2019 Meat Birds - Six Weeks Old

Six weeks old today.  The birds are still out in the yard in the chicken tractor. They made it through some pretty bad wind and rain storms this past week.  Each afternoon I push them to fresh grass so they can eat fresh grass and also so they aren't sitting around in their poop.  The birds eat a lot and they poop a lot.  This past week I added another feed trough so that they can all gather around it and eat.  As they've gotten bigger, with only one gutter they weren't able to fit at feeding time.  Now they have plenty of room.  When they see me coming with the feed bucket, they run to the door and I have to be real careful not to step on them.  Tricia feeds them in the morning and at noon and I feed them at 6 pm when I push the tractor.

Today is weigh day, so I pick them up, put them in a bucket, and bring them to the back patio where I have the kitchen scale.  There is a nice little patch of white dutch clover that I let them graze on while I get everything ready to weigh.  They enjoy it.  Looking at this photo, it is really amazing to see the transformation in 6 short weeks - from a yellow puff-ball to a muscular, fierce looking chicken.  Wow!

Here is the first of the three birds up on the scale.  This time I picked out two roosters and a hen.  The roosters are always bigger.  As you can see, Benjamin hasn't put up his eggs yet from his afternoon egg collection chores.  No, the meat birds don't lay eggs.  Our laying hens, do though.  They've been laying pretty good lately.

As I weighed each bird, I marked down the weight so that I can average the weights out.

The average weight of the three birds I picked out this week to weigh was 4 pounds 5 ounces.  Last week the average was 3 pounds 4 ounces, so they have gained a little better than a pound this past week.  This is how we compare with previous years at this time period:

Week Six 2018: 5 pounds 4 ounces.  
Week Six 2017: 4 pounds 8 ounces.
Week Six 2016: 5 pounds 1 ounce.

We'll plan to meet again this week at this time and see where we are.  We are a little light compared to last year at this time.  Our goal is a 6 pound bird that yields a 4 pound carcass and we'd like to do it in only 8 weeks.  Let's see if we hit that goal!