Finished up the last 8 of what started off as 45 chickens (39 made it to processing). Ended up with 190lbs of chicken in the freezers.
We did 12 of the bigger ones last week one day, then did 19 on Tuesday and the last 8 yesterday. 19 is a full day for us. Edit: 39 of 45 made it to processing age. 10% loss is around a normal I've found thru the years.
How old did you let them B4 processing ? Buy the chicks ? We did 5 meat birds once , they were more work than our regular Australorp Chickens Were hopping to hatch out 100 birds in Chicken and 70 Duck Sloth
Bought the chicks at Tractor Supply, $2/ea since I took all they had in the brooder. (Reg 2.49 ea). Cheaper than ordering online, plus generally the ones there have a few days to a week start, so any that are gonna die off first couple days died on their dime. We did these at 7 weeks, they average bit under 5lbs each. Normally, we'll let them go to 8wks or so, and get about 6lb average, but we've had a streak of unusually cold/wet weather this spring, and wasn't good for them, so I decided to take them out a bit early.
