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I ordered 50 unmedicated 'Kosher King' heirloom roasters from the Noll family in Pennsylvania and they arrived in the mail on September 15th. The estimated harvest date is December 15th.
(8/10/10) Recap of 2010 Summer Harvest
I began the process on April 23rd with 16 unmedicated White Muscovy ducklings from J.M. Hatchery in Lancaster County, PA. This hatchery uses improved breeding stock from France that produces males weighing 12 pounds in 12 weeks. Read more about the ducks here.
When I ordered my Muscovy, I also placed an order for 21 unmedicated Cornish Cross roaster chickens with Meyer Hatchery in Polk, OH. I requested a delivery date 6 weeks prior to the scheduled harvest date so I could do all the birds at one time. These birds are specially bred first-generation stock selected for fast feathering, rapid growth, and nice carcass finish. Meyer states 4lbs average dressed weight in 7 weeks with a 2lb feed conversion and 98% livability. I thought mid-way through that the birds had stopped growing at the appropriate pace (taking a hit in my feed conversion ratio), but there was a spike in growth right at the end. The birds preformed as promised, and were in excellent health. The hatchery sent me 2 extra for normal mortality, I lost both in the first week. It stormed heavily at the end of week 6 so I couldn't butcher as planned then in the days that followed it was extremely hot and even with a giant box fan and lots of shade and water I lost 2 more birds to heat just days before freezer camp. In the future, I’ll move my summer harvests closer to spring so that the Cornish aren’t heat stressed.
Harvest preparation: Several days before the harvest I created an online ordering site where folks who had expressed an interest could reserve a bird. Within an hour or so of sending out my notification email I was “sold out” of all my birds! And I still got some email requests... I even sold a couple out of my own pantry – I think I was left with one of each of the 3 types of the for myself. LOL!
OK… having plucked a few chickens in my childhood, I knew that if I was gonna process 30+ birds with just my own two hands I needed to get a mechanical plucker. I immediately discovered that small plucker machines, like the Featherman, were way the heck out of my price range ($800-$2500). They work like a champ, getting 3 or 4 birds at a time spanky clean in 20 seconds. But there’s just no way I can ever justify that kind of cost for my little operation.
So, being the DIY diva that I am, I’m building a chicken plucker machine instead of buying one but it's not done yet. Other folks do rent out their Feathermans and I found a guy just about a 2-hour drive from me, over in Virginia, who was renting his machine out so I scheduled my harvest date with him. I was supposed to pick it up Friday evening so I emailed him that afternoon to make sure the time was good… he said it wasn’t back from the last renter. No Way! It would be back Tuesday so I rescheduled and took Wednesday & Thursday off of work.
Cornish Harvest: Those Cornish were not gonna make it through the weekend with the heat so I had no choice but to do all the plucking by hand. I got an early start but it still took me 12 straight hours to pluck and process 20 chickens by hand. And when all the naked carcasses were on ice I still had to dig a 4 foot hole on the back of the property to compost the waste. At 9:30 that night I finally had everything cleaned up and dragged my tired, smelly self inside to shower and sleep. I got up really early the next morning to package and weigh my birds so the customers could start picking them up at 9am. What a job!
So the stats on the dress birds… I lucked out with about 50/50 on hen to cockerel ratio (I really didn’t know until I processed them). They picked very cleanly and dressed out nice. The consistency of weight was pretty exact: cockerels dressed out at 5 or 5.5 lbs each and hens dressed at 4 or 4.5 lbs each. I had one that dressed out as a Cornish game hen and one that came in at 3.5lbs (which is what folks were expecting them to average). I would like to harvest them a little smaller – or maybe grow them in two age groups next time so I have birds running between 6 lbs and 2 lbs.
I wish I could say that that 12-hour put a big checkmark on Summer Harvest. But that just got me through the chickens, there were two more days of plucking ahead when I harvested the ducks. Read more here.
When I ordered my Muscovy, I also placed an order for 21 unmedicated Cornish Cross roaster chickens with Meyer Hatchery in Polk, OH. I requested a delivery date 6 weeks prior to the scheduled harvest date so I could do all the birds at one time. These birds are specially bred first-generation stock selected for fast feathering, rapid growth, and nice carcass finish. Meyer states 4lbs average dressed weight in 7 weeks with a 2lb feed conversion and 98% livability. I thought mid-way through that the birds had stopped growing at the appropriate pace (taking a hit in my feed conversion ratio), but there was a spike in growth right at the end. The birds preformed as promised, and were in excellent health. The hatchery sent me 2 extra for normal mortality, I lost both in the first week. It stormed heavily at the end of week 6 so I couldn't butcher as planned then in the days that followed it was extremely hot and even with a giant box fan and lots of shade and water I lost 2 more birds to heat just days before freezer camp. In the future, I’ll move my summer harvests closer to spring so that the Cornish aren’t heat stressed.
Harvest preparation: Several days before the harvest I created an online ordering site where folks who had expressed an interest could reserve a bird. Within an hour or so of sending out my notification email I was “sold out” of all my birds! And I still got some email requests... I even sold a couple out of my own pantry – I think I was left with one of each of the 3 types of the for myself. LOL!
OK… having plucked a few chickens in my childhood, I knew that if I was gonna process 30+ birds with just my own two hands I needed to get a mechanical plucker. I immediately discovered that small plucker machines, like the Featherman, were way the heck out of my price range ($800-$2500). They work like a champ, getting 3 or 4 birds at a time spanky clean in 20 seconds. But there’s just no way I can ever justify that kind of cost for my little operation.
So, being the DIY diva that I am, I’m building a chicken plucker machine instead of buying one but it's not done yet. Other folks do rent out their Feathermans and I found a guy just about a 2-hour drive from me, over in Virginia, who was renting his machine out so I scheduled my harvest date with him. I was supposed to pick it up Friday evening so I emailed him that afternoon to make sure the time was good… he said it wasn’t back from the last renter. No Way! It would be back Tuesday so I rescheduled and took Wednesday & Thursday off of work.
Cornish Harvest: Those Cornish were not gonna make it through the weekend with the heat so I had no choice but to do all the plucking by hand. I got an early start but it still took me 12 straight hours to pluck and process 20 chickens by hand. And when all the naked carcasses were on ice I still had to dig a 4 foot hole on the back of the property to compost the waste. At 9:30 that night I finally had everything cleaned up and dragged my tired, smelly self inside to shower and sleep. I got up really early the next morning to package and weigh my birds so the customers could start picking them up at 9am. What a job!
So the stats on the dress birds… I lucked out with about 50/50 on hen to cockerel ratio (I really didn’t know until I processed them). They picked very cleanly and dressed out nice. The consistency of weight was pretty exact: cockerels dressed out at 5 or 5.5 lbs each and hens dressed at 4 or 4.5 lbs each. I had one that dressed out as a Cornish game hen and one that came in at 3.5lbs (which is what folks were expecting them to average). I would like to harvest them a little smaller – or maybe grow them in two age groups next time so I have birds running between 6 lbs and 2 lbs.
I wish I could say that that 12-hour put a big checkmark on Summer Harvest. But that just got me through the chickens, there were two more days of plucking ahead when I harvested the ducks. Read more here.
(7/17/10) Of Grace and Pearls
Today is harvest day and, as such, it's also a day of great thanksgiving. This morning I will carefully collect my 30 meat birds, one by one, and I will say grace because I know everything I have is a gift from God, including the things that sustain me on a daily basis. I do not "ask the blessing," instead I offer one.
It's always been important to me that I don't ask God for things. Not that the Christian faith necessarily teaches that asking favors from God is wrong, I just feel I really shouldn't be selfish in my prayers, otherwise I'm a greedy little child saying, "Gimme!". The Apostle Paul put it in this perspective. "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God" (Philippians 4:6). Notice the phrase "with thanksgiving" tucked in there with "present your requests to God."
So today I acknowledge that my harvest doesn't deserve a blessing nearly so much as God who gave it and I offer a simple prayer of thanks for the food I am about to recieve, "Blessed are you, Lord my God, who has caused bread to come forth out of the earth."
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“But ask the beasts, and they will teach you; the birds of the heavens, and they will tell you; or the bushes of the earth, and they will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you. Who among all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this?" (Job 12:7-9)
(7/6/10) Cornish Roasters aren't big enough yet
Hmmmm... it's very odd that they grew so fast the first few weeks but they've really slowed down the last two weeks. I expected to harvest them next weekend but I'll have to weigh them to see if they're big enough yet. One of the birds is actually smaller than my Welsummer babies! Next time I'm gonna have to order the roasters from a hatchery other than Meyer.
I suppose it won't hurt to wait an additional week, they seem comfortable in the chicken tractor and the fan is keeping them cool in this heat. They also appear to be eating at a normal rate and they're drinking more than 7 gallons of water a day (wow!). I could certainly use that time to catch up on some harvesting equipment building projects that were put on the back burner while I spent time predator proofing the property last week.
If nothing else it gives me a good idea of the quality check on roasters from Meyer before I buy a larger quantity of birds.
Update: literally 3 days later they had some kind of growing spurt - LOL! It was the craziest thing... now I'm not prepared to do the harvest this weekend and it's supposed to storm for 3 days anyway so it'll have to wait until next. Of course, the July 17th weekend it's supposed to be 100 degree's. I think I'd rather be out there in the pouring rain!
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I suppose it won't hurt to wait an additional week, they seem comfortable in the chicken tractor and the fan is keeping them cool in this heat. They also appear to be eating at a normal rate and they're drinking more than 7 gallons of water a day (wow!). I could certainly use that time to catch up on some harvesting equipment building projects that were put on the back burner while I spent time predator proofing the property last week.
If nothing else it gives me a good idea of the quality check on roasters from Meyer before I buy a larger quantity of birds.
Update: literally 3 days later they had some kind of growing spurt - LOL! It was the craziest thing... now I'm not prepared to do the harvest this weekend and it's supposed to storm for 3 days anyway so it'll have to wait until next. Of course, the July 17th weekend it's supposed to be 100 degree's. I think I'd rather be out there in the pouring rain!
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(6/19/10) Chicken Tractor is Complete!
Well, it was a race against time to get the Cornish out of their brooder before it became overcrowded so I buckled down and spent all my available time designing and building a Quonset hut type chicken tractor. It had to be light enough for me to drag around the yard, but it had to be strong enough to take the abuse of dragging it all over the yard, and big enough for giant sized chickens to be comfortable in. I decided I didn’t want any more structures on the property that were “man sized” so I went with a low, squat version of a picture I saw online. When it comes time to get them out of there I may regret that decision.
This is constructed of one 16 foot cattle panel cut in half, bent into an arc and attached to 2x3’s to create a 6'x8' enclosure. I stretched poultry wire over the whole thing to keep predators out and attached a tarp to the back portion to give them shelter from the rain. There’s also a narrow strip of tarp running over the crown of the structure to keep the feed dry when it rains. I suspended the food and water on a sliding mechanism so I don’t have to crawl in there to take care of that chore and it stays off the ground to facilitate one-step moving. It’s just a track from bypass closet doors with a couple of hooks attached. Seems to be working fine so far.
This is a good beta test to see what I may want to do differently when I house the next batch of Cornish Cross. I kept that in mind while I wielded the pneumatic staple gun… I may have to disassemble this thing if I feel a need to improve on the design, so I was more sparing with staples than I usually am. I also still need to attach wheels and a handle to make it drivable (manually, of course) instead of brute force dragging around with a piece of rope. But I wanted to get these guys out on some grass right away so I'll do that another time.
I had to carry those 21 fat Cornish outside in a Rubbermaid tub 4 at a time. Man, they’re heavy already! I felt sorry for them in that stuffy barn, it was pretty hot in there even with several fans going. And they kept tipping their giant waterer over and making such a mess – I think they were perching on the lip and they’re so heavy that it just emptied out all over the brooder. I could clean up their bedding but their feathers were still always dirty. Maybe now they’ll try to clean themselves up. I’m just happy they’re getting much needed fresh air and putting them on grass will cool them off considerably. I also hung a weather-proof box fan from the back of the tractor to keep the air moving constantly. They seem a lot more active and far less lethargic from the heat. That’s good.
This is constructed of one 16 foot cattle panel cut in half, bent into an arc and attached to 2x3’s to create a 6'x8' enclosure. I stretched poultry wire over the whole thing to keep predators out and attached a tarp to the back portion to give them shelter from the rain. There’s also a narrow strip of tarp running over the crown of the structure to keep the feed dry when it rains. I suspended the food and water on a sliding mechanism so I don’t have to crawl in there to take care of that chore and it stays off the ground to facilitate one-step moving. It’s just a track from bypass closet doors with a couple of hooks attached. Seems to be working fine so far.
This is a good beta test to see what I may want to do differently when I house the next batch of Cornish Cross. I kept that in mind while I wielded the pneumatic staple gun… I may have to disassemble this thing if I feel a need to improve on the design, so I was more sparing with staples than I usually am. I also still need to attach wheels and a handle to make it drivable (manually, of course) instead of brute force dragging around with a piece of rope. But I wanted to get these guys out on some grass right away so I'll do that another time.
I had to carry those 21 fat Cornish outside in a Rubbermaid tub 4 at a time. Man, they’re heavy already! I felt sorry for them in that stuffy barn, it was pretty hot in there even with several fans going. And they kept tipping their giant waterer over and making such a mess – I think they were perching on the lip and they’re so heavy that it just emptied out all over the brooder. I could clean up their bedding but their feathers were still always dirty. Maybe now they’ll try to clean themselves up. I’m just happy they’re getting much needed fresh air and putting them on grass will cool them off considerably. I also hung a weather-proof box fan from the back of the tractor to keep the air moving constantly. They seem a lot more active and far less lethargic from the heat. That’s good.
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(6/14/10) Scruffy Cornish
scruffy \ˈskrə-fē\ (adj) unkempt, shaggy; "a surge of ragged scruffy chickens"
Oh my! At only 2 1/2 weeks these little guys are just plain growing faster than their feathers can keep up with! They seem to be none-the-worse for wear but they're not wearing much these days - LOL! Half naked little birds... as hot as it's been they're probably more comfortable this way, they certainly seem to be producing a lot of heat. I picked one up to get a better look and he was really warm so I guess I shouldn't worry about them getting a chill. I keep a fan in the barn to move the air around, they seem appropriately active, and they're definitely eating plenty.
Hope they get some feathers soon... it's just scandalous for them to run around looking like this!
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(6/11/10) Cornish fatties
These little guys are a week old now and they're already getting feathered out so they look pretty scruffy.
Boy are they growing fast! Most of them are this plump, rounded shape with two fat legs sticking out - LOL! They're pretty flightly right now and I don't expect them to become terribly friendly in the future - just considerably slower. They always run and pile up in the other end of the brooder when I have to put my hand in to change the bedding or fill the food & water. I imagine I must look like some giant monster to them.
I mostly try to stay at a reasonable distance from the brooder so I don't stress them unnecessarily. It helps that I have the big feeder and drinker in there already so I don't have to fill it every day. I just make sure they have clear access and that everything is flowing like it should. Of course, they need new bedding more frequently as they get older and they're not happy about me leaning over the brooder to take care of that task... they sure seem to love it when there are fresh shavings to lay on though :)
I reckon I'll be moving them out to the chicken tractor in about 2 weeks at this rate. That should make them happier.
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(6/3/10) These guys are big eaters!
So far they're really good eaters - LOL! I'm gonna have to upgrade them to the 30 pound feeder this weekend because I can't keep their four 1-quart chick feeders full all day while I'm at work. Little piggies! I wasn't expecting to need the big feeder for a few weeks but I'm glad I have it handy.
So far I've lost 3, which puts me back at my original 21. I tried to nurse one back when I saw he wasn't looking so hot. I brought him in the house and kept him on a heating pad while I fed little drops of sugar water. It was a no-go. Too bad... I'm always sad when I lose animals.
(5/27/10) The Cornish Chicks have arrived!
I ordered 21 Cornish Roasters from Meyer Hatchery in Polk, OH and 24 just arrived in the mail. I wasn't expecting them until Friday and when Darleen down at the Pomfret Post Office called me I could hear them peeping up a storm in the background so I had to leave work half-way through the day to pick them up and get them home for something to drink.
Everyone seems to be doing well, a couple look woosy from the trip so I made certain they each got a drink of sugar water before moving them to the brooder box and putting in some food for them. So far so good!
