Anyone raised meat chickens?

I know there's a handful of egg farmers here, but has anyone raised meat birds?

I'm thinking about running one or two sets of Cornish crosses this year in my garden patch to let them clean it up and work in some fertilizer for next year.

Thinking Cornish crosses because they're an 8-9 week bird and I could get two or three runs in spring to fall. Stock my freezer and the neighbors and fertilize and clean up my garden patch all in one fell swoop.

So what are your experiences? Have you found processors or had to buy all the stuff yourself to do it?

That's the big thing holding me back, I only plan on doing it every other year, and the equipment to make processing easy is rates pricey to not use all the time. 

All I know is a butchering episode when I was young very nearly made me a vegetarian. 

In reply to RevRico :

Not me, but my oldest sister has. I forget what breed she uses (it might be Cornish Crosses), but she hates the meat birds. They're genetic abominations, they have all the intelligence and normal chicken behavior bred out of them. They just eat and that's it (in fact, they'll get so big that if you keep them too long, their legs will break under their own weight). I remember going over there one summer and a bunch dropped dead in 90 degree weather because they didn't know enough not to all be laying on top of each other, so they were having heart attacks.

She always pays to have her processed, and she's in a bind for next year because the guy they used ran a farm and would do it on the side for them. Well, last year, he sold the farm and moved to Utah, and there's no one in the area who will process for small-flock private parties. Might want to see if that's the same case near you, although I know you're in Pennsylvania, do you might have better luck.

Neither of my local butchers will do it, but I'm going to check with some of the wild game processors too. I don't have a problem doing the work, I've just never field stripped a chicken before. 

There's a few different meat breeds, some look much more normal than the Cornish ones, they might be the ones to go with, like Rangers. 

I'll have to ask my nephew but from when he was on the farm it didn't seem that hard to process.  Simple cone that they put the bird head down in, cut the head, let it bleed out, then a simple looking hand operated defeathering thing.

Didn't have to ask him just hit google.

More fancy than I remembered but hey electic powered for your convience.

We raise a couple flocks of Cornish Crosses every year. They are easy to keep and give alot of meat. Towards the end of their time though, like their last 2 weeks we have to frequently move their pen because they produce alot of waste. Other than that, of all the birds we have or had they are the best for meat.

In reply to Stampie :

Those machines are nice, but very pricey.

I've found some pluckers that go into a drill and that should be alright for as rarely as I plan on it.

I have a bunch of PVC from a project I never competed, I think I'm just going to build a hoop house, and wrap it in hardware cloth instead of greenhouse plastic. Move it every couple weeks across the garden.

In reply to RevRico :

Yeah I didn't search long.  Like I said I'm pretty sure they used hand cranked pluckers.  Gonna make some blood sausage?

We did when I was a kid.  Usually a few dozen peeps in the spring with a harvest in early summer.  Not sure what the breed was.  Is there a generic boring chicken breed?  They were off-white with red combs.  That's all I remember.  I do remember we didn't have any fancy processing.  We had dad, a hatchet, and a log.  Mom plucked, and my sister and I gutted.

Despite having an existing farm (corn), we didn't find it worth the effort so we only did it a few years.  This was back in the days when commercially-bought chicken was dirt cheap, and the cost to feed on our scale was more than purchasing.  It was satisfying producing our own dinner, but more expensive which didn't sit well on a single-income family.  I would imagine it would be rewarding if it were an egg-producing thing, but until you get them old enough to make it worth having laying hens, they don't make very good meat for anything but ground chicken or soup.

YMMV.  Chicken is a bit high right now with the bird flu but in general it has been a relatively cheap meat for the last 60-70 years.  Most importantly, if it feels like it would be a rewarding thing, absolutely do it.

In reply to Stampie :

Maybe. I'm not really into it, but it would be an experience to try to make. 

To Curtis,

I don't have the chickens to save money. I just can't easily get my layer flock to the garden and back to their coop. Meatbirds don't live very long, but will do wonders for the garden on the years or sections I don't plan

I am going to start water glassing eggs this year. We had more than we could give away all summer, but hardly any now. A gross for my Xmas baking, and maybe another gross just to have to eat throughout the winter should do it. 

I would like to reach a point where I only really need to buy beef, lamb, flour and milk, but that's more of a "at the next house" kind of plan. 

Its a lot easier than raising the tofu ones.

I'll see myself out

According to a friend of mine who just raised and processed about 200 meat birds recently, the commercially available plucker from the likes of TSC is fairly weak sauce.  I built him a plucker based on the Whiz-Bang design and he said it works the treat.

In reply to wae :

Got pics/instructions?

I have about 200+ chickens, 100+ piegeons, 30+ goats (population keeps doubling) at my date farm. 

We eat everything above and feed all of our farm employees (we provide room and board during picking and planting season)  and also get way more eggs than I know what to do with. 

Also bees. 

In reply to Stampie :

I started with a kit from chicken plucker parts (.com) that had the pulleys, bearings, shaft, and spinning disc o' doom as well as about 150 of the "good" rubber fingers.  He had a 1/2hp motor laying around to power it, and I got one of those blue plastic 55gal drums. 

In order to keep the thing cleaned out, I ran some pex around the top and drilled some holes to create a good spray down.  Towards the bottom, under the spinning plate, I made a kind of crude fiberglass chute and had another bit of PEX in there to help wash it out.  That way the feathers would get ejected from the machine and with the motor mounted on the side of the barrel, it wouldn't get wet.

In reply to wae :

Cool thanks.

We used to do them once a year to fill the freezer, give some to our kids and sell some off and make our money back. It's a great way to eat well and save a bunch of money at the same time.

They can be a little nasty, I've had them go after my legs when feeding them in shorts, but they're otherwise super easy to raise. Every single person I gave or sold one to said, it was the best chicken they've ever eaten.

In reply to mr2s2000elise :

You eat pigeons?  

spitfirebill said:

In reply to mr2s2000elise :

You eat pigeons?  

Yes I do. Americans used to eat pigeons all the time as well 

https://www.greatbritishchefs.com/how-to-cook/how-to-cook-pigeon

In reply to mr2s2000elise :

Sorry, but I hate pigeons.  I have been in too many buildings that they have crapped up to 1-2' of guano.   

Only thing I know about raising chickens is my grandmother used to go out in her back yard, grab one by the head and wring its neck.  She then prepped and cooked it.  This is word mouth because it was before my time.  I did get to play in the no longer used chicken coop though.  

In reply to spitfirebill :

Differing openings make the world an interesting place. We also have Doves and Quails. Great eggs and tasty meat. Ducks too from time to time.  Last time I bought meat at a grocery store in the USA was 2007.  Never bought any veggies in the USA at a store in my adult life. 

In reply to mr2s2000elise :

How are pigeons noise wise?

I have a coop I can't move that's going unused, that might be something fun to throw in. 

I'm pretty much decided on Rangers this year, bit smaller and take a little longer than the Cornish, but they'll actually forage and I could still manage 2 sets of 6-10 before next winter. 

In reply to RevRico :

They can coo sometimes together and the flapping (from one area to another) can be noisy.  My personal house in the city - I woldn't even keep them.  At the farm, due to the location of the 3 buildings, and where they are in relation to the buildings - not an issue for us.  So to answer your question, it depends on the amount of land, and distance.  The "closest" thing to me is one of the largest bases where they are training all day to kill the  "terrorists" 

Goats/cows sometimes make more noise if you can believe it. But hey I sell the goats $350 a pop to Somalis/Ethiopians/Sudanese and we can't keep up.  Goats aren't even a business for us - it happened by happenstance. 

Profit of the animals go to feed my $11/gallon 100 octane habit. 

Boneless chicken is good eats, but caring for boneless chickens is tedious.

I too shall show myself out.