What to I feed meat chickens ?
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Question by jaxdagger: What to I feed meat chickens ?
If I want natural or organic meat chickens what feed to I get? Do I use medicated chick starter at all? And for how long? Then what would I feed them?
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4 Responses to What to I feed meat chickens ?
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Uhh some bread?
Jaime
June 13, 2012 at 5:04 am
You control the type of feed, how the birds are handled and finally processed. Those are the trademarks of a responsible meat eater. If you process them at home and compost the offal, you can make your meat raising endeavors even more integrated into your personal foodshed in a permaculture manner.
We used to raise pastured poultry for sale ala Polyface, but decided that shipping grains in from far points did not suit our personal vision for our farm. We now just raise birds for ourselves, and a few extra for barter. We still raise the Cornish X, which is the bird that gets so much attention for being dumb, too fast of grow out, ugly, and the list could go on… . I will detail how we raise our birds and offer some different approaches for integration into a urban garden setting.
I do agree the birds are ugly from about week 4 or 5, but that isn’t their fault, and it certainly may make for an easier transition to the freezer for first time growers. The rest is myth, I enjoy them and the fertilizer they provide for the pasture while they are alive and we certainly enjoy them at the dinner table.
Through trial and error on our farm, we discovered that almost all the problems encountered with this heavy meat breed (and actually our layers too) stemmed from the feed and minerals. Once we got those details worked out, we have had clear sailing since. We use Fertrell’s Poultry Nutribalancer, and have our feed mixed with Fertrell’s recipe, which is available on their website. The recipe is for a ton, but when we first started we purchased the raw ingredients and made our own feed in 50# batches. This is very doable for the homestead chicken flock. By using this Nutribalancer you’re really adding good minerals to your chicken manure for your garden or pasture. Besides the minerals the biggest difference we noticed was that whole grains, ground for mash were better for the birds than the industrial pelleted or crumble feeds so widely available. Check out the section in Nourishing Traditions on breakfast cereal for humans. To make the pellets, the grains are cooked into a sludge and extruded at high heat. Plus, you really can’t tell what ingredients are in those pellets, as long as the protein content is what is stated on the label, the feed companies are obeying the law. Even the poor maligned meat chicken should have a diet close to what his ancestors probably ate, especially if we are going to eat him.
A down side of meat birds, compared to a lighter, longer finishing breed is that they really need a high protein feed to grow. And we grew some of the dark Cornish for customers, but it took more grain, and time for less meat. I know the ideology sounds better to have a ranging bird, but if that bird eats more grain and you end up with less meat, you are responsible for more fertilizers, tilling, and petroleum use in the long run, and I think everyone agrees that is not a good thing. Even if the grains are organically raised, most organic farms are using shipped in fertilizers and soil amendments, and they are still making the same pass over that grain field with some kind of equipment. But my intention of this post is to maybe help a chicken eater become a chicken husbandman.
see link for more XD
BOAZ
June 13, 2012 at 5:18 am
You feed certified Organic broiler feed. The first week or so feed starter, than switch to grower for the rest of the time. I have been raising broilers on Organic feed for over 15 years and I am lucky that there is a certified Organic grain and poultry farm that is only 12 miles from my farm that sells such feed, But there are a few companies that sell nationwide such as this one http://www.countrysideorganics.com/home.php?gclid=CKPHq-Hekq0CFQLrKgodTlTolg
At any rate, the feed has to be at least 19% protein (though I prefer 21%) no matter what you feed and no, you would never feed a medicated starter to Organic meat birds, you also don’t cage them-they need to be free range and on pasture. many people use chicken tractors to do this but i prefer day ranging where the birds are outside in a pen and can run around.
Ohiorganic
June 13, 2012 at 6:16 am
I don’t know but one time my school got chickens and we took care of them, we usually fed them like this corn stuff? And we also fed them grass. And one time we got chicken nuggets for lunch and they always told us to take our lunch scraps to the chickens so they could eat it, so we gave them the chicken nuggets and they loved them lol, we always fed them chicken nuggets
tim is cool
June 13, 2012 at 6:43 am