat. We don't save much money, if any, but I know exactly what went into my food. Our chickens are cooped most of the time, but have "free" time out of the coop everyday for several hours. During that time they help rid our farm of unwanted bugs, young snakes, and help speed up the composting process of the manure pile by scratching around in it. We keep them cooped when we are not out and about because of hawks, and neighbor dogs. We have a border collie who LOVES to help herd them back into their coop at night. We have 20 hens that lay, 4 formerly mystery birds that are for the freezer.(They turned out to be roosters) and one rooster for breeding. I keep him with two hens that have hatched out their own chicks this year. This way, I don't have to keep buying hens every year. I don't pluck chickens, but I was recently told of a way to make the butchering process much easier. I just skin them, as I don't want the skin anyway, and would only buy boneless, skinless in the store anyway. This makes it MUCH easier. The key is, keep a vat of ice cold water on hand when you are butchering. If you want furthur info on the butchering, let me know...I don't know that you want all that detail here. Good luck, I think it's nice having them around, and if you keep their area clean, they can be quite helpful on a small homestead like ours!

07-08-2008, 08:22 AM
mandelyn82 Coming two Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Ft. Campbell, KY Posts: 1,962	I always bought chicks so that I'd have tame hens... they were free range, lost a total of 3, one to a fox, two to hawks. That was in the suburbs, so I'd imagine it would be higher losses out in the country. Oh, two to raccoons... I had them caged on the porch in what I thought was a safe cage, came out to headless chickens from coons using their hands to pull as much of the bird out as they could. Fancy African Crested hen and rooster pair that I paid $40 for too. Free range only works if they'll be reasonably safe. If there's a good number of predaters around you'll want to coop them and give them layer pellets and/or chick grower. Corn fed chickens lay fairly tasteless eggs. A well fed chicken will lay an egg with a deep orange yolk. If they're lacking in important vitamins, they'll eat their own eggs. There were three roosters who got stewed (they were over a year old.. had to stew them) and we did the process ourselves. Messy and time consuming, even on just one. If I raise chickens again I'll get a couple of them together and take them somewhere. That was the fate of mean roosters who attacked me. The rest were very friendly. Maybe they put two and two together? If I could have some again, I would purchase one of those wooden sheds, or have my husband build one. Something tall enough to stand up in to make egg collecting and cleaning easier. I would dig a trench a foot deep along the line the fencing would go, and set the fencing into it to keep critters from digging into it. I'd do the fencing about 6 foot tall with a roof of fencing as well. Walk in gate for humans. I was thinking some branchy type bushes in there for shade, keeping the bottom trimmed up so the chickens could get under it, but thick up top so they couldn't get in it.. if that makes sense. I'd have the roosts in the house going up the back wall, starting two feet off the ground, each one behind it up two feet and back two feet. (to keep them from pooping on each other in their sleep.) Then the nests would be down each side wall, about 4 foot off the ground. Food and water would be up front where I could get to it easy each day. The yard of the coop would be done in round, smooth gravel. Something that'll drain good and can be hosed off. Left as grass it will turn to dirt, then subsequently mud. Then it'll stink over time since you can't clean dirt. You could rake it, but it'll still get muddy. The square footage would depend on the number of chickens. But I'd like 5 to 8 laying hens and one or two roosters for breeding. That way you should get atleast 4 eggs a day, depending on the breed. So for that I'd keep the shed the same size, and the outdoor pen would be 10x10x6. 3 square feet added after that per chicken. RIReds, White Leghorns, Dominiques, a couple others are fantastic daily layers. They'll lay all year if you keep a light on them in the winter tricking them into thinking the sun is still out. It's best to give them some time off though. So 5 hens means 5 eggs a day. Pennies a day to feed them. Well, a 50 pound bag of layer pellets used to be around $10 and it lasted me 3 months. Cracked corn was $5 per 50 pound bag, and chick grower was $8 per 50 pound bag. That was 12 years ago though... don't know what it is now. I know the cost of eggs has gone up. __________________ "The more people I meet the more I love my German Shepherd"

07-08-2008, 10:19 AM
WiggyBug Halter broke Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Michigan Posts: 77	Good information here, just want to add you can expect 1 egg per chicken every 36 hours or so, hope that helps you determine how many layers you need for 2 people! We have a family of 4 that likes their eggs, so have 10 layers (RIReds). Ducks are really fun, too. They keep us cracked up with their antics at my place! I hear their eggs are good for baking with, if you don't like to eat duck eggs, but mine are for the freezer, and have a DWD (date with death) on the 18th, along with my CornishXs. Go for it, it's entertaining! And like someone posted above, you know exactly what is in the meat and eggs you eat.

07-08-2008, 10:55 AM
ToveroMom Pasture Pet Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Cleveland TX Posts: 15,313	LOL I have 2 duckies..but they are for amusement purposes only. I did come across a webpage that shows you how to basically fillet the dead chicken and skin it so no plucking. I hate the smell of the chickens when you dunk them to loosen those feathers..ick,gag,puke. We may try this way and see how it goes. They want way too much money here to process them-cheaper to buy organic chicken at the butcher. Glad you folks have located a good price on that. __________________ "In America,anyone can be President. That is one of the chances you take" Adlai Stevenson

07-09-2008, 06:37 AM
Karen Cole Long Yearling Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Michigan Posts: 1,442	We really like the Isa Brown hens for egg laying they will lay an egg sometimes two per day. They are worthless however if you want something to butcher. Seems we might have gotten some breast meat but not much before deciding it was just not worth the effort. Ours don't free range anymore the neighbors dog culled alot of them when they were. Also they decided they liked the goat barn better than the chicken shed and started to roost there. I didn't like getting pooped on at midnite baby checks or milking does that had poop on them. Right now I think we have 6 chickens and 1 duck which gives us more eggs than we can use in a week. I sell them for $2 a dozen or give them to friends/family. In the winter you need to put a light out for them or they stop laying, last year we didnt' lite the coop. My husband ate store eggs I gagged just cooking them. After having fresh for so many years the store eggs stink. Karen

07-09-2008, 06:53 AM
Thekidsmum Weanling Member Join Date: May 2008 Location: Sunny Australia Posts: 242	We eat lots of eggs. Love fresh eggs. We also supply the old couple down the road for free. We have 5 hens and get up to 5 eggs a day. It costs me about $12 a bag of chook feed that does them easily for a fortnight. Plus they get let out to forage around every afternoon. They also eat the food scraps for us. With eggs running $3 - $5 a dozen it certainly is cheaper to run our own chooks.