2021 Meat Birds - Week Seven

Thursday afternoon and it is time to weigh the meat birds.  It has been a rough week for them, I think.  It has been on the colder side and I think, despite the heat lamps, they've burned a lot of calories staying warm versus directing that energy to growth.  We'll see what the weight shows at the end of the post.

As you'll notice in the photo below, we've started the chicken tractor on its journey back south.  Once it gets past the live oak, we'll turn it due east.  Next Saturday, it will be right where we need it to be for butchering.  Nine more days to go!  One other thing to notice, the 5 gallon buckets are filled with rain water that we catch off of the roof in catchment barrels.  The bucket stacked atop the orange one gravity feeds into the bell waterer in the tractor.  Some days those chickens will drink 15 gallons of water.  It is amazing, really.

Today, we thought we'd do something a little different.  Normally, we just pick up the first bird we can grab.  Today, I thought I'd pick the first rooster and the first hen to get a wider representative sample of weights, as we know roosters grow bigger, faster.  You can tell it is a rooster because of the bigger comb on top of his head and the wattle beneath his neck.  Here is the rooster:

Up on top of the scale, and he weighs...  4 pounds 15 ounces.

And here is the hen.  You can see a much less pronounced comb and wattle.

And she weighs... 4 pounds 14 ounces.  Surprisingly, they are approximately the same weight!

Sadly, though, they are the exact same weight as last week!  No weight gain.  How can that be?  I have a couple of theories.  One is the item I mentioned in the first paragraph.  In the cold weather, their calories were expended keeping warm versus growing.  However, I think the bigger issue is that I'm noticing once I went back to the chicken tractor and surveyed the flock, while most look about the same, there is not exact uniformity in size.  Naturally, the more aggressive, dominant, bigger birds were the ones in past weeks that would come closer to me (as they expected food) and those were the ones I selected for weighing.  When I wanted to purposefully pick out a hen and a rooster, I picked a more representative sample.  We are shooting for a 6 pound bird in 9 days, and I still think we'll get there.

Last week the bird weighed 4 pounds 15 ounces and this week they weighed roughly the same.  Here are the weights at this stage in prior years:

*Week 7 2021: 4 pounds 5 ounces

*Week 7 2019:  5 pounds 9 ounces

*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

Next Thursday is the final weigh in.  We'll see you as we document their final weigh day.

2021 Meat Birds - Week Six

We are in week six of the Cornish Cross Meat Bird Project.  In checking our inventory of frozen birds in the deep freeze, we will be right on time.  We only have two chickens in the freezer.  With 50 birds approaching butchering, we will fill the freezer back up, and it is right on time.  It is 'gumbo season!'  With the winter chill setting in (or as much winter as we get in South Louisiana), nothing hits the spot like a big bowl of Chicken and Sausage gumbo.

These are real chickens.  I noticed this week that Kentucky Fried Chicken began selling a product they call "Beyond Chicken."  They are nuggets made of soy and wheat protein fried in oil.  This is America and people are free to eat what they want.  We'll eat vegetables from our garden and real chicken and real beef from our pasture, not vegetables pretending to be meat!  But to each his own.

Tonight it will be in the upper twenties (b-r-r-r-r-r-r!) and the north wind is steadily blowing at 18 mph.  It is very cold.  We have a fire burning in the fireplace and I've staked down the chicken tractor so that the winds don't blow it over.  The chickens are huddled up under the heat lamps and the tarp breaks some of the wind, but those birds are cold.  We still haven't lost but one.  It would be nice to get all 50 to the eight week period.  We shall see.  It will be in the twenties for the next three nights.

As is our custom, Thursday afternoon is 'weigh day.'  I walk out to the tractor and pick out the first bird I can put my hands on.  The bird tonight is a rooster, so he's a little bigger, but most of the birds are within a half pound of each other, I would assume.  He feels heavy, solid, and healthy.  We are still feeding them 3 times a day and still feeding them an 18% protein ration.  Some people really pour the feed to them and give a higher protein percentage ration, but we are only trying to get them to about 6 pounds and aren't interested in rushing it.  These birds will overeat and can get so heavy that their skeletons cannot support the weight, resulting in leg issues.  We'll just go slow and steady to avoid that.

Let's see what the scale says.  On Week Six, the bird weighed 4 pounds 15 ounces.  That's some nice, sustained growth.  I'll bring this fellow back to his flock.  They were all sort of piled up in the tractor, trying to stay warm.  Hopefully they won't suffocate one another.  We've had that happen before when they piled up.

The weight of the bird I picked out this week to weigh was 4 pounds 15 ounces. Last week the weight was 3 pounds 7 ounces, so they have gained a pound and 8 ounces this past week. This is how we compare with previous years at this time period:

Week Six 2019: 4 pounds 5 ounces.
Week Six 2018: 5 pounds 4 ounces.
Week Six 2017: 4 pounds 8 ounces.
Week Six 2016: 5 pounds 1 ounce.

The birds are right where we need them to be and are on schedule for butchering in two weeks.  Tune in next week for the second to last weigh in.

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.

The Scales of Justice

Proverbs 21:15 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

15 The exercise of justice is joy for the righteous,

But is terror to the workers of iniquity.

Image Credit

The Lady of Justice is a depiction of our legal system.  Ideally, she represents fairness.  She is blindfolded because the law is supposed to be free of bias or corruption.  She's holding scales to show that she's weighing the evidence.  She's holding a sword to show that sometimes justice can be swift and final.  Let's be frank with one another and go ahead and say that, for the most part, there is no justice on earth, and we won't see it until Heaven.

I was thinking about scales after weighing in the Meat Birds last night using our kitchen scale.  I always have to adjust a little knob to zero it out so that I get an accurate reading.  It is important for the scale to be right.

Our kitchen scale borrowed from my Lady of Justice

We were eating a delicious bowl of Shrimp and Okra Gumbo tonight.  Tricia was digging in the deep freeze and pulled out the last quart bag of shrimp and decided to make a gumbo on maybe the last cool night in many months.  We began discussing the shrimp and it brought to mind a great story I'll tell you.

Several years ago we were outside working in the garden and a pickup truck came down the drive.  Often, people will drop in to purchase eggs or visit.  This person wanted neither.  She was selling fresh Gulf of Mexico shrimp.  She opened her ice chest to show us what she had.  They were beautiful, big, fat shrimp.  I forgot how much she was asking for her shrimp, but it wasn't unreasonable and we bought some.

As the lady selling shrimp was weighing them out, I don't know what prompted this, but my wife walked in the house and came back out with an unopened 5 lb. bag of flour.  She put that in the lady's scale and what do you know?  The scale was showing that the 5 lb bag of flour weighed 5 1/2 pounds.  We were getting cheated due to unjust scales.  I don't know if the lady was trying to cheat us intentionally or if it was just a mistake.

When caught, the lady apologized made our shrimp purchase amounts whole.  She repeatedly told us she felt so bad about everyone she had sold shrimp to earlier and shorted.  We got a good laugh while eating those same shrimp tonight, remembering that story.  My wife is a shrewd businesswoman!  I don't know how she thought of the bag of flour calibration method.  I would have never thought of that.

There is a moral to the story:  Don't try to cheat Tricia out of shrimp.  Her eyes aren't blindfolded.  They are wide open. She's watching your scale and she's carrying a sword!

2019 Meat Birds - Five Weeks Old

I saw a funny T-shirt this week that said, "I dream of a day when a chicken can cross the road without having its motives questioned."  Pretty funny.  Speaking of chickens...

Here are the meat birds in the chicken tractor.  Notice how we've put a large tarp over the tractor to protect the birds.  We had monsoon rains today, but the heat lamp never went out and the birds survived high winds and rains due to the preparations we took.  It may not look so pretty, but it got the job done.  I'm not sure that this apparatus would be approved in a gated community with an HOA.  Ha ha!

We were happy that our birds survived the storm.  One year we were not so fortunate.  We experienced 60+ mph straight line winds in the middle of the night.  The chicken tractor had a tarp on it as well that year, but the winds treated the tarp like the sail on a ship and it flipped the chicken tractor over.  By the time we got outside, there were dead or dying chickens scattered all over the yard.  What a sight to see!  Well, we weren't going to let that happen this year.  We were more prepared.  Last night we took some long tent stakes and tied some baling twine to them and each corner of the chicken tractor.  Then we hammered the stakes into the ground to anchor it.

The stakes held the tractor down despite high winds.  All of the birds survived.  Good news!

Okay, it is time for the weekly weigh-in.  Let's go.  I picked up 3 birds and put them in a bucket and carried them to the back patio where I've placed the kitchen scale.

In just looking at the birds, I don't see where they have grown a whole lot over the last week.  Let's see what the scale says:

I weighed 3 different birds that I picked up at random.  Last week the three birds I picked up averaged 2 lbs. 8 oz.  This week the three birds I picked up averaged 3 lbs. 4 oz.  So they gained 12 ounces over the last week.  Good, but not great.

Here's a comparison with where they are now (3 lbs 4 oz.) compared to previous years at this same time frame:

Week Five 2018: 3 pounds 14 ounces.  
Week Five 2017: 2 pounds 15 ounces.
Week Five 2016: 4 pounds

We'll see where we are next Thursday.  Hope to see you back.

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...

2017 Meat Birds - 9 Weeks Old

Tonight is the final Wednesday night installment of the Magnificent Meat Bird Weigh-in as this Saturday, the birds will be slaughtered.  We'll be setting up the different stations for Butcher Day 2017 on Friday night so that on Saturday morning, we can wake up and get things started.  I'll have to remember to sharpen the knives and purchase ice on Friday.  Friday afternoon they will receive their last meal as we want their digestive tract empty.  It makes butchering a lot cleaner.

Let's see what the scale says tonight.  Like last Wednesday, I picked up two random roosters and the first hen I saw.  Remember we are shooting for a 6 pound bird as that yields a 4 1/2 pound carcass.

Rooster #1

He weighed 6 pounds 12 ounces...  He is well past the weight we were shooting for.

Rooster #2:

He weighed 7 pounds 3 ounces.  I don't think we've ever had birds that broke the seven pound barrier before we butchered them.

The Hen:

While not exactly light, she felt  a good bit smaller when picking her up to place her on the scale.

She weighed 5 pounds 1 ounce.

So the roosters average about 7 pounds and the three birds together average about 6 pounds

Here are the results from Week 9:
*Week 9 2017:  6 pounds
*Week 9 2016:  6 pounds 5 ounces
*Week 9 2015:  5 pounds 1 ounces

To summarize, last week they weighed on average 5 pounds 2 ounces and this week 6 pounds. That means they gained almost a pound over the last week.   They are 5 ounces shy of where they were at this age last year, and about a pound heavier than what the 2015 birds weighed at this age.

They are ready for processing as they have hit our target weight.  Once we've butchered, we'll tally up all the detailed information that we always provide and will compare with previous years.

2017 Meat Birds - 7 Weeks Old

The meat birds survived another rain storm this past week that gave us another 1 2/10s inches of rain.  This time we didn't get all the wind that resulted in 13 of our birds coming to a fateful end a few weeks ahead of schedule.  The chickens are clean and as white as a marshmallow.  I am still amazed at how easy it is to pull the chicken tractor.  Each day I'm faithful in pulling the tractor to a fresh spot, leaving behind a big rectangular "poop stain" where the chickens were the previous day.

They look healthy and happy, but something doesn't quite pass the 'eye test' with these birds.  As I picked what I thought appeared to be an average sized rooster up, he didn't feel like he weighed 5 pounds.  I placed him in the bucket and carried him through the backyard and into the garage where I have my scale set up on the table. I guessed that he would weigh 4 pounds.  Up you go on the scale, ol' bird.

I was right on target.  4 pounds and 1 ounce.  This is not good news.  I have been trying to do my best to pick an average sized bird each week.  Something is definitely wrong.  The bird from last week weighed 4 pounds 8 ounces.  Our goal is to raise them until they weigh roughly 6 pounds since that yields a 4 1/2 pound carcass.  The bird I selected last week must have been real heavy if this one, a week later, weighs 4 pounds 1 ounce.  If this rooster weighs 4 lbs, the hens must be a hair over 3 pounds.  I now calculate that we'll be butchering them at week 10.

Here are the results from Week 7:
*Week 7 2017:  4 pounds 1 ounce
*Week 7 2016:  5 pounds 14 ounces
*Week 7 2015:  3 pounds 9 ounces

To summarize, last week they weighed on average 4 pounds 8 ounces and this week 4 pounds 1 ounces. That means they lost 7 ounces over the last week.  They are not sick.  This indicates to me that I either picked an unusually large bird to weigh last week or a puny one to weigh this week. They are still 1 pound 13 ounces shy of where they were at this age last year, and 8 ounces heavier than what the 2015 birds weighed at this age.

We'll see how much they gained next week, but the butcher date will be very likely pushed out to either week 10 or 12.

The Tale of the Tape

We've always wanted to weigh our cows, but don't have a scale large enough to weigh an animal bordering on a thousand pounds.  Fortunately, you don't need a heavy-duty scale.  They make a Weigh Tape for Dairy Cows and Tricia purchased one for us for only $4.95.  It is not as accurate as putting your animals on a scale. It is merely an estimate.  But an estimate is good enough for us.

Weighing them gives you good data that you can use to see if your animals are average size for their age, helps you to compute feed amounts and drug dosages, and allows you to determine when they are ready for breeding, etc.

The Dairy Cow Weigh Tape

It is made of Tyvek so it is pretty much weather-proof and durable.  When it gets dirty (it will), you can clean it without damaging it.  One side of it is simply a measuring tape with inches.  It sort of reminds me of a sewing tape that my wife keeps in her sewing box - this one is just larger.

Inches on one side

If you flip it over, you can see that it is broken up into thirds - one line for Holsteins, one for Guernseys, and one for Jerseys.  We have Jerseys and as you can see, they are the smallest of the three breeds.  The numbers you see are weights.

So what you do is have your animal stand on a flat, level surface and place the tape around the cow's girth, just behind the front legs.  Run the tape all the way around and mark down the number of inches.  When you flip the tape over at whatever inch measurement, the tape will have corresponding weights based on the circumference.

Weights for each breed.

It will show you things such as the lightest Jersey breeding weight.  Without this tape, we went strictly by age, but it is important that your heifer weighs enough. Now we'll know.

Lightest Breeding Weight for Jerseys

The tape also tells you the average calving weight by breed.

So I measured Rosie and she measured 69 inches around.  When I measured Daisy, she was about the same.  The girls were a little startled as we'd never done this to them before.  
The instructions say not to pull the tape real tight.  I marked the tape with my finger at 69 inches. Flipping the tape over at 69 inches reveals that the cows each weigh roughly 905 pounds.

And that is the tale of the tape.  905 pounds.  Even though Jerseys are relatively smaller cows, 905 pounds is still pretty heavy.  That is especially evident when they step on your foot.