2020 Meat Birds - Week Four

Ahh... Week 4.  The halfway point in raising the meat birds for slaughter.  Each day we push the chicken tractor to fresh grass, ensuring that their environs are clean and fresh and that they have plenty of fresh grass to eat on in addition to their 18% chick grower.

In addition to moving them to fresh grass each day, we also began thinking about where we would move them once we butcher them.  I estimate that we have about 9 birds left in the freezer from last year's meat birds.  Before butchering in four or five weeks, I'll move those 9 birds out so that we use what's left of them first.

Okay, now's the time of the week when I walk out and pick up a random bird and bring it into the garage and weigh it to compare with last week and the same week in previous years.  I brought the bird in the garage in a bucket, but the old boy filled up the bucket.  I'll have to get a bigger one next week!

The bird was flapping his wings and squawking, but I got him calmed down enough to set him on the scale for the weekly weigh-in.  Normally, when you get on a scale, you want to see a reduction in poundage, but in this case we want weight gain - each and every week.  Our goal is an 8 pound bird at the end of Week 8.

Let's see how we did.  Week Four weight was....  3 pounds and two ounces.

How did that compare to previous weigh-ins?  Let's see:

In Week Four 2020, the birds weighed 3 pounds 2 ounces.  Last week they weighed 1 pound 14 ounces.  That's a weight gain for the week of 1 pound 4 ounces and a record weight for us at this stage, beating our previous record by 3 ounces.

In Week Four 2019, the birds weighed 2 pounds 8 ounces. 
In Week Four 2018, the birds weighed 2 pounds 15 ounces.
In Week Four 2017, the birds weighed 2 pounds 4 ounces..
In Week Four 2016, the birds weighed 2 pounds 15 ounces.

Not too shabby.   Let's see if they can continue this record-setting performance next week.  Tune in next Wednesday for our next report.