2024 Meat Birds - 4 Weeks Old

What's changed in the last week since the last weigh in?  Well, for one thing, their feed trough.  I moved out the small feeders because they kept getting their heads stuck in it.  They're growing.  I replaced the little chick feeders with what we always use - a 10 foot PVC gutter.  It works perfectly.  Now all the chicks can gather around and eat to their hearts' content.  

We still have them on 18% (unmedicated) chick grower.  We keep feed in front of them all day long.  At night, I pull the feed away from them.  In the morning, they're presented with breakfast and kept with food in the gutter all day.  I can tell they are growing and still, no deaths.  0% mortality rate.  Let's see if we can keep that up.

I still feed them bugs at night, but we've had a string of cool nights and that's kept the nightly bug population down.  Although tonight, it's warmed up and so far they've eaten 60 fat beetles.  On my last beetle feeding trip to the chicken tractor, I grabbed an average looking bird and brought him back to the scale in the garage.  He plopped right down.

Surprisingly, the bird is calm and only made some slight noise when I picked him up.

I made sure to zero out the scale before we began.  Here's where ol' boy measures up on the scale for the week 4 weigh in.

The day we got them, they weighed 3 ounces

• Week 1, they weighed 6.5 ounces
• Week 2, they weighed 18 ounces
• Week 3, they weighed 29 ounces
• Week 4, they weighed 44 ounces

That's a weight gain of 15 ounces over last week.  As I look at prior years' figures, we are still right where we need to be as far as growth is concerned.  We'll check in next week to see how they continue to progress.  Remember, our goal is a 6 pound bird at eight weeks.  We're still within range of hitting that target.

2024 Meat Birds - 2 Weeks Old

An eventful week for our feathered friends.  The changes are apparent.  First, they are putting on feathers.  Their heads still have the yellow fuzz that is typical of cute little chicks, but white feathers are starting to come out.  They are noticeably larger, too.  We'll find out how much they've grown in a minute.

The storm that blew through on Wednesday set the birds back.  First, many of them came very close to dying as they got wet and had hypothermia.  Although we saved all of them, for probably 12 hours of the day, they didn't eat and didn't drink.  Once they recovered, they ate, but in a life span of 8 weeks, losing half a day of nutrition is going to set things back a little bit.

The bug population has fallen off.  Where I was feeding them between 95 - 200 beetles each night, tonight only 5 beetles were found.  That falloff in protein will be missed by the birds.  We're expanding the real estate within the chicken tractor that they can roam on, almost daily.  Since they are eating more each day, they are also pooping more.  We move the chicken tractor to fresh grass, so that they aren't standing in their poop.

So tonight is the night I pick out an average looking bird out of the flock of 32 and bring them to the kitchen scale to see where we measure up.  Like a prizefighter standing before the scales, let's look at tonight's heavy-weight competitor:

Notice the big dinosaur-looking feet on that little bird.  That means he's got some growing to do to fit into those "shoes."

Let's zoom in on the weight:

1 pound and two ounces.  In looking at records of past history, 20 ounces at this time hold the record, I think.  This bird isn't materially far behind.

At a day old he weighed 3 ounces.

A week later, he more than doubled his weight to 6.5 ounces

Not to be outdone, a week later, he more than doubled his weight to 18 ounces or 1 pound 2 ounces.

That's pretty good growth there.  We'll see if we can keep them healthy, happy and growing!  Next week we'll see how Week 3 goes.

2021 Meat Birds - Week One

Here is the first weekly installment we'll post for the next 8 weeks until these creatures are fully grown and will reside in the deep freeze.  We'll discuss challenges, victories, and the ins and outs of raising your own meat birds for home consumption.  In the last installment, we showed how we moved the 3 day old chicks out of the makeshift brooder in the garage and out into the chicken tractor.

Over the last week we've experienced some 80 degree weather (in late December)!  The chicks were hot.  We turned off the heat lamps.  Then we encountered some cooler weather (in the mid-upper 30's).  The chicks were cold.  We turned the heat lamps back on and lowered them.  If you don't do this, they'll pile up on one another to stay warm and the ones on the bottom will suffocate.  Let's just say we learned this the hard way.

A week into it, and we've only lost one.  That one was smaller than the others.  I think it came in weak from the hatchery.  Before we could quarantine in and nurse it along, it got trampled by the other 50 chicks.  So where we originally had 51 chicks, now we have 50.  Now that we've got them this far, the only fatalities we should experience is from accidents.  We have learned our lesson there, too.  Each day we move the tractor to fresh grass.  If you aren't paying attention, you'll run over them.  There's no bringing back a flat chicken.

So we do this every week.  We bring in a bird and weigh him or her.  We look the bird over and record the weight, comparing with last year's bird at this time and make general observations.  Here we go.  Last week the bird was a yellow puff ball.  This week it is bigger and you can see the white feathers coming out on its wings.  It is slowly making a metamorphosis from a cute thing to a monster bird.  I put a 'diaper' of sorts on top of the scale, so the bird doesn't christen the kitchen scale.  (I would be sleeping out in the chicken tractor if that was to occur!)

The bird weighed 7 ounces.  I wish I would have weighed them the day they came in the mail.

I will be posting shortly the weigh in for Week 2 of the 2021 Cornish Cross Meat Bird Project.  Stay tuned!

Moving Out on the Grass Three Days Later

I wasn't prepared for the chicks the day they came in.  I had my dates mixed up.  Normally, we'd have the brooder all set up and it would be a quick transition from the shipping box to the brooder.  Needless to say, that didn't happen.  Tricia had to pick them up, water each one, go to the barn, get the brooder, set it up, get out the heat lamp, pour feed for them, and unload them into the brooder.  The wife was not too happy with me!

One of the things we like to do is to get the birds out on grass as quickly as possible.  We find they are just more healthy and natural when they are out on the ground versus being inside the garage.  On the grass, in addition to eating feed, they forage for bugs and worms and eat clover and grass.  It's good for them.

Here is a glamour shot of one of the chicks.  Cute, but they don't stay cute for long.  This guy is about to transform.  You can see a white feather about to come out on his wing.  Pretty soon, he won't have any yellow fuzz.

Moving the birds out on grass is easier said than done.  We have a nice chicken tractor, but I had to get it and push it all the way to the house.  Then we needed to fit it out for the winter.  Chicks are susceptible to the cold and the rain.  We need to shield them from that, so we began affixing tarpaulins to the chicken tractor.

Once done, we have a tractor that is protected on the inside from cold wind and rain.  Those two weather events are chick killers, for sure.  We have one side not permanently attached so that on nice days we can roll up the tarp and let the chicks enjoy sunshine and clear skies.

We set up the brooder inside the chicken tractor and ran the extension cord and set up the heat lamps.  We moved the water and the feed inside.  Now, we are all ready to go.  Except, we need the birds!

We picked them up out of the garage and put them in a wagon for transport out to their new home.  I think they enjoyed the ride.

We put them down on the ground and they immediately began running around pecking at the grass - just what chickens are supposed to do.  As the birds grow, we'll extend the size of the brooder to give them more room.  In a couple weeks, we'll remove the brooder completely.

Enough on the chicks this week.  We'll have another progress report next week.

Meat Birds - 2021

Checking out the deep freeze, we tallied up the count of our frozen chickens in inventory.  There are only six left!  With the supply chain issues and inflation and general craziness in our economy, we don't want to be running out of protein.  So, I made an order from Ideal Poultry in Cameron, Texas for Cornish Cross meat birds.  They are a hatchery that we like to use.  

The price has gone up since the last time we ordered, but what hasn't gone up?  The price per chick was $2.64, not counting the "tax, title, and license."  All in cost was $2.78 per bird.  We ordered 50 baby chicks from them and they shipped out last week, December 8th, to be exact.  Over the next 8 weeks or so we'll be raising the chicks.  At the end of eight weeks, if all is on schedule, they'll weigh 6 pounds and yield a 4 pound carcass.  We'll report their growth each week along with a report of how things are going.

The chicks are shipped by the US Postal Service and when they arrive, we get a call telling us to come pick up the package quickly.  The hatchery guarantees their birds to arrive alive or they'll make them good.  Usually, they'll throw in one or two lagniappe.  We got 51 birds.  After two days, however, one of the chicks looked noticeably smaller than the others.  It was kind of getting pushed around by the others.  I told Tricia that as soon as we got back from church I was going to put it by itself to allow it to get bigger and stronger by itself.  By the time we got back from church at noon, it was too late.  Sad?  Yes, but it's part of the deal.  You lose some sometimes.

I have the chicks under a heat lamp in the garage in a temporary brooder we like to use until we move them out on grass.  You'll notice that the chicks are scattered, pretty much evenly distributed.  That is a good sign that the temperature is right.  If they are too cold, they pile up on one another.  You don't want them to be cold.  They'll expend calories trying to stay warm versus GROW.  Since we're raising them in what is our winter, this will be an important thing to watch.  We have two waterers in the brooder as well as two feeders.  You'll see that the capacity of feeders and waterers grow along with the birds.

One other thing you'll notice in the photo below is the fencing that we have spread across the top of the brooder.  Why do we have that, you ask?  (Scroll below for the answer)

Answer:

Ginger the cat would like a two piece chicken dinner, I'm sure.  Tricia doesn't think she'd kill our chickens.  She trusts Ginger.  I tend to take the position that Ronald Reagan took in the Cold War.  "Trust, but Verify."  So 50 birds are on site.  Let's see how things go.  We'll report back weekly.

2020 Meat Birds - Week Five

Week 5 in the annual 8 week meat bird project was an interesting one.  We lost one bird.  It was a runt.  After its death, Tricia did an autopsy on it, wondering if it had parasites or something to keep it from growing.  She found nothing.  Doctor Tricia's lab report was inconclusive.  That brings our total fatalities so far to 3.  If we can hold that figure, we will have a 6% mortality rate.  Normally, the hatchery sends an extra 2 or 3 as lagniappe to account for things like this, but not this time.  Oh well.

The other notable event this week was the weather.  We had two consecutive days of thunderstorms bringing lots of rain and lots of straight-line winds.  The chickens are in a chicken tractor that we push to fresh grass several times a day.  You can see the tractor below:

It is made with a 2x4 frame on wheels with PVC frame, covered with lightweight welded wire and a tarp.  We have learned from prior calamities to tie down the corners with stakes driven in the ground or the chicken tractor will flip.  We always check the weather and plan accordingly.  The weather report showed wind gusts of 9-10 mph.  We got gusts much higher than that.  Tricia estimates 60 mph!  Here are my stakes.  Only one was remaining secured, but it saved us:

Tricia ran to the tractor in the pouring rain when she saw it about to flip.  She stood on the frame for 30 minutes holding it down while torrential winds blew, shifting the tractor's location.  Tricia held it all together and saved all the birds.  When I got home, she had quite a story to tell!  I call her my pioneer woman.  She was soaking wet and not too happy...  You know the old saying, "She was madder than a wet hen?"

So it is Wednesday Weigh Day.  I brought the bird in the garage in a bucket.

And then I put it on the scale...

And at week five, here are the results:

We have five years' documentation of the Cornish Cross Meat Birds' weight for comparative purposes:

Week Five 2020: 3 pounds 12 ounces, a weight gain of 10 ounces over last week.  I think if you average it out, we are right where we need to be at this stage of their development.
Week Five 2019: 3 pounds 4 ounces
Week Five 2018: 3 pounds 14 ounces.
Week Five 2017: 2 pounds 15 ounces.
Week Five 2016: 4 pounds

As I read more and more about possible meat shortages due to the reaction to the virus, we are happy to have our own meat right here at the house.  In 3 short weeks, we'll process them.  Our slaughterhouse will be fully staffed and transportation to 'market' involves walking the carcasses in from the backyard and into the deep freeze.

We'll meet here again next week to see results of the meat birds' growth and development.

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.

2019 Meat Birds - By the Numbers

I promised I would post this tonight after work and so here goes:  Here is the scoreboard of the 10th Annual Cornish Cross Meat Bird Extravaganza!

Tricia is a great statistician, keeping accurate records year by year so that we can determine what's working and what is not.  Some things are within your control, and some are not.  Let's look first at the bird's ages.  Here is 2019 birds:

And here are 2018 birds:

The birds were one day younger this year than in 2018.  From a cost standpoint, the quicker you butcher them, the less you have to feed them.  Feed, as we look at next, is your biggest cost component.  We buy feed by the 50 lb sack.  If you do this on a large scale, you can cut feed costs by buying in bulk.  We are small-scale.  If you feed them organic feed only, you really drive up costs.  We are not organic, but we use non-medicated feed.  We may try organic feed next year.  Every year we look at it, but the cost drives us away.  We do stay away from medicated feeds, though.

Here is a tally of ordered birds for 2019:

And here are the numbers for 2018:

Big difference is the mortality rate.  We ordered 10 less birds this year and ended up butchering almost the same number of birds due to a lower mortality rate.  We only lost 4 this year compared with 12 last year.  This can be hard to analyze.  Sometimes the birds are weak from shipping.  That is outside of your control.  Sometimes, though, we lose birds we shouldn't due to poor placement of heat lamps, causing the birds to pile up and smother weaker ones.  That is human error and controllable.  In fact, 2 of the 4 birds we lost this year could have been saved with better management.

Here's a detail of 2019 Costs:

And here is 2018 Costs:

The birds were cheaper this year by $0.42 per chick.  Feed was a little more expensive in 2019, but the birds ate a lot more!  17 pounds of feed per bird consumed in 2019 versus 14.7 pounds of feed per bird in 2018.

Here are the totals in comparison year over year:

We harvested about 200 pounds of chicken that we will eat on for the next year.  Our average pound per bird was a little lower than last year, but not significantly.

The biggest metric is cost per bird.  Our all-in cost (minus our labor) was $9.43 per bird in 2019 versus $9.72 per bird in 2018.  So here is where the rubber meets the road.  At our local Piggly Wiggly, whole cut up chickens sell for $2.29 per pound.  In raising our birds, our cost of $9.43 per bird divided by our average weight of 4.11 pounds per bird gives a cost per pound of $2.29.  Exactly the same!!

However, in purchasing your cut up chicken from Piggly Wiggly, you just have to drive to the store.  You don't have to feed them everyday for 8 weeks, push the chicken tractor everyday for 8 weeks, or spend an entire Saturday butchering them.  Labor costs, if added to the price per pound, even valued at minimum wage, would make it uneconomical from a pure financial standpoint.

If your goal of raising your own birds is to save money, well, that is a losing proposition.  However, there are other considerations.  We know exactly what went into their feed and bodies.  No hormones, no medications, no antibiotics.  They were treated humanely and raised on grass and sunshine and wind.  We handled them and butchered them in a clean setting.  I think our birds look better and taste better than store-bought birds, but I am biased, I know.

There is also a lot to be said about taking part in growing your food and knowing where your food comes from.  Although we'll soon be empty-nesters and the number of birds we'll eat per year will decrease somewhat, we'll still continue to do this as we have for the last 10 years.  Tune in next year as we'll once again resume operations on the Sonnier Chicken Ranch.  Yeehaw!!  

Cutting Up The Chicken

In yesterday's post we showed you how we butcher the chickens.  We left you when the birds were butchered with the birds chilling on ice.  Our goal is to let them chill and have them in the freezer in 8 hours after butchering. 

We had a late start in butchering.  Although we set up the chicken butchering stations the night before, when we got everything ready to go, I realized the regulator on my propane burner was faulty, not allowing a blue, pressured flame, but a weak flame.  I would never be able to get scalding water like that.  I made a quick dash to the hardware store and purchased a new one.  We started butchering at 9:55 am and finished at 12:15pm.  We ate lunch and had an afternoon cup of coffee and then at 6 pm, began cutting the chickens up.  Prior to putting them in the freezer, we like to cut them up in the classic 8 piece cut-up - 9 pieces, if you count the neck/backbone portion we use for making chicken broth.

In THIS POST FROM A LIFETIME AGO IN 2014 we go into detail about how we cut them up.  Since then, we have changed a few things, but it is essentially the same.  We do cut the breast in half now.  One of the most important things about the cut-up is this: HAVE A SHARP KNIFE!

"Give me six hours to cut down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe." - Abraham Lincoln

This is no less true with chicken butchering.  We use Chicago Cutlery knives and I use whetstones, honing oil, and a sharpening steel repeatedly before and during the process.  It is SO much easier with a sharp knife.

So here is our bird ready to be cut up.  Tricia weighs each bird prior to cutting, writing the weight on the outside of a zip loc bag as well as in a notebook for our records.  We'll share that in a few minutes.  For now, let's cut to the chase...

We were rushing so as not to run out of sunlight.  We started at 6 pm and finished at 7:45 pm.  It was a long day, and we're not getting any younger!  While rushing, we were very careful so as not to cut ourselves.  No sense in bagging up my thumb in a ziploc bag.  In about a minute and a half we can transition a whole bird into this nice arrangement you see below:

All bagged up and on ice, we put the bags in the freezer 15 at a time at 1 hour intervals to allow the freezer to work at a good pace instead of overwhelming it with 47 birds to freeze at one time.

We keep them bagged and on ice and then bring the next 15 bags inside to be frozen.

We stack them in the freezer with rags between each layer of four.  We learned the hard way that if you stack them one on top of the other, they'll freeze into one block of chicken/ice.  I had to use a crowbar and hammer to separate them each time we wanted chicken for supper.  Not fun!  We try to learn from our mistakes though.

We have one final installment on chickens on Thursday Night.  We'll break down the costs and look at the economics of raising your own chickens for slaughter, comparing the numbers with prior years.  I always find it informative.  See ya Thursday!

2019 Meat Birds - Seven Weeks Old

Thursday night.  The routine continues.  I get home from work and fill a bucket with 6 scoops of Chick Grower 18% Protein crumbles.  I walk to the chicken tractor, put the wheels down and slowly push the tractor to fresh grass.  They scurry to the fresh grass and begin pecking at clover.  Being in the same spot all day, they've made a real mess on the ground.  They eat a lot and they poop a lot.

I fill the two gutters with feed and the chickens go CRAZY!  They peck at your legs and your arms... Tricia has little peck marks on her arm where they have pecked at her.  Imagine what has happened in the last seven weeks.  They have grown from little cute, yellow puff balls that weighed an ounce or so into grown up, mean, "monster-birds."

We'll find out in a minute how much they weigh.  I pick out three averaged sized ones.  Now that they are older, I pick out two roosters (since they are larger) and a hen (since they are smaller) to weigh.

We put the first chicken on the scale.  Appropriately, you can see the Lone Star feed behind him.  Those boogers are eating a lot of that stuff.

Holy Moly!  5 pounds 15 ounces!

And now we'll put the hen on the scale...

Bird 1: 5 pounds 10 ounces (rooster)
Bird 2: 5 pounds 15 ounces (rooster)
Bird 3: 5 pounds 2 ounces   (hen)

Drum roll please... 

At the end of seven weeks, the birds weight 5 pounds 9 ounces!  That shows a gain of 1 pound and 4 ounces over last week.  To look at previous years at this same time:

*Week 7 2018: 5 pounds 15 ounces
*Week 7 2017:  4 pounds 1 ounce 
*Week 7 2016:  5 pounds 14 ounces 
*Week 7 2015:  3 pounds 9 ounces

Our goal is a 6 pound bird at the end of 8 weeks.  We were running behind in comparison to previous years, but this last week, we made up a lot of ground.  The birds should be ready by next weekend.  It'll be butchering day next Saturday.

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!

2019 Meat Birds - Four Weeks Old

Four weeks.  We were about a week later than normal, but we finally moved the meat birds out of the brooder in the garage and into the chicken tractor out on grass.  The chickens will be able to eat some grass, have more space, and can fertilize the yard.  Normally, I'd like to put them in our pasture, but the nosy goats would break the fencing trying to get to the chicken feed.  As we moved them, we counted them and the total is 47 birds.  We started with 51.  We typically lose a few.

Since the above picture was taken, we've added a tarp over the tractor to keep the birds dry during rainstorms and also to give them some shade. I've also removed the two waterers and replaced with a bell watering system.  Finally, I removed the 3 small feed troughs and replaced with a PVC gutter trough that allows all of the birds to eat comfortably.

Each Thursday, we take a moment to weigh the meat birds and chart their growth against previous periods.  This time, Tricia suggested that I randomly select 3 birds and weigh them and get an average weight, just to ensure I'm not picking out the biggest birds or the males (which are bigger) each time.  That's what I did.

I wrote down the weights of each on the piece of paper that protects our kitchen scale.  You can see the birds' dirty footprints on the paper.

As you can see, the average weight was 2 pounds 8 ounces this week (Week Four 2019).  Last week they weighed 1 pound 10 ounces.  So that is a 14 ounce gain over the last week.  Here's a comparison of same period, previous years:

• 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

We're a little behind where I like to be at this point, but that's alright.  We like to butcher at around 8 weeks, but we've gone as long as 10 weeks before.  It is no rush, but it is more economical to butcher them earlier, if you can.  It is also easier to care for meat birds that are in your freezer.  We feed these guys 3 times a day and also water them.  Then, each evening, I push the chicken tractor to fresh grass, so that they aren't standing in their poop.  It is a lot of work, but we feel like the results are well worth the effort.  Anyone can do this.

Next week, we'll see if we've caught up to where we were in previous periods.