How to Raise Chickens for Meat
We have been raising our own food for about four years now. And once you taste farm fresh chicken, you don’t go back! If you’re new to chickens and wanting to learn how to raise them (both meat birds and egg layers), I suggest this ebook! We’ve learned how to shop from our backyard and bring more sustainability to our homestead by raising backyard meat chickens. In this blog I'm sharing everything you need to know from chick to butchering day.
What Do You Need to Raise Meat Birds?
Raising meat birds doesn’t have to be fancy. The chicks will start in a brooder where they will need heat lamps and lights to go with them. Before the chick’s feathers come in, they can’t physically regulate their body temperature and need a heat lamp to keep warm. They'll need the heat lamp until their feathers come in, usually around two to three weeks.
We then move them to our Chicken Tractor. We use three different tractors on the farm: Hoop house, A Frame, and a “Mac Daddy” Short Rectangular tractor.
We built the A frame when we arrived to the property. We love the stability of the tractor, but it is quite heavy and quite the hazzard when it comes to bumping heads in the tractor.
Our hoop house has a chain attached to the front and little wheels on the back that we can use to move it.
The hoop house was constructed out of simple materials and is the most cost effective option we have out of the three. Next is our mac daddy tractor Jason built.
It glides through the fields so easily. Jason added a hinge system in the front that allows me to lift the front half and move the wheels! The chicken tractor is moveable which means our chickens can free-range and peck for bugs around our property.
If you have the space, free-ranging your meat chickens is a great option because you'll be reducing your feed bill.
Which Chicken Breed is Best for Meat?
The Cornish Cross is a hybrid of the Cornish and the Plymouth White Chicken. We prefer it for our meat chickens because at full butchering weight (after 8 weeks) they average 5-6 pounds each. You do not want to let your Cornish mature to the age where they could begin laying eggs. Some people try to “save” Cornish Cross birds from being butchered, but they aren’t bred to live long lives. The bigger they get the more susceptible they are to heart attacks and injured legs due to their body weight.
Caring for Meat Chickens
Shelter
If you're raising your meat birds in a portable chicken tractor, you'll want to move the tractor at least once a day. We usually move it twice per day. Make sure that your shelter has a covered area for the birds to get out of the sun or weather.
Space Requirements
Before purchasing meat chicks, it's important to have their space planned out ahead of time. Each bird will require approximately 2 square feet per bird. This can be less when they're small, but as they reach full size this is the average amount per bird. Using a mobile chicken tractor and moving the birds each day will reduce your feed bill, meat birds are a great choice if you don't have much land.
Feed & Water
You’ll want to make sure, especially with meat birds, that they have ample protein. Because they're growing so fast, this is a must. We feed our meat birds fermented chicken feed to ensure they're getting adequate growth.
It's also important to keep their water topped off at all times. If you can set your coop, brooder and tractors to have automatic water refill you will save yourself so much time!
We free feed from one to three weeks old and then feed twice per day from four to eight weeks. The reason we move to feeding twice per day is because we notice less heart attacks. These birds are designed to eat, sleep and poop and they will eat eat eat themselves into a heart attack.
The pecking order is a real thing. There are some birds who are just not going to get as big as other birds because they are not as dominant when it comes to getting the feed. We feed until everyone is calm - make sure enough feed is dropped for each bird to have a serving. You can hang around and watch - if they’re hungry still they will let you know. If they’re content they’ll be calm.
How Long Do You Raise Meat Chickens?
About eight to ten weeks. Which is a pretty fast turnaround and will require much less overhead feed cost compared to raising pigs or beef cattle. The easiest way to eliminate your meat bill from the grocery store is to start raising meat that has the lowest cost of getting started. You don't want to push the meat birds beyond this 8-10 week mark, if you go longer you risk losing birds due to stress or other health issues.
So, having your butchering process figured out ahead of time is important.
Butchering Meat Chickens
When it comes to the butchering process, this is something you'll want to think about before bringing your birds home.
For the most cost savings, it's great to be able to butcher the chickens yourself. When you set up your butchering station you're going to want an area for dispatching the birds. Then you’re also going to need an area to scold, a station to defeather, and a station where you can cut the bird up and get the insides out. All of my favorite items are linked here.
We include our whole family in the process. I remember the first time we processed birds Aria and Landon were only two and four. We felt by raising our children in it, it wouldn’t be traumatic because they don’t know any different. We are really firm on our children having these skills so embedded in them that it’s like the back of their hand. I believe the sooner they learn where their food comes from, the less traumatic it is. You need to know that a life is taken to feed you and keep your life going.
When it’s time to process I encourage you to get your family, friends and community involved. This is great for building community, morale and teamwork. We are really intentional here on the farm about everyone knowing how to do every job. You don’t have to be amazing at it, it doesn’t have to be your job all the time but everybody needs to know how to do it. We use every processing experience as a class for those who are new to chicken processing. Encouraging others is our jam!
I highly recommend you get plugged into any in person learning opportunities that you can - our farm hosts two per year typically in the spring and fall. You can check in and see what upcoming events here.
If you want to be a part of learning how to process meat birds utilizing as much of the bird as possible, I highly recommend grabbing the Meat Bird Processing Course that Jason and I have created. It will walk you through everything you need to know when it comes to butchering a meat bird and how to section the bird for easy to consume parts to store in the freezer making meal time simple and diverse. We have also included a step by step guide that can be printed and laminated for you to keep on your table as a reminder on processing day instead of having to pull up your phone and get it dirty! We’ve got you friend.
It’s so rewarding to know we have worked hard to raise and process food that we know was loved, we know was fed and treated well, and we know will serve our bodies - and I am excited for you to have that for your family as well!