Meat chickens at 7 weeks old

Our meat birds are now seven weeks old.  As you can see in the photo diary below, they have grown pretty quickly in 49 days.  We normally butcher them somewhere between 8 and 9 weeks of age.  We're in the middle of the Livestock Shows now and that keeps us on the go, but we'll either have butchering day for our 47 birds either next weekend or the one that follows.

We'll need to start planning by purchasing gallon size Ziploc bags, sharpening the knives, making sure the butane bottle is full and making ice.  There is a lot of preparation that takes place prior to butchering day.  It is hard work, but we've got a pretty good process in place and try to get better and more efficient each time.  After we butcher, we'll show our average weight, our total costs and report bird loss (so far 3 lost to a sudden rainstorm) to give an average cost per pound for our pastured, antibiotic-free, hormone-free poultry.

You can see for yourself the stages of growth of the Cornish Cross Meat bird: 

One day old baby Cornish Cross Chick

One week old chick sporting new white wing feathers

 

Two week old chick in that uncomfortable adolescent stage



Three week old chick putting on weight



Four week old Cornish Cross chicken

 

5 weeks old



6 week old Cornish Cross Meat Bird

I should have weighed him tonight to show you his weight at this point.  We feed the 18% protein chick grower as well as grass that they can eat at will out on the pasture.  You can feed them the higher percent protein ration and keep feed in front of them 24/7, but we're not shooting for a 12 pound chicken.  These birds can get to be super-sized monsters.  We normally butcher a bird weighting between 4 and 5 pounds as we find it to be a nice size for our family.

Meat bird at 7 weeks old

One to two weeks to go...