2016 Meat Birds at 4 Weeks Old

The meat birds turned four weeks old today.  I walked out to the chicken tractor on the pasture with a bucket to pick out our two birds marked with zip ties around their ankles and carried them into the garage where I had the scale set up.  While I zeroed out the scale, I placed the two birds side by side so that you could see the difference in both breeds.

You'll remember that the Cornish Cross on the right matures at 8-10 weeks old and the Red Ranger matures at 10-12 weeks old.  You can tell be the picture below that the Cornish Cross has a big size advantage over his buddy.

Red Ranger (left) and Cornish Cross (right)

As I placed the Cornish Cross on the scale, one thing that I noticed is that his crop is full.  Can you see it bulging in the picture?  That means that he's just eaten.  In fact he's always eating!  The Cornish Crosses act as if they never get full.

The Cornish X tipping the scales

Drum roll please...  The Cornish Cross at 4 weeks old weighs in at 2 pounds and 15 ounces. Remember that we are aiming for a 6 pound bird at 8 weeks old.  Seems like it is possible that we'll make it on the Cornish Crosses.

Halfway there!

So let's take a closer look.  Last week the Cornish X weighed 1 lb. 15 ounces, so that fellow gained exactly a pound in a week.  If you compare the birds at four weeks old last year, we are WAY ahead of where we were - 1 pound 11 ounces to be exact.  I attribute that to better weather this year and healthier overall birds.

The tale of the tape

Let's have a look at the Red Ranger.  He's a broad, good looking bird, but just not as stocky and meaty as the Cornish Cross.

Red Ranger on the scale

And, this week the Red Ranger weighs 1 pound 5 ounces.

Red Ranger on the scale

Although the Red Ranger doesn't grow as quickly as the Cornish X, he's still growing.  He weights 6 ounces more than last week and 9 ounces more than the same week last year.

They're both growing.  I feel confident that the Cornish Cross, if they keep it up, will be ready for butchering at 8 weeks.  At this point (and things could certainly change), it looks like it is going to take the full 12 weeks for the Red Ranger to be mature.

One thing I wanted to share about feed troughs for the birds is that you want to make sure that all of your birds can fit around the trough to feed if they want to.  I actually found that a 10 foot vinyl gutter works great as a feed trough.  It is inexpensive and indestructible.  It allows all the chickens to get in there and eat when I bring them their Chick Grower.  Some of the birds are civilized and just line up nice and orderly to eat.  Others have no couth and actually stand up in the gutter.

In the gutter

I've been pushing the tractor to fresh grass each day and the birds seem to be doing well, eating grass and growing.  We are about empty of meat birds in our freezer, so in 4 or 5 weeks, it ought be be time to replenish the inventory.  One thing about pushing them is that the cows come running to eat on spilled feed leftover on the ground.  I don't like them to eat that close to the ground where the potential is high for them to pick up a parasite.  So as soon as I push the tractor, I lay down a tarp on the ground weighted down by a few bricks to keep the cows from eating on the ground.

Next week we'll take a look at where we are in our journey to 6 pounds...