Raising chickens for meat

Yesterday my chickens arrived! They are a special meat breed of bird which apparently fatten quickly and make delicious eating. I was vegetarian for 20 years, but in the last couple of years I've started to eat meat again for health reasons. I've never had anything against people eating meat, though I've always thought it would be most ethical to raise the animals yourself, and probably kill them too. Since I started eating meat, I've been trying to gird myself to actually live according to my principles, and raise my own meat.

There are other reasons why I believe it's good to raise our own meat. The meat industry can be pretty cruel. I only eat meat from local farms where I'm pretty satisfied that they raise their animals well and kill them humanely. But even so, surely I can give them a better life in a suburban backyard than when they are raised on a commercial scale. Afterall, our home-produced eggs are so much better than the most expensive organic free range eggs we can buy. Like the eggs, I'd expect the meat to be more nutritious - though who can really know. Also I am concerned about the amount of wastage that occurs. Despite repeated requests, I've never been able to obtain chicken heads or feet for soup. What happens to them all? Are they chucked out? Recently, watching a fisherman fillet a fish, and waste all but the very best bits of it, I realised that it's probably the same in the meat industry. We are in the habit of eating the muscle meat but not the organs (though they are very good for us), and in our society it's rare to make stock from bones these days.

I also want to really understand how much food I can produce in my backyard. I already produce 80% of my family's fruit and vegies. Could I produce a good portion of our meat onsite too? I'd like to find out.

I am probably in for quite a journey, emotionally. The chicks that arrived yesterday are adorable. They are so cute I've already sat for ages, watching and watching them. To think that one day I'm going to kill them, with my bare hands, is quite astonishing. Somehow I'm going to have to gird my loins, toughen my heart and do it. I'm curious to see how I emerge on the other side of this.



In case you would like to consider raising your own chickens for the table, here's the practicalities.

I bought the chickens from a hatchery in Queensland, Australia: Peak Poultry Supplies. They cost $2 per day old chick, plus $30 for shipping (up to 100 birds in a carton). I would have liked to buy them locally, but despite researching for two years I've been unable to find a farmer in Victoria who will sell me meat chicks. If you know of any avenues for me to research with this, please tell me! I'm still looking, for my next batch.

I bought starter crumble for their food, though I'm hoping once they are a little older I can mostly feed them worms, insects and greens from my garden. Ultimately I would like to make my own food for them from day one, but I haven't found enough information to do this yet. I also bought a small feeder and waterer. I picked these up from a stock feed shop, where they were a fraction of the price they go for in pet shops. In an op shop I found an adjustable lamp, and I bought a 60 watt globe from the hardware.

For now I'm keeping them in a cardboard box. I lined the bottom with several layers of newspaper and a bag of well rotted sawdust I had lying around. When the sawdust has run out, I'll put dirt on the bottom. I'll compost all the litter when it's too dirty for the chickens to use any more. As they grow, I'll move them to my rabbit cage, which is bigger, and then I hope to put them in with my egg-laying chooks.

I've put the lamp quite low over their box, and in the coming weeks I'll gradually raise it. If the chicks are too cold, they'll huddle tightly together under the lamp. If they're too hot they'll fan out away from it. I'll use their behaviour to tell me how high to put the lamp.

All up it's costing me $6.40 per bird, though if I do this again it will be much cheaper since I'll already have the lamp, waterer, feeder etc, and maybe by then I'll be able to make my own food too.

With meat breeds of birds, because they fatten so fast, when they get to a certain age (weight), their legs may be too weak to hold them up, and they could break. In the industry they are slaughtered just before this happens - its cruel to have a chook live with broken legs. Thus the birds need to be slaughtered promptly at 6-8 weeks of age. My friend Roderick, who is joining me on this mission, and will show me how to kill the birds, tells me that home-reared chooks are much healthier and less prone to this problem - hence you can wait longer before slaughtering.  

Other people I've mentioned this to say I should get a breed of birds that aren't specifically for meat, so that I don't participate in this cruelty. However, regular chickens can take 4 months to be fat enough for the table, which means you need to feed them a LOT more grain, a serious negative, both financially and for the environment. Because of my touring, I've decided to go with meat breeds so I can do it as a quick project. However, I'm hoping Roderick is right, because then I can start slaughtering at 6 weeks, doing two birds at a time (one for the table, one for the freezer), and really spread the killings over a longer period. That way we aren't clogging up our freezer, and we can plan on eating, say, a bird a week.

If the birds are healthy, maybe we can even raise a breeding pair to egg laying age, get some fertile eggs, and then I can raise my next batch without needing to order from Queensland. Fingers crossed. Though I'm not very optimistic about this plan - I think a rooster crowing at 5am might do permanent damage to our relationship with our neighbours.

Well.. I'll keep you posted. Wish me luck! And feel free to send me your favourite chicken recipes.

 

Comments

[Sandy Van Veen]

Hi again Asphyxia (I just wrote another comment in the chook killing post), We started out with Isa Browns (the best egg laying breed, which we bought from a Phil in Grantville (www.freeranger.com.au) who is, incidentally, quite the free range chook warrior. But I digress... That was over 3 years ago. One developed this condition where it laid eggs without shells, or super thin shells, like a plastic bag. It was the only one, so it wasn't the diet. After reading up, we decided we had to cull her, and we ate her (as it would have been a waste). She had so little meat it was barely enough for a sandwich. I think we made soup. Then a friend gave us some Light Sussex hens. They're a dual purpose bird, laying less eggs than an Isa Brown, but more than a specifically meat bird. A year later one got attacked by a fox and staggered home fatally injured (I'll spare you the details) and again we had to kill her. To our surprise she made two huge meals for us, even though she didn't eat more than the Isa Brown. We decided then that we would change our flock so that they would all be dual purpose hens. We were happy to trade the lowered egg supply for all purpose chooks. We didn't necessarily want to breed purebreeds (ie all of the same breed) but figured if all the hens and the rooster were dual purpose, then all the chicks would also be dual purpose of some sort. We now have a Light Sussex rooster, and I like to have one each of different sorts of hens (just for the fun of it, and so it's easier to see which is which). We now have one each of Light Sussex, Buff Sussex, Gold Laced Wyandotte, Silver Laced Wyandotte, Dark Barred Plymouth Rock, and Australorp. None are bantam varieties, so they are big chunky girls. If they go clucky, we let them sit on a batch of eggs (and stuff more under them). We're still in the changeover phase, so many of these hens are still young. Once they're old enough to lay, we'll give our remaining Isa Browns to others who want chooks that mainly lay eggs. Now, in response to your question about how to source more locally: buy eggs instead of chicks and have them sent to you, or collect them from a local breeder, and then hatch them yourself. You could keep some of your meat girls and wait till they go broody, and stick the eggs under them, or invest in a little incubator. We use both. There are LOADS of people who sell eggs of every sort of chook. I find the best source is the noticeboard on Backyard Poultry (www.backyardpoultry.com) and have had eggs sent several times. There are also regular chook shows/sales all over the state, including in Melbourne. You could get there by public transport and buy the eggs there. They're advertised on chook forums too. (I haven't been to one yet.) Our mini incubator only takes 7 eggs, and we generally get about 4-5 eggs out of 7 hatching. It's not always that much different when a hen does it. If you want to know more about egg hatching with or without an incubator, I have learned a lot through trial and error over the last few years. Also, if you want a really fast growing bird, then go for ducks. Seriously, I have never seen anything grow as fast as a duckling. We raise Pekin ducks for food, and they grow like crazy (and are our very favouite meat as well). Anyway, enough for now. I have no idea how and if I get any sort of notification if you respond on here. Maybe you could let me know on FB if you do?

[Sandy Van Veen]

Oh oh oh, I've just read ALL of that post (thought I did, but obviously missed a bit in the middle) and realised you've already considered dual purpose chooks. All the same, you can use any chook to brood fertile eggs for you, and I'm still optimistic there would be someone closer than Qld that keeps a meat breed.

[Ilan]

Hi Ashpyxia,
I read your article about broilers in Grass Roots with great fascination. I have been investigating where I can buy day old broilers (meat chooks) from and have only 2 interstate sources, except for one in Korumburra/Bena (120km South East of Melbourne) who is asking $3 each.

Barter and Sons (65km west of Sydney) who charge from $2.50 down to $1.65 each for larger batches with an indicative freight charge of $35
see: http://barterandsons.com.au/pricing.php

The other choice is mail order eggs and have found a source in NSW which cost $1 each plus $30 postage per batch (I was told the breed was Arbor Acre X Ross).

The problem is that the poultry industry is very concentrated and has a high degree of vertical integration. So where there once would have been many independent hatcheries happy to sell small quantities to people like ourselves, they have all been taken over by the mega-operations like Baiada and Ingham who will never sell small quantities of day old broiler chicks as they are in the business of capturing every last cent of profit and wouldn't want to supply anything, even to tiny scale backyard growers. This is very unfortunate as there are a few hatcheries owned by these companies not too far from Melbourne.

For now I think the choice is that a few households that are in a similar area put in a joint order for a large batch and then share the cost of freight between them, or even invest in a good incubator to get the cheaper eggs.

[Asphyxia]

Thanks Ilan, that's very handy information. You don't happen to have contact details for the Korumburra hatchery do you? I've just recently ordered more chicks from QLD - but with four households joining in it really helps with the shipping. I tried ringing Baiada back when I was first researching and they wouldn't even talk to me. I've really got attitude to these big corporations now, especially since another big one deliberately hassled the farmer who was supplying me with raw milk, until she gave up and only supplied them. I'm determined to do what I can to support small farmers. Anyway, thanks for the tips. Asphyxia
PS we bought from http://www.freewebs.com/peakpoultrysupplies/

[Ilan]

The contact details for the Korumburra Hatchery:
Leonora, phone: 0415 305 323
email: ausfx@tpg.com.au
The price is $3 each, and for a box of 50 there is a $25 charge for delivery to Melbourne to one of the courier's depots in Broadmeadows or Altona (there may be more depots).

This will be advertised in the Weekly Times for a batch that will be ready late-August (2012). That's how I originally found out about it.