2020 Meat Birds - Week 1

Last Wednesday, our 2020 Cornish Cross Meat Birds came in the mail.  50 little puff balls, chirping away.  What a fun project, although hard work.  At the end of 8 weeks, if all goes well, you have some meat to put in the freezer that you can eat on for an entire year.  Chickens that you raised and butchered.  This year's batch of 50 birds cost $2.54 per chick.  They were straight-runs, meaning some were male and some female.  They added a small order charge of $7, bringing the total cost to $134 or $2.68 per chick.

Each week, we'll track their growth and tell you a little about the process.  We'll be honest.  Things don't go well from time to time, and we try to learn and adapt.  On Wednesdays, we have our weekly weigh-in. I'll bring a random, average-sized chick in the garage and weigh it.  We'll compare the numbers with previous years' growth and make some comments on what happened on the "chicken ranch" during the week.

At the end of one week, the chick weighed 6 ounces.

This is the first year that we've put the chicks immediately on grass.  Normally, we do this four weeks earlier and start them in the brooder in the garage on wood shavings.  We've noticed that the birds are much more lively this year.  They are eating grass from day one and even chasing some June bugs around, too.  On a sad note, we've already lost one chick.  It died when it got trampled by some of the other birds.  This happens from time to time.  We look on the bright side: at least we did not have a lot of feed invested in the chick since it died at only 6 days old.

Next week we'll meet at the same time and talk about 2020 Meat Birds - Week 2.