I'm not sure if this is the right place for this but as a lot of people on here seem to be fairly resourceful I'll give it a go.
I'm looking to get hold hold of some day old broiler chicks to grow for the table.
Does anyone on here know where to get them and if so, is it possible to buy them in small numbers. I'm only looking for 6 or 8 at a time.
Cheers
Bw
i was thinking the same recently (well, i wanted eggs so that i could spend some time building an incubator) and found this thread :
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056533422 (http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056533422)
should help you find some suppliers
Thanks for that, I somehow missed it with my searches :(
I'll get on to annyalla and see what the story is.
Try these crowd
http://poulacapplepoultry.com/html/for_sale.html
Annyalla will do Free range type broilers for €1.25 each and Ross (faster growing) for €1 each.
The free range ones they say should be ready after7-8 weeks and the Ross after 6-7 weeks.
They are up in Monaghan so I'll have to wait for a work trip and pick them up on my way back.
Bw
found this page, seems pretty comprehensive
http://www.irishfowl.com/irish-poultry-breeders.php (http://www.irishfowl.com/irish-poultry-breeders.php)
also http://www.donedeal.ie/find/poultry/for-sale/ (http://www.donedeal.ie/find/poultry/for-sale/)
Quote from: LordEoin on September 24, 2014, 03:32:04 PM
http://www.irishfowl.com/irish-poultry-breeders.php (http://www.irishfowl.com/irish-poultry-breeders.php)
I know one of the guys on the Kildare page so I'll give him a shout and see what he says.
Plenty of food available for them after the mash as well. :)
I'm picking up 20 2 week olds from Bridget in Navan tomorrow morning.
2 quid apiece, not bad for 2 week olds.
Bw
I have the chickens a week now, still under the lamp and will be for another while.
They are eating machines and are growing quick.
I'll get a pic up next week.
Bw
6 weeks old and starting to pile on the weight.
What breed are they at all? We used to have Rhode Island Reds.
When I was a wee lad I use to love chasing and catching the Rhode island reds. Every farm use to have them as they were quite hardy.
This is what I discovered the other morning, I'm thinking my girls are taking the piss out of free ranging!!
(http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/14/11/13/68299aec3f249011b05c51fa18cc4db9.jpg)
Them birds ate looking down at the mop and thinking are ye mad were not cleaning up any bird shit :P
Mine are some sort of cross bred specially as broilers, they're very different to layers, quite lazy in comparison.
Feeding them on growers mash and pellets along with broccoli, cabbage, chives, maize, rolled barley and spent grain.
They don't seem to interested in wandering out of the pen during the day, some of them just sit at the feeder and eat all day.
I'll probably start weighing them in a couple of weeks and decide which ones are first for the chop.
And that's a lovely red chicken you have there too :)
Good info here. I farm quail as I live in an urban area. Would love to raise chickens but not sure how the neighbours would feel about that :-\
Meat, eggs or both paddy?
I was thinking both to be honest. But I would settle for one or the other depending on advantages, etc...
The chickens are coming up on 12 weeks old, I've weighed the biggest ones and they are around 4.5kg.
I've killed the biggest 5 and we had the first one for dinner on sunday. It was 6 1/2lbs going into the oven so more like a small turkey really! 9 generous helpings and some leftovers.
Freezer space for the rest is going to prove tricky.
The trickiest part was the plucking, I tried plucking the first one just after killing it and ended up tearing skin, so out came my boiler and I got 30 liters of water up to 70 degrees, a quick dunk in that and the feathers just wipe off, great job.
The chicken was fantastic when we ate it, great flavour and the texture was a world away from a supermarket chicken. I was over at a friends last night and he served some ordinary chicken, I'll be honest, the texture to me was like mush after the sunday bird.
I haven't totted up the final costs yet but I reckon around €12-14 per bird. Sounds a lot but if they weigh 6lbs going on the oven then at just over €2/lb it compares quite favorably on price (doesn't take into account time and effort though but we're homebrewers so who counts time and effort!).
They are messy feckers though, the pen is in sh1te now with all the rain, there'll be a lot of cleaning up after christmas when all the birds are done.
Bw