Broiler chickens

[Bogwoppit]

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.

[DEMPSEY]

And that's a lovely red chicken you have there too

[Paddy]

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 

[googoomuck]

Meat, eggs or both paddy?

[Paddy]

I was thinking both to be honest.  But I would settle for one or the other depending on advantages, etc...

[Bogwoppit]

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