Basic Broiler Challenge: Week ???

*Ahem*. I got really behind in doing the BBC didn't I? I'm surprised y'all didn't start throwing tomatoes, or ranting and raving madly, or just leaving! Do you want me to start reeling off excuses, or shall I just pick up where I left off? Hmm, I'm going with the latter choice.

But I will say this! It's REALLY hard to take pictures of a chicken single-handedly when the bird gets to 5 lbs. or more. And it's also hard to take pictures when it's raining non-stop. And this particular person doesn't like to blog when she doesn't have pictures. (oh, do those count as excuses??)

But I'm going to blog without pictures anyway. This is getting ridiculous, how long I've stretched this out!

So, where on earth did I leave off?? Hmm, looks like Week #6 was the last update you got... Ouch. That was November 1st!! But on that last post, the Freedom Rangers were each averaging 3 lbs. live weight, and they were officially off grain and on to their milk/cheese/sprout diet. So in this stretch of silence, what happened??

I'm going to spit out the piece of news that you probably want to hear the most: It worked. In the end, the alternative diet worked. And it worked AMAZINGLY. 

Things got really crazy after week #6 because I began drying my cow up, and the goats dried up. So I had to start relying on frozen milk, frozen cheese, and frozen whey that I had stored up. The fodder was also starting to grow slower and slower since we were getting into the cold months. But I had enough of everything to get me to week # 12.

So, week by week, what on earth happened with those birds!?

Let's start back at week #6 for a recap:
Weights at that time were 3 lbs. per bird in my group, and roughly 1.5 lbs. per bird in my friends' group.

I had no idea how much to feed these birds, or how much of each thing, so I was totally going on gut instinct, and watching the birds to see how they did. In the end, the fodder was free fed; meaning I tried to keep it in there at all times, so that they always had food in front of them. With the 25 Freedom Rangers, at 6-7 weeks of age, I was going through 6-8 lbs. of fodder a day. I didn't have a lot of cheese, since my dairy animals had just failed me (thank you 'o cow and goats! Right when I needed you! *insert unamused look*), so I only fed that to them 2x's a day, and gave 1-2 lbs. at each time. One gallon of milk made 2 lbs. of cheese, so it was easy enough to know that each gallon I got would create a day's worth of food. I alternated between the milk and whey, so that I wouldn't run out of either one too fast. For that though, I would fill a 1-gallon poultry waterer with a 1/2 gallon of milk and the birds were allowed to drink that. I experimented with taking away their water for a few hours at a time so that they only had access to the dairy, but I don't think I would do that in the summer time when the birds have heat stress to deal with. I found that the birds would only drink a 1/2 gallon of milk/whey each day; anymore than that and it would just sit and spoil.

Week #7:

The birds had officially been on the alternative diet for 2 weeks, and weights were as follows:

My group:
Average individual weight: 3.5 lbs.

Friends' group:
Average individual weight: 2 lbs.

Week 8:

My group:
Average individual weight: 4 lbs.

Friends' group: 2.3 lbs.

This is where things got crazy... The birds were eight weeks old, full feathered, and had minds of their own. They started flying out of their brooder boxes and getting into each others. If it wasn't for the weight difference, and the fact that my birds were bigger, there would have been no way to tell who's birds were whose! I was getting really stressed out with 52 chickens running rampant in my barn; it wasn't a good situation! I was on the last week in milking my cow and ultimately that's what caused a snap. I was milking once a day, and as soon as I turned on the milking machine and hit the point where I really couldn't leave the cow, in came 30 to 40 Freedom Rangers, all trying to get Mattie's feed!! This was an absolute no-no; birds of any sort are NOT allowed in the milking stall. I put my Freedom Rangers in a kidding pen that was empty, but had no where to put my friends' 27 birds! So I ended up having to give their birds back to them, and finishing my project with only my birds.

Week 9:
Average individual weight: 4.5 lbs.
Average group weight: 112.5 lbs.

Week 10:
Average individual weight: 5 lbs.
Average group weight: 125 lbs.

Week 10 was about when their appetites really began to pick up. Fodder consumption increased to an easy 10 lbs. a day, and they probably would have eaten more. I was no longer giving it as a "free feed" because we were now heading into the beginning of December, and my fodder was getting harder and harder to grow. Milk and cheese consumption stayed the same though. The cheese really seemed to make an impact on their weight gain; I noticed that without the dairy, they didn't do as well. Next time I do this, I would like to try experimenting with feeding more cheese; maybe 6-8 lbs. a day per 25 birds. Just to see if it increases growth rate noticeably or not.

Week 11:
Average individual weight: 5.5 lbs.
Average group weight: 137.5 lbs.

Week 12:
Average individual weight: 6 lbs.!
Average group weight: 150 lbs.

By 12 weeks, the birds were big enough to be butchered. They were the same weight that my Cornish X's hit at 8-9 weeks. It cost me $700 to raise one hundred Cornish X's in the traditional feeding manner (grain. Expensive grain.). Raising one hundred meat birds on the alternative diet would only cost $84. I don't know about you, but I'll take that second price over the first one. I went through a bag and a half of whole wheat for sprouting, and the milk was extra that otherwise would have been dumped because I had no room for it in the fridge.

So, where are those Freedom Rangers right now? Um... Wreaking havoc in my barn. *sheepish look* Yeah, they're still on the hoof. December turned out to be extremely busy for the local processors, and they couldn't fit me in anywhere until January. Then when January came, I didn't have the funds at the moment to be butchering them all. Time sort of just rolled by after that... And they're still here. Hehe. But personally, that really says something about the Freedom Rangers. With the Cornish Crosses, I am SO sick of those birds by 6 weeks. By eight weeks of age I hate them so much that it ain't funny. I've never gone more than 9 weeks with a Cornish X. The Freedom Rangers are now something like 5 months old, and they've been a lot of fun to keep around. The females should begin laying soon, and I suppose I really should get the males butchered before they figure out how to crow!!

Average weight at 5 months? 13 lbs.! These birds are HUGE!

All in all, I would say my Basic Broiler Challenge was a success. I set out to see if meat birds couldn't be fed more cheaply, and I found that they could. I want to order some Cornish X's (yes, even though I hate them) soon and see about raising a test batch of maybe 50 birds on the alternative diet. Since these birds need a higher octane feed than the FR chickens, I think I might see about giving them fermented grain as well, since that's such a high protein. Chicken sells well around here; I just need to figure out how to make it cost effective to raise them! And if this alternative diet idea works with the Cornish X's like it did for the Freedom Rangers, then this could be a very good side business to have along with the dairy...

So. Questions?

A Fierce, Fierce Bird

This is one of my Freedom Rangers. :) Nine pounds of feathered glory, he is quite the sight as he glares at everyone; he is a fierce, fierce bird. 

The Freedom Rangers are scheduled to be butchered hopefully next week. I'm going to miss these birds...

Sorry Guys

I'm trying to write up the final post for the Basic Broiler Challenge, but the words just aren't coming... I'm having a case of writer's block right now, but I'll keep pecking away at it. Sorry. :-/

Basic Broiler Challenge: Week #6!

Week #6 with the BBC! There's not much to report this week, save for the fact that the birds are HUGE!

My birds have officially been off their broiler ration for a whole week now, and they seem to be doing really well on it. It took them about 4 days to get used to only getting milk/cheese/sprouts for their food, and consequently it hurt this week's weight gain. They're eating like hogs now though, so I'm hoping that they'll make some extra gain before next week.

This weeks weight reports are as follows:

Group 1. (My group)

Average individual weight: 3 lbs.

Average combined weight: 78 lbs!

Group 2 (Friends' group who are still on 20% broiler ration)

Average individual weight: 1 lb. 7 oz.

Average combined weight: 45.9 lbs. (27 chickens; one stopped growing and is still the size of a 1 week old chick!)

My chickens weighed 2.7 lbs. last week, and this week they are only at 3 lbs. That's a teeny, tiny gain by anyone's standards. But again, this could be that it took them 4 days to get back to eating, so that could be a major factor there. It could also be that now they are growing in leaps and bounds skeletal-wise. They're taller and bigger than ever, but not fatter. Perhaps from here on out growth rate will be slower for both groups since their skeletal rate has caught up? It's a theory anyway... 

And it's time. My Freedom Rangers need to either be put in the chicken tractor or in a hoophouse STAT! They are running amok everywhere and living up to their names of "freedom rangers". I'm getting really good at my chicken catching skills, and that's the gospel truth! Such a shame no one offers degrees or at least a diploma for highly skilled chicken catchers. Someone oughta' complain about that... 

Basic Broiler Challenge: Week #5 and Off Grain!

Ta da! Week #5 for the Basic Broiler Challenge! These birds are HUGE and continue to keep me pleased with their performance.

Today was "THE" day. My group of 26 Freedom Rangers are officially off grain. I've been supplementing their usual ration all week with sprouts and cheese, and today was finally the day where they got no grain. I fed them 4 lbs. of raw milk cow cheese (just a fast vinegar cheese) early in the day, and then gave them 3 lbs. of sprouts this afternoon while doing mid-day barn chores. Tonight they'll get the 4 lbs. of whey that resulted from the afore mentioned cheese. They all seem really content with the new diet thus far; no chirping, wandering around looking for food, or other signs that might make me think they're hungry. Half of them are perched on the brooder box edge (yes, they're still in the brooder!); content to simply roost there and watch the world go by instead of hopping out and making me commence to a chase. When they want down from their view point, they shuffle their chubby selves around and plop back into the brooder. Trained birds... How 'bout that? 

This week's  weights are as follows:

Group 1 (my group that is on the sprouts/raw milk diet):

Average individual weight: 2 lbs. 7 oz!

Average combined weight: 70.2 lbs.!!

Group 2 (my friends' birds who are on 20% broiler ration)

Average individual weight: 1 lb. 4 oz.

Average combined weight: 39.2 (there are 28 birds in this group)

Looking at the weights I have from last week and this week, both groups have doubled their weights, and group #2 is growing steadily, if somewhat slower. They're about a week behind in weights from my group, so I'm guessing they're what a normal batch would look like and will be old enough to butcher by 9-11 weeks. Mine are just mammoth sized freaks. LOL. If mine keep on gaining at the rate they have been, then they should hopefully be ready to be butchered by 8 weeks. But we'll see. After all, this is only their first day on a straight dairy/sprout diet.

Sprout tutorial coming soon!

Basic Broiler Challenge: Week #4 and Doubled Numbers!

Yeah, yeah, I know I forgot to do the 3rd week for the BBC (Basic Broiler Challenge). Baaad me; no biscuit for Caity. ;) Okay, whatever.

We are on week #4 with the Freedom Rangers! Not only do I have a lot to share this week, but I also have the announcement that my numbers have doubled! Some friends ordered some FR chicks at the same time as I did, but as they are preparing to move to WA, they needed someone to take over in raising their meat birds. And because I - uh - have nothing better to do with my life, I agreed to take their 28 birds. 

The contrast between these two groups of birds is flooring. They are the same age, from the exact same hatch, they came at the same time, they've been on the same feed, everything is pretty much the same between these two groups of chickens. Except ONE thing: Mine have been getting raw milk and raw milk byproducts (i.e. cheese, whey, yogurt, kefir, and clabbered milk). The result of this one seemingly insignificant change?

See for yourself:

This picture #1 has my Freedom Ranger on the right side (the one that you see the whole body of), and the left hand side has my friend's bird. Same age, same feed, same heat lamp even. 

Picture #2: Again, my bird is on the right, and my friend's bird is on the left. 

I've started jotting down weekly weights on both groups so I can track their growth rate and see how they're doing; so far it's pretty interesting to see the results... This week's record looks like this:

Group 1 (My group that's getting the raw milk): 

Average individual weight: 1.3 lbs.

Average combined weight: 33.8 lbs.

Group 2 (my friends' birds who are NOT getting raw milk):

Average individual weight: .80 lbs.

Average combined weight: 22.4 lbs.

Not bad, eh? So far Group #1 is ahead of the game by 11.4 lbs. and that's just from milk that I otherwise would have dumped down the drain. These weights could very well totally reverse though, in the next few weeks. I'm getting ready to switch my chickens over to the straight sprouted-grain-and-raw-milk diet, and meanwhile my friends' group will be staying on a 20% protein broiler ration. I'm absolutely dying to see how the weights continue to pan out between the two groups as they grow and face diet changes!!!

After four weeks with these birds, I'm still really pleased with them. I haven't lost a single one; not even the 26th bird which was a free extra. I lost 21 Cornish Cross broilers back in June, and they were being treated with kid gloves. Besides the Freedom Ranger's hardiness, I have to admit that I am *quite* smitten with their wild colors. If nothing else, these birds are just plain gorgeous; and when you have to spend 12 weeks caring for them, having a bird that is easy on the eyes can make all the difference. ;) LOL. 

Below are some pictures to show the color variety I have in my group.

This first bird is my FAVORITE and I'm so excited to see that it's looking like it just might be a pullet. Methinks I might have to keep her and see how she does as a laying hen; I read that Freedom Rangers are an excellent dual purpose breed, so it could be interesting to see what their laying abilities are... 

Bird #2 is also looking like a pullet and her mottled brown/black coloration is quite striking, if I do say so myself. :)

 Bird #3! I think this one might be a cockerel, but I'm not positive yet... This chicken has the color known as "lemon cuckoo", meaning gold barring. I loooooove it!

So far so good. Four weeks down, and 5-7 more weeks to go. I'm hoping to build a small hoop house soon which will house rabbits, but will also be the new digs for my Freedom Rangers. I think Oregon's autumn might be a bit too soggy for them after all, or even if it's not, my grass needs a good, long rest; so I may keep the Freedom Rangers off the pasture this year. One thing's for sure though, I need to do something soon! At four weeks old the chicks are constantly flying out of the brooder!

Basic Broiler Challenge: Week #2

Week #2 with the Freedom Rangers! Although, personally I think it feels like we should be at week #4 or something with these birds... You mean I've really only had these chicks for two weeks!?!? Goodness me, how time crawls when you're raising a meat animal.

But time aside, things are still going swimmingly with them. You'll notice in the pictures that they are feathering out pretty quickly now which is amusing to see, but also means that they have begun flying out of the brooder at odd intervals during the day. Great. Milking time rolls around and I glance over my shoulder only to see a pint-sized ball of feathers pecking at the humming vacuum pump that gives power to my beloved milking machine. Darn chicken. I put it back only to find another infiltrator of the feathered race three minutes later. Grrrr, this means war!

Being the tactical warfare expert that I am (NOT), I -- uh -- haven't done anything about this invasion yet. I'm still listening to Beethoven's 5th Symphony in my head as I walk past the brooder. I suppose if I was a smart person I would simply reverse the brooder box so that the high wall was facing out and the short wall (which they're flying over) is facing the barn siding. But I guess I'm not that smart, or I would have done it already. 

The birds are also getting some astoundingly voracious appetites! They'll eat anything you put in there and they'll eat it fast. Watch your fingers, folks. STILL no sprouts started!!! But at the rate the Freedom Rangers are growing and eating, I'm fixin' to be forced into starting the sprouts. It's been a tense week of trying to find a new supplier for some high quality alfalfa hay, so the money for the grain and trays for the sprouts is momentarily being held back in case I need it for hay.

And yes, I should have put this little chick in some green grass for these shots to give it a bit more contrast. But my camera batteries wouldn't last long enough to find any green grass. ;) So bear with me this week. 

Basic Broiler Challenge: Week 1

The Freedom Ranger chicks are 1 week old now! So far so good on things; I haven't lost any chicks and these little birds are really surprising me with their high activity level. Their feed is still just chick starter, but I've also been introducing them to some soft cheese and some chopped grass. Both foods were heartily eaten by all. :)

You'll notice in the pictures that the birds have their wing feathers in now, and they're juuuuuuuust starting to get those silly tail feathers in. 

New to the blog and wondering what I'm talking about? You can read about the BBC (Basic Broiler Challenge) by clicking HERE.

Freedom Ranger Chicks!

Yesterday afternoon the post office called to say that a cardboard box full of chirping critters had arrived at their building, and MY name was on the box! Whoop, whoop, the chicks are here!!!

Thirty minutes later, all 26 of my new fluff balls were safely installed in their brooder....

So far, I like these birds. :) They're not so sluggish as the Cornish X chicks usually are, but they're not wired and crazy like the laying pullets are. Maybe it's just my imagination though. 

And I even got a video of the little peepers for y'all! I know, I'm so good. ;)

Basic Broiler Challenge, here I come!

Connection!!

At last! My internet connection is back! Hallelujah! It dissapeared this morning around 7am, and I have hardly known what to do with myself without being able to blog or -- anything!

So, assuming the internet connection stays put, I will do some posts tomorrow, seeing as it's already late and I hear my bed calling me... LOL. Stay tuned for blog changes, random muses, pictures, and Freedom Ranger chicks! Yes, they came this afternoon!! :)

Toodle pip and cheerio, my dears; I'm hopping to bed now... ;)

Change of Plans

Hehe, so the chick's arrival has just been moved to the 20th-21st. I just realized that most of the family will be in Texas next week when the chicks would have been coming, and seeing as I can't drive yet, nor can I run to the post office, I had better postpone their arrival until there is someone here who can fetch them for me. ;) 

Oh the inconveniences of not having a driver's license of one's own yet...

Next Week!

The Freedom Ranger chicks were ordered yesterday morning, and they are scheduled to arrive sometime between the 13th and 14th of next week! Whoohoo!

 Today I'm working on making cheese for the chickies... You would not believe how much milk I have in the fridge right now; I can't even get this morning's milk to fit in there (it's currently in a cooler filled with ice water). So I'm putting it to good use, and will put the cheese and whey in the freezer until the chicks are ready for it. :) 

The Basic Broiler Challenge

Ever since we butchered our 100+ Cornish Cross broilers back in July, I've had a hankering to try an experiment. Those birds were so horribly expensive to feed that I found myself throwing my hands in the air and wondering aloud, "Isn't there some other way to do this!?"

I paid over $700 just to buy feed for those chickens and we still ran out before their 8 weeks were up. Granted, it seemed that something wasn't quite right with this batch and they ate more than my broilers usually did, and I'm sure it didn't help that Heidi would break in to the chicken tractors and eat the feed when I forgot to lock the goats in a different pasture.

But still, $700 to feed 110 chickens? At first, we thought we were going to have to butcher our broilers at 10 weeks of age. By 6 weeks the heaviest bird was only 4 lbs. and the others were woefully behind that. I was panicking, almost out of feed, and was afraid I was indeed going to have to keep the chickens for 4 more weeks before butchering them. I had enough grain to last a week and a half; didn't know what to do after that. I promised my customers that the chickens would only receive organic, no-soy, no-corn, no-GMO feed and that was a special order from a mill that I lived two hours away from. If I was going to buy more, then it had to be in a 1/2 ton increment. Ouch. 

So I did what any frantic, crazy, desperate farm girl might do: I improvised. I had a lot of extra milk in my fridge, and I had organic wheat sprouts that the cow decided she did not want to eat (picky cow... Mutter, mutter, mutter). So the chickens dined on raw, organic cow milk straight from the cow, and fresh wheat sprouts!

Guess what happened? We had to butcher the birds early. Those chickens grew so fast on the milk-and-sprout diet that we butchered at 7.5 weeks!!! 

That experience left me wondering if I could do that again... So maybe the Cornish Crosses wouldn't do so well on a diet that was strictly "homegrown" but what would happen if I used a less hybridized breed and used simpler and more basic ingredients? If you look at the ingredient list of broiler feed, you'll read an amazing array of stuff like wheat, oats, barley, triticale, flax, camelina, alfalfa, corn, soy, fish meal, middlings, and who knows what else! If we were to try and hand mix our own feed this would cost a small fortune (trust me, I've tried it!). Why not just use a couple ingredients and really try to keep it simple? I know it's all about protein, as I have to deal with that when I mix feed for my dairy animals, but do I really need all 8 grains listed above, or could I use just one or two? 

This thought process has turned into what I am calling "The Basic Broiler Challenge". I want to simplify things a bit, try and get that cost down and just create a literal "basic broiler". Let's go back to the basics folks.

My thought here is to try using the Freedom Ranger meat broiler, which grows better than your heritage breed, but it's not so "Frankenstein-ed" like the Cornish X's. Sure there are other breeds like the Freedom Ranger, but I think I'll start with these guys for the first round of the Challenge.

 Feed wise, my secret weapons are the same as used earlier in the summer: raw milk and sprouts. But I'm taking this a bit further... I have a lot of extra milk right now and I'm tired of seeing it go to waste, so I'm going to use different dairy products for the chickens to make sure that they get the high protein that they need. Homemade cheese, whey, yogurt, and whole milk will be the crux of this. Grain wise, I'm sticking with barley. I'll sprout it which turns into 18% protein feed (and this chickens go berserk for this!) as well as rolled barley that's been soaked in whole milk. 

Why barley? I've chosen barley because #1 it has the most Total Digestible Nutrients of all the grains. And #2, it is a very easy grain to grow. If this Challenge works, I would love to try growing my own plot of barley so that this becomes a sustainable project. In the long run I want this to be more than Basic, I want it to be Sustainable. 

I think for this first round I will also feed fish meal and kelp meal. I know those go completely against the sustainable thing I just spouted about, but I'm not going for perfection on this first try. If I feel that the birds need more protein than my milk and barley can supply, then I'll supplement with fish meal. The kelp meal is to provide vitamins, minerals, and all those other goodies that the birds will need.

The plan is to start the chicks out on organic chick starter from Q-Bar Farm (a great local mill); once they hit 3 weeks of age, they'll be put in the chicken tractor and start gleaning bugs as part of their diet. Once they're around 4-5 weeks (not entirely positive on age yet) they'll be switched to their milk/barley diet. The Freedom Rangers grow slower than the Cornish X's and take 9 to 11 weeks before reaching slaughter weight. I'm okay with that though. 

It's already September now, so I've been thinking on putting my order for the chicks in soon; maybe this week, maybe next week. I'm only going to get 20-25 for this trial batch, but I think that's a decent number. I plan on tracking growth rates, weight gains, and health records on the birds to see how it all pans out in the end and the results and pictures will be shared here on the blog. 

Anyone else want to join in and try this with me? There's certainly room for experimentation here and if you don't have a blog of your own then you can email your pictures and updates to me and I can post them here. I have no idea if this will work, but I'm hoping it will and now it's time to see if will work or not.

So get ready folks. The Basic Broiler Challenge is fixin' to start!