meat birds | All Sorts Acre

Meat birds just before going to "town".

Last Friday was the end of our summer chores. Since mid June we have been looking after 50 meat birds. We bought them as day old chicks. We fed them in the brooder coop for a month or so to make sure they could handle the outside world. Baby chicks are very fragile creatures, even the Bonnie’s Heavy Reds we decided to get.

They don’t stay that way for long. Within the month they were big, beefy looking birds that did little else but eat. So they were moved outside to the pasture pens. Actually Tim coined them chicken schooners because they slowly drift across the lawn in the front and back yards.

This was the second batch of meat birds we have done, so in fact this has actually been going on since mid May. This batch was the larger of the two so there were more pens. We had to build them quickly to make sure we would have enough for the 50 odd birds that we had.

One of the small pasture pens or :chicken schooners" in the front yard.

Every morning three chicken pens would be moved to fresh grass. The chickens were full of anticipation and moved willingly. It was great to see the birds pick at the tops of the dandelion leaves. They always went for these first. Feeders and waterers were refilled and adjustments were made to make sure they had enough shade, and rain protection. Each bird had 3 square feet to themselves.

We have one large pen that would only move around the front yard. It was very awkward to move even with the wheels. Every evening it would get moved to a clean grassy spot. All waterers would be checked again and if the grass was really messy the birds would be moved again.

This has been our routine all summer. It ended last Friday. It was processing day.

Now this is not new to us any more. We have done this a couple of times so have an idea what to expect. It was an early morning, up before sunrise. We also had a number of young roosters to catch as well as they always started early.

The routine is I catch the birds and Tim monitors the cage to make sure none get out. Meat birds don’t often try and break out, but the young roosters are full of energy and will break free if they can.

Next it is going into the pasture pens to catch the birds. These are only 2 feet tall so it is a bit difficult to move around in them. Plastic pants and wellington boots keep me clean. I get this job as I am the more flexible of the two of us. One to three birds are caught and placed into the borrowed chicken cages.

One by one they all end up in the cages. The borrowed trailer is lined with cardboard to help keep it clean. Chicken poop is not a nice thing to clean up. One layer of cages is placed in the trailer. Another layer of cardboard and another layer of cages. We only like to have around 7 or 8 in the cages so they birds can still move if they want to.

It was incredibly foggy that morning so the drive was slow. Not too bad as the birds had a lid on them and it was cool so they would be as comfortable as we could make them.

So Tim drove up to the processor in Wallenstein. For once there wasn’t a long line up. It was great. We were in and out within the hour. What a surprise! Neither of us like to be there when the chickens are killed, but we feel we owe it to them. For me it is a respect thing. I feel I should bear witness to their death as I did their life. I imagine Tim feels similar.

So we watched our birds be killed and then they disappear. I never like this part. I hate to watch the last moments of their lives. It is hard. The day before I killed 2 birds at home. It was much calmer, for both myself and the birds.

We packed up our cages and headed home to clean up.

Although we had just brought a number of birds in to be killed, we both felt an incredible gratitude for them. They would not be wasted. They would help keep others as well as us alive.

Much of the conversation on the way home was about the potential of a mobile abattoir. Imagine if no animal had to travel to their death, but could die at home. Isn’t that what many of us hope for?

Our chicken schooner.

This was the year we decided to try our hand at raising meat chickens. Last year we brought in some roosters to be processed with our friends Michelle and Andrew from Featherstone Farm. But roosters aren’t meat birds and the two are very different animals.

We ordered our meat chicks from Sharpe’s Feed Mill up the road from us. The 25 we started off with didn’t seem too daunting. So on May 17th I went to pick up 25 fuzzy little balls of yellow fluff from Sharpe’s.

They made it home safely and were promptly put in their new home, complete with heat lamp, food and water. The novelty of having more chicks wore off quickly. The 25 meat chicks were in addition to the 35 or so homegrown layers we had hatched out.

It didn’t take long for the meat chicks to show their true colours. Within 1 day of bringing them home they started developing their flight feathers. And EAT! Boy did they eat. It seemed that their heads were always in the feeder, a stark contrast to the layers.

Watching these birds was amazing. It seemed that they would grow every day. Soon they were out on pasture in the pasture pens. So far we have built 4 pasture pens.

Chickens poop a lot in general, but meat birds poop prodigiously! The food seemed to go right through them. So for many weeks we fed, watered and moved our birds. It was quite a site to see the Chicken Schooner slowly sailing around the front yard. More than once we caught people slowing down to look at the oddity in the yard. Neighbourhood children came over to ask questions, and our egg share people were very interested in what we were doing.

Feed deliveries went from 5 bags to 15 bags at a time. Did I mention that the birds ate A LOT! Feed also kept going up with every delivery. Still we wouldn’t go back to conventional feed. Only the non-GMO for our birds. I don’t want to ingest GM food if I can help it.

After 84 days of care it was time to take our first batch in. It was an early morning and a sombre experience. There was also a sense of excitement as well. Yes, the birds were going to be processed, but they were our birds. We had raised them and done the best we could for them. We were now going to have our own chicken in the freezer. We also had people that wanted to buy them. the sense of accomplishment was exciting.

We stayed until our birds had gone through the killing process. It felt only right to be there. Then we came home, cleaned our borrowed truck and ourselves. turned around and left again to go pick up our birds.

We made a couple of deliveries of the birds to customers and then came home. It was a very long day, but well worth it! Thanks chooks!

Oh yes, and the next batch will be ready on September 2.

Meat Bird Information
There are different types of meat birds:

broiler: 4-4.5 lbs: between 5-8 weeks old
roaster: 6-8lbs: between 8-13 weeks old
capon: castrated male rooster under 8 months (barbaric practice!)
stewing hen: 10 months or older hen
rooster: sexually mature male chicken

Meat birds here come in two different varieties: the white rock, and the hybrid. The White Rock is the standard commercial meat bird. It grows fast and furious. We have heard many stories of white rocks dying suddenly from “flip-over disease“. This when a bird just gives out, it appears similar to a heart attack. The white rocks also tends to look somewhat bloated due to the extreme proportions of the breast, often has trouble feathering out (from what we have seen), and doesn’t walk well. Often they are brought in at 6 weeks or so to the processor.

The hybrid is a slower growing, less consistent bird. Often they are red in colour and go by different names from different hatcheries. The death rate in theses birds is much lower because they don’t grow as fast. They are quite able to walk at 10 weeks and are nice looking birds.

When deciding which birds to go with we went with the hybrids or Bonnie’s Heavy reds.

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