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market-farming - Re: Grass Fed Beef/chickens

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Subject: Market Farming

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Chronological Thread  
  • From: Lucy Goodman-Owsley <goodows AT excite.com>
  • To: market farming <market-farming AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Grass Fed Beef/chickens
  • Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 04:01:22 -0800 (PST)



On Thu, 11 Jan 2001 23:03:55 -0500, market farming wrote:

> We found ours did best between 7-8 weeks. Ours usually weigh between
> 4-5 lbs. dressed. Your chickens were big! Your turkeys were huge!! We
> haven't done turkeys yet but we get requests all the time. Maybe that
> will be next. We buy froma farmer who has pastured turkeys and they are
> wonderful.
> Sue
>
We do 2 kinds of chickens-cornish rock cross that we grow for 8 weeks and
kill at 3.75 to 5.5lbs. Those sell for $2.45lb. We also grow heavy cockerels
(I'd call them purebreds but we breed most of them and they are crosses of
RIR, Rocks and Orpingtons-at any rate they are not the rock cross) These
must grow for at least 14 weeks, though 16 to 18 weeks is better. These get
killed when they start to crow and mount each other and are usually around 4
to 5 lbs and sell for $3.15lb. We also sell the occassional hen for $6 each.
I am partial to the non hybrid birds but most customers want a smallish
fryer so go with the hybrids. The non hybrids are excellent roasting birds
and great for broth too.

We use chicken tractors for all the meat birds and pullets. The non hybrids
are easy to do but the rock crosses tend to have leg problems and don't want
to move much so they are not as suited. This year we did discover that if
you up the protien (soy bean content) enough the leg problems go away and
the hybrids can and do get ar0und.

If you get into selling to resturants they want small birds-no more than 3lb
and they want hybrids. So kill the hybrids around 4 to 6 weeks.


Lucy Goodman-Owsley
Boulder Belt CSA
New Paris, OH
Website: http://www.angelfire.com/oh2/boulderbeltcsa
Organic Farming and Gardening Forum:
http://www.InsideTheWeb.com/mbs.cgi/mb135705
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