The baby chicks arrive!

The day before yesterday we got the brooder ready for the arrival of 50 Cornish Cross meat chicks set to arrive today.  This afternoon Tricia drove to the 4-H Office here in our community and picked up 50 yellow puff balls, put them in a box and drove them home. 


A box of baby chicks

These babies are healthy, one-day old chicks.  Prior to putting them in the brooder, you want to be sure that they are introduced to water.  We mix a little honey in the water to give them a little kick start.  One by one, Tricia dips their heads into the water/honey mixture.


Thirsty birds

Chickens will hold their heads upright and swallow, letting you know that they got a good swig of water. 


Thanks for the water ma'am

As they each get watered, Tricia sets them into the hay filled brooder and then places the water in with them so they can drink as they need it.  She also places a piece of newspaper down and sprinkles some of the chick grower on it.  You're supposed to start with a higher protein chick starter feed before switching to the chick grower feed, but we've found that the starter is medicated.  Since we're eating these birds, we're real careful about what is in the feed and would prefer no medications, so we go directly to the grower feed.  It is amazing to watch them immediately start instinctively scratching the ground and eating the chick feed.  The 50 chicks are pretty evenly distributed in the picture below, letting you know that they are comfortable.  If they were piled up on one another, you'd want to get the heat lamp going.
 

Home Sweet Home

At night, however, the temperature drops.  For the first two weeks, you want the temperature to be between 90 - 95 degrees.  We turned the heat lamp on to achieve this temperature with the lamp 18 inches above the baby birds.  Now we'll keep them in the brooder for a couple of weeks, maybe.  As soon as they start to get feathers, I like to move them into the chicken tractor so that they can be in the sunshine and have the ability to forage around on grass.  One other thing - these little guys will stink up the garage something fierce!  The sooner we move them out, the better.  You can't rush it though, as they are very susceptible to wind and rain.  I learned this the hard way.  One year I had a batch of 25 birds that all died when a sudden rainstorm in the middle of the night drowned them.  You live and you learn, right?
 

Warm and happy chicks

Benjamin picked out one chick and held it in the palm of his hand as it posed for a baby picture.  One thing we've learned, however, with farm animals (other than the milk cows) is that they are not pets - they are food.  It sounds harsh, but it is just reality.  We don't get attached to them.  We treat all of our animals with dignity and respect and give them a good life, but we realize that they are food.
 

Awwwwww!

I know what you're thinking.  That is a cute little bird, right?  And it is - for now.  It doesn't stay cute for long.  I'll chart their progress for you and you can watch the metamorphosis occur.  This cute little fluff ball will do nothing other than eat and poop for the next 8 weeks.   You will hardly recognize him in a short time.  They are like machines.  They will be full grown and ready to butcher and put in the freezer in 8 weeks.  Can you imagine?  Contrast that to the Barred Rock pullets we have that won't lay their first egg until around 24 weeks old!  Quite a difference, huh? 

The Cornish Cross is a turbo charged dude - that is for sure.  Actually, we like slow food.  There are other breeds like the Freedom Ranger that grow slower and are a more 'natural' type bird.  Economics is the problem, though.  The Cornish Cross, a hybrid machine of a chicken, is so efficient in converting feed to muscle.  The last time I researched more natural breeds and did a cost-benefit analysis, if you chose a heritage breed, you would spend triple the amount of money on feed since they mature so much slower and you still wouldn't have a bird with the muscle mass of the Cornish Cross. The Cornish Cross is hard to beat from that perspective. 

A real handful

I checked on them one last time before going to bed.  You can see that they are healthy and comfortable.  Note the chicks in the foreground that are eating their fill already.  You never want them to run out of feed.  They will eat all day every day and all night, too.
 

An all you can eat buffet

I will track all of the input costs and report to you at the end of 8 weeks the actual cost per bird and the average weight of each bird.  Feed costs are your largest input and they have risen substantially since last year.  In looking at our past records, we've been able to raise them with the low cost of $4.36 per bird and a high cost of $8.53 per bird.  It will be interesting to see this years' cost per bird.