here is a short log of our current project, broiler chickens, which is coming to a close. an overall success, despite a start rife with shaken self-confidence, due to a few deaths with these animals and the collapse, and for-the-time-being abandonment, of a rabbit breeding program. so sad. anyway, we opted to use delaware chickens for their natural foraging tendencies, as they would be in a moveable tractor, as well as their cold-hardiness, and the nice feature that they aren't the traditional commercial breed, the cornish cross, which comes to you complete with birth defects, problems walking correctly, and, to me, a general disposition as close to a soulless unit of food commodity as possible in a living thing. i may be a bit harsh on the breed, having never raised them, but i wasn't raising these birds for a profit at this point, so i could choose a slower growing breed that i had a better feeling about, so i did.
they're a lovely white, medium-sized breed, that are vigorous foragers and don't seem to mind the confines of the tractor i made for them. the tractor is 8' x 8' x 20"tall, and i planned to house 25 birds in it. the breeder sent us 27, 3 died within the first couple days, two more a few weeks later, and when we put them outside into the tractor, we lost two more, assuming, to predators. we really have no evidence of this, i.e. blood, signs of a struggle, or a widened hole in the chicken wire where a raccoon may have pulled a bird through. unsolved mysteries, i guess. anyway, that left us with 20 birds, ready for the harvest. some photos:
the tractor during construction. should've taken more photos.
about 4 weeks
5 weeks
and the harvest. some blood in the next bit, so be warned.
bleeding out
scalding, to loosen the feathers
final pin feather inspection. the cut-off bit right above the tail in where the oil gland was. most sources recommended removing that as part of the process. also, we couldn't figure out how commercial chicken operations got the legs to bend back against the body so nicely. we'll figure it out.
we don't, at the moment, have an automated chicken plucker, so we do it by hand. we opted to only harvest 5 birds at a time because of this, as hand plucking takes a long time. with set-up, harvesting, and clean-up, we did 5 birds in 3 hours. if we had more people, an automated plucker, and a dedicated work space, we could be much faster, but as our time is not really money, in this case, i'm fine with how long it took. knowing that a commercial operation will harvest a couple hundred in a single day is even more impressive to me now.
and the benefits of all this work?
pan roasted with veggies. stupid legs.. and:
processed further, to be lightly pan fried with olive oil, garlic, onion, salt and pepper.
i find, so far the quantity of meat from these birds to be sufficient. i can eat a breast and a thigh/leg with sides for dinner and feel satisfied. the birds reached a live weight of around 3lbs, 10oz, and a dressed weight of about 2.5lbs. this is smaller than a chicken you might get from a commercial grower, but it's a different breed, not as much breast meat weight, fer sure. a cornish cross will reach harvest weight at 6 weeks about, where as these birds are around 12 weeks when we'd start taking them. i'm not as enthused with the texture of the meat, even when cooked thoroughly, it feels rubbery and tough. the flavor is great, and that may just be the nature of the beast, so to speak. i think we'll try a different breed next time, not sure what yet. if i had a free-ranging layer and broiler flock with some roosters and all that, i wouldn't hesitate to include some delawares in the mix, their penchant for foraging alone is worth holding on to.
some notes.
one of the things that i wanted to see first-hand, is the effect on the grass from the scratching/foraging of the birds along with the infusion of their droppings. so i took some photos.
i think in this one, you can clearly see a green square in the otherwise brown,fall grass. the tractor sat on each spot from 2-4 days, and then was moved one tractor-length over. the space it occupied, the field, was big enough for 16ish moves before i had to bring it back to the first position, so this field could carry this flock anywhere from 32-64 days worth of feeding. so, 3 weeks inside at the beginning, and 8 weeks in this pattern, and you're almost there! by the time you've reached the end of this field, you just bring the tractor back to the start, and go again, until harvest time.
in this one i'm standing in the same spot as the first photo, just turned around, so the tractor is as far away, diagonally, as it can be from the first position, and it's starting it's last row. you can see in the lower right of the photo, the green of older positions, separated by the untouched browner grass, and also, the direct effect of a hungry, pooping, flock of chickens, just this side of the tractor. the orange bucket on the tractor is their waterer reservoir, and the red-topped pvc snorkel is their feeder hopper.
last, but certainly not least:
this little guy has no neck.
no comb, either, to speak of..
in fact, he kind of looks like the classic 'dark crystal' antagonists:
always lurkin' about, and stuff. yessss...
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