Meat chickens at 3 weeks old

We've been showing a weekly chronology of the growth of our Cornish Cross Meat Chickens.  The Cornish Cross chickens have been bred to mature quickly and produce meat efficiently.  They are not genetically modified, but are the result of highly selective breeding.  We started off with 50 birds in early December and lost one to suffocation last week when they all piled up on one another and lost two yesterday to hypothermia/cold/rain.  So we have 47 remaining and they are really growing fast.

They move from a cute little puff ball...

One day old

To getting a few white feathers on their wings...


One week old

 To getting sparsely populated white feathers everywhere...


Two weeks old

 To a rapidly growing, eating and pooping machine...


Three weeks old

This picture below shows why they are called fast-developing, broad-breasted, meat-type chickens.  At three weeks old, look at the meat on that bird.  At around 8 weeks old they are fully grown and ready to butcher.  I opened our freezer and we only have six cut up chickens left, so it looks like we'll run out at just the time that this batch of birds is ready for processing - perfect timing.


Only three weeks old

Now, I've been a little tardy in my postings of the growth of the birds.  This Tuesday they'll actually be four weeks old, so stay tuned for another update coming shortly.  On January 3rd we actually have the second batch of day old Cornish Cross chickens coming in.  This batch is 100 birds.  I'll have to get both brooders ready to accommodate them.

Admittedly, that is a lot of birds for our family, but we employ the "Blue Bell ice cream motto:"  We eat all we can and sell the rest!