2018 Meat Birds - Four Weeks Old

Yesterday was Resurrection Sunday.  We started the morning earlier than we normally do as we cooked breakfast at church at 7 am (bacon, eggs, sausage, pancakes, biscuits, toast, coffee and juice).  Our hens donated the eggs for the event.  Everything went great, well... until.  Tricia and I were scrambling the eggs - a dozen at a time.  When they were done, we moved them to a chafing dish on the buffet line in the fellowship hall.

When we lined up to eat, the eggs had turned GREEN!  Turns out it is caused by a chemical reaction between the iron in the chafing dish and the sulfur in the eggs.  It is harmless, but not very appetizing, unless you are Dr. Suess or Sam I Am.  (Green Eggs and Ham)  After breakfast, we had a sunrise service and celebrated our Risen LORD.  We spent the afternoon in Kinder with family, ate a great meal and visited and by the time we got home and milked cows, I was too exhausted to blog.

Here's what I was going to say last night:  Our chickens are four weeks old.  They have lived about half their lifespan.  At 8 weeks (for sure by 10), they have reached the 6 pound weight that we are looking for.  This week we were anticipating some bad weather.  We staked the chicken tractor down so that it wouldn't blow over with the strong winds.  If you recall, we lost a bunch of birds one year when the winds blew the chicken tractor over, scattering birds all over the yard.  The weather that blew through this week wasn't bad in Jennings, so our birds were high and dry.

One difference this week is that the birds have grown and I am now carrying them to the scale in a blue bucket for weighing in.

I zeroed out the scale with the empty bucket to get an accurate weight and then I load the bird in the bucket and place it on the scale.  Here are the results:

• This week, the bird weighed 2 pounds 15 ounces.  That is a gain of 29 ounces or 1 1/2 pounds over last week!
• In Week Four 2017, the birds weighed 2 pounds 4 ounces 
• In Week Four 2016, the birds weighed 2 pounds 15 ounces

We are ahead of schedule as far as weight gain is concerned.  Tricia was just remarking to me that the birds are the healthiest at this stage than they've ever been.  Too bad we lost those birds during the first week.  If I had to guess, I would assume the shipping of the birds from Missouri to Jennings, Louisiana was just too hard on the birds.  I may try to use a hatchery closer to us next year.

As the sun sets in the western sky, the cows graze on fresh grass and the meat bird pokes his head up out of the bucket asking to go back and meet his fellow comrades in the chicken tractor.

Tick, tock, chicken.  Four weeks left...