Meat birds

[JEL]

Man this brings back memories. My grandma used to get around 300 every spring. Butchering day was not fun. Chop, dip, pluck, clean and repeat. I will never forget the smell in the butcher garage.

 

[noharleyyet]

My mother in law has layers. She's mid eighties with pretty severe memory issues, but she can recite the smallest fact about her chickens...and you better be not get in her way when she wants to check on them.

 

[brockel]

There is a lot of panic buying of chicks due to this pandemic...

No issues around here getting them. Same as every other year we’ve gotten them

 

[jryoung]

We don't do meat birds, but we eat our layers when they are done.

We last year we got turkeys for meat, and just got our shipment of this year's flock yesterday. So Thanksgiving meal prep has officially started!

 

[bluespruce]

I grew up raising all sorts of various chickens: meat birds, layers, even some show chickens. No chickens since I've moved off the farm. They are really the only farm animal I miss.

I'd recommend trying to find a local chicken butchering facility if you're planning to butcher them all at once. We had a small custom processing plant and also a local Amish guy that did ours at various times. They were so much faster than we were that it was well worth the cost. Dropped them off in the morning and then picked up a bunch of cooled and wrapped birds a few hours later.

 

[brockel]

I grew up raising all sorts of various chickens: meat birds, layers, even some show chickens. No chickens since I've moved off the farm. They are really the only farm animal I miss.

I'd recommend trying to find a local chicken butchering facility if you're planning to butcher them all at once. We had a small custom processing plant and also a local Amish guy that did ours at various times. They were so much faster than we were that it was well worth the cost. Dropped them off in the morning and then picked up a bunch of cooled and wrapped birds a few hours later.

I’m one of those weird people that enjoy butchering and packaging part of the job. Even out hunting with friends I pretty much take over the gutting and quartering

 

[300stw]

hutterites sell butchered frozen chickens for 6.00 i think and they weight about 5lbs, for wife and i were just gonna support them this year

 

[Gr8bawana]

There is a lot of panic buying of chicks due to this pandemic...

When this pandemic thing is finally done there will be people who bought them for eggs will not be able to give their chickens away. Most first time chicken buyers don't know you don't need a rooster to get eggs.
The roosters just beat the hens up too much. Then when they finally start laying they can count on almost an egg a day from each chicken. That's a lot of eggs if you've got 20-30 layers.
We made the mistake of getting too many the first time we got chickens, lesson learned.

 

[brockel]

When this pandemic thing is finally done there will be people who bought them for eggs will not be able to give their chickens away. Most first time chicken buyers don't know you don't need a rooster to get eggs.
The roosters just beat the hens up too much. Then when they finally start laying they can count on almost an egg a day from each chicken. That's a lot of eggs if you've got 20-30 layers.
We made the mistake of getting too many the first time we got chickens, lesson learned.

You are right there are quite a few people that think you need a rooster to get an egg

 

[JEL]

 

[2rocky]

I have commercial poultry clients so I don't have birds at home so as not to be a vector for disease...i won't even visit two facilities in the same day...

 

[jryoung]

Thanksgiving meal prep starts today.

 

[Nick87]

I’m one of those weird people that enjoy butchering and packaging part of the job. Even out hunting with friends I pretty much take over the gutting and quartering

Thought I was the only one, I'd like to do my own steer but that's in an entire different level of things I'd probably need to do it efficiently.

 

[brockel]

Thought I was the only one, I'd like to do my own steer but that's in an entire different level of things I'd probably need to do it efficiently.

Wife and I do two pigs in the fall just the two of us in a day. That’s about my limit for just two people doing the work

 

[Nick87]

Someday I'm if ever save up for a shop I'm definitely building a room dedicated just to butchering/processing. Set up for domestic and game, I enjoy that part as much as I do the hunting.

 

[diamond hitch]

I used to raise turkeys. The last time I had 5 broad breast bronze turkeys that were just about ready to butcher at 45 lbs each. One night a mountain lion jumped an eight ft fence and ate four of them. I went to work and the last one was gone went I got home. Haven't raised poultry since. They were good on grasshoppers and very entertaining.

 

[1_pointer]

Hometown changed the city ordinance in 2017 and I'm not grandfathered in, so no bird raising here. Which I could though...

That said, if the packing plants keep shut down might be cheap to buy a few local hogs if one is willing to do their own butchering.

 

[brockel]

Hometown changed the city ordinance in 2017 and I'm not grandfathered in, so no bird raising here. Which I could though...

That said, if the packing plants keep shut down might be cheap to buy a few local hogs if one is willing to do their own butchering.

We do a couple hogs every fall. We keep one for ourselves and then split the other one for my parents and the in laws for their Christmas present

 

[mevertsen]

Got our chicks this morning.

26 RIR males
7 RIR females
5 Hamburgs
1 surprise chic

All from McMurray and they threw in a couple extra over what we ordered on top of the surprise chic.

 

[JohnCushman]

Once I start raising meat birds, I think I'll invest in one of the plucking machines with the rubber fingers that you put the bird in and let it tumble until the bird is plucked.