The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Poultry & Waterfowl => Topic started by: Clansman on January 21, 2015, 01:58:10 pm
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The broiler breeder parent stock is due to arrive around the start of next month so I thought I'd post up a wee thread just to document the process.
previous thread - http://www.accidentalsmallholder.net/forum/index.php?topic=53907.msg455700#msg455700 (http://www.accidentalsmallholder.net/forum/index.php?topic=53907.msg455700#msg455700)
Broilers (its an American term) are the meat birds you see for sale in the supermarkets.
These are generally grown in huge commercial farms, I worked on commercial broiler farms which varied in size from 100,000 to almost 300,000 birds.
These birds are usually killed between 5-8 weeks of age depending on the market requirement and attain live weights of 2 - 3.5Kg
Their growth rate is being improved constantly by selective breeding and to a lesser extent their ration, since the 1950's these birds have reached their particular target weight a day earlier each year and so far that shows no sign of slowing down.
The Ross 308 broiler male is expected to reach 2Kg live weight at 32 days, 3Kg at 42 days, 4Kg at 52 days and 5Kg at 63 days, (i've never known them to be kept more than 56 days commercially) the growth rate is tremendous.
the longer they live the bigger they will get and if kept much more than the normal 55 day maximum you would begin to see major problems in them caused purely by their weight, leg problems, mobility, skin and leg disorders due to them sitting most of the time etc
These birds by their design have been bred to grow as fast as possible and be killed before they are 8 weeks old, they should not be kept any longer than that.
It sounds cruel, maybe it is but its what the market and the demand has created so rightly or wrongly, from a commercial point of view its where we are now.
The major companies that produce broilers for the UK are Aviagen, (who acquired the old Ross Poultry and hence the Ross breeding stock) , Cobb, Hubbard etc you might have heard the names.
Each has different strains/types of broiler for different applications.
Commercial meat birds are often incorrectly called "Ross Cobbs".
see here - http://www.accidentalsmallholder.net/forum/index.php?topic=40639.msg394898#msg394898 (http://www.accidentalsmallholder.net/forum/index.php?topic=40639.msg394898#msg394898)
The parents of these broilers are known as broiler breeders, they are two different strains bred together, a male strain and a female strain to produce the fast growing broiler.
Basically todays broiler chicken its what we would call a cross breed.
I have also worked on broiler breeder farms, these are laying farms where these parent strains run together and the eggs sent to a hatchery which then sends the day old broilers out to the broiler farms.
These are smaller sized farms, usually with around 10-30,000 birds each.
My original plan was just to buy day old broilers and rear them for the freezer but the purchase price was quite expensive, anything from £1-£2 per bird for a small chick!
Thats expensive once you start to add up the feed/heat costs plus allow for mortality etc etc
So the cheaper way is to buy the parent stock and breed your own.
Hopefully i'll be able to sell some hatching eggs/chicks and maybe recover a bit of the purchase cost.
I'm planning to have a flock of around 20 females and 2 males which should produce more than enough eggs.
The rearing of these parents needs a bit of care and attention, they need to be kept within a certain weight range during the rearing and laying period or they will just grow to large and the egg numbers and fertility will suffer.
They also require to be kept to a lighting program during the rearing period to prevent them maturing too early or too late which again would impact on the egg numbers/fertility.
It sounds more complicated than it is, honest :D
I'll be keeping mine inside until the natural daylight fits in with their lighting regime then they can go out in the run.
A bit of reading if anyone is interested
http://en.aviagen.com/ross-308/ (http://en.aviagen.com/ross-308/)
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Thanks for post. Very interesting and I will have an in depth look at downloads prior to chicks arriving.
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How long would you expect the parent stock to live for? Presumably you need to replace them quite often? I gather that Hubbards can actually live quite a long time.
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At the rate supermarkets are going, I may have some chicks off you for my freezer if you want to sell.
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How long would you expect the parent stock to live for? Presumably you need to replace them quite often? I gather that Hubbards can actually live quite a long time.
They should live for a good few years, i've seen the odd few of these breeders mysteriously disappear at the end of their commercial flock cycle during the depletion and end up on a smallholding somewhere, running around for a good few years quite happily.
Whether they are still producing fertile eggs or not I have no idea though.
Commercially they are not economically viable after their first year, the egg production and fertility reduces too much and they are just replaced by new stock at around 60 weeks old.
When they come into lay on commercial farms they hit peak egg production around the 25 week mark which is expressed as a percentage and usually over 90% (9 eggs laid per 10 hens per week = 90%)
This tails off over time and by 60 weeks they will be down to around 40-50% production (4-5 eggs per 10 hens)
They can be kept through the moult and they will come back into production usually peaking at around 80% and producing larger eggs but purely from the financial point of view its quite a lot cheaper just to replace them.
For me though as long as i'm still getting a few good hatching eggs out of them i'll keep them as long as I can
If I have 20 females as planned I should initially be seeing 100 -120 good hatching eggs per week, tailing off to 50-60 at the end of their first year.
Even setting 20 hatching eggs a week would be quite an operation, i'd always have 60 eggs incubating and a batch of chicks ready to hatch at any one time. plus those already at 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 weeks old
But the plan is to sell excess chicks and possibly a few hatching eggs and fill as many freezers as I can! ;D
Lord Flynn hopefully you can be my first customer! :)
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I know of a farmer who produces 10,000 (meat) eggs a week under contract, his sheds/kit were £1.1M
He has hundreds of left over eggs every day £10 buys you as many as you can carry.
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I know of a farmer who produces 10,000 (meat) eggs a week under contract, his sheds/kit were £1.1M
He has hundreds of left over eggs every day £10 buys you as many as you can carry.
Are you sure on the figures there Andy?
To produce 10,000 eggs per week he would only need a flock size of around 2000 which would be the smallest breeder farm i've ever heard of, never seen any below 10,000 birds.
It certainly wouldn't need more than one very small shed and certainly not a million quids worth.
Are the eggs he has left over not rejects? Surely not hatching eggs
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I know of a farmer who produces 10,000 (meat) eggs a week under contract, his sheds/kit were £1.1M
He has hundreds of left over eggs every day £10 buys you as many as you can carry.
Are you sure on the figures there Andy?
To produce 10,000 eggs per week he would only need a flock size of around 2000 which would be the smallest breeder farm i've ever heard of, never seen any below 10,000 birds.
It certainly wouldn't need more than one very small shed and certainly not a milloin quids worth.
Are the eggs he has left over not rejects? Surely not hatching eggs
I'm fairly sure it's 10,000 he has just over 2000 birds his sheds are heated, lit, ventilated etc.
The eggs he sells on are rejects yes, we had 300 eggs we had approx. 180 hatch
I will ask him to confirm numbers as I am going up there tomorrow.
As you have first hand knowledge of broiler farms have you any suggestions to an economical way to finish birds on site, only 180-200 a week
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I've been out the broiler farming for a few years now but still keep in touch with a lot of the guys that still work there.
They are apparently seeing good results feeding high percentages of whole wheat for the last couple of weeks which reduces the feed cost quite considerably
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Delivery date now confirmed as Wednesday 11th February :excited:
I'm meeting up with the Aviagen lorry as it heads North with a large delivery to collect our huge order! :innocent:
100 females and 20 males :innocent:
All have been vaccinated for Mareks and Infectious Bronchitis
Males will get Nova Tech laser treatment on their beak tips (the new method of beak trimming)
They'll also have the first joint of their inner toes removed (to prevent damage to the hens)
and they have been despurred.
Invoice also arrived today, £413 in total
so £41.13 per 10 females and 2 males
Commercially these run 10 females to 1 male but as these are going to be split up into groups as small as 10 females then it would mean people only getting one male each which as we all know is just tempting fate that he'll keel over! :innocent:
If 1% of your males drop dead in a 20,000 bird breeder farm you'd hardly notice but I you only have one to start with and he pops his clogs then you're stuffed!
I explained this to Aviagen and asked for a few extra males.
they've given us an extra 10 males free of charge :thumbsup:
So everyone getting 10 females will now have 2 males, 20 females - 4 males etc
Looking forward to it now, going to get the shed set up for them this weekend :thumbsup:
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Very good read/ most of the eggs checked whith tempriture censer the brinsea are bad for this .The chicks hatch and the dawn slows the fans dawn over time and the bottom of the incubater is dawn 5 degreases .I think its a good project to do .I'm triying to make a meat bird for the estate some think like Dorking indian game .The meat chicks will sell .I' would Have a go at the marts ,sell the eggs to pay the pens £3 a pen 8 chicks in a pen about £50 a pen i would of thort .
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I'm triying to make a meat bird for the estate some think like Dorking indian game .The meat chicks will sell
Are you going for a pure breed cross meat bird or would it be an idea for you to cross a pure breed with some of these broiler breeders?
I'm sure I could spare you a few
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I think that if the right cock bird was used it would work ,I would try a road a sussex a marran or a sussex D104 the D104 lays 300 egg so a incubater full of these would make a good utilatey flok. The best hens iv ever made was a blue marran good dark eggs and 12 cuckoo marran hens .They was big like a black rock the neck bleeds a band round there neck and sext linc .So i had lots of cock birds some one said il have them . i gave him a bag of weat and away he went .The christmas sale was on at huntley these cock birds were for sale drest £20 each they looked great . Would like to see a pic of the breeders .A nother thort castle farms welsh blacks good cock birds
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Struggling to find a few good pictures on the internet but this'll give you an idea
(http://www.jhvms.com/sites/default/files/j3.jpg)
(http://www.cobb-vantress.com/images/default-source/guide-images/maleguide_09.jpg?sfvrsn=2)
(http://www.lfl.mu/img/dyn/categorie35)
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Looking at them onley one would do ixworth ,Iff you look on the 2 birds the black is marran
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I'd happily arrange to buy hatching eggs regularly! If you have any available please let me know!
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Won't have any eggs till at least July, after that I should have plenty! :fc:
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Interesting project. Are you setting up a list for buying hatching eggs? I would love to add my name to the list for July or whenever.
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Yes I could do something like that although I'll not count my chickens before they're hatched and all that :innocent:
I think there are maybe 3 TAS members who'll have these parent birds and I'll be keeping in touch with the non TAS members who have them so hopefully we'll be able to source plenty eggs if needed.
I'm hoping to have 50-100 hatching eggs per week and hatch as many as I can but should have spare, I haven't really the space here to be rearing 500+ broilers :innocent:
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D Day -1 :thumbsup:
Collecting the chicks off the lorry at stupid o'clock tomorrow morning (Oh how I miss those days!) :innocent:
There's a brief summary at the bottom if you want to skip all of this :innocent:
My set up for brooding these for the first few weeks is:
8 x 6 wooden shed (Lightproofed)
thin layer of sawdust on the floor,
a couple of electric brooding lamps,
chick drinkers
a few feed trays with standard starter crumb
LED lights on a timer.
Normally the males are reared separately but as I am going to have 4 males and 20 females I'll just mark the males with leg rings or spray and rear them all together.
Important to mark them because as I mentioned previously, the males and females are essentially a different breed therefore all females from the male strain hatch 'should' have been removed and vice versa from the female strain.
If one of these sneaks through the sexing process (its under a 1% probability) they will still breed but their chicks will not give the same performance.
So mark them and make sure they do grow up into boys :innocent:
If one of your girls turns out to be a boy and breeds then you will get poor performing black chicks, from two recessive white parents! yeah I don't get it either! thats genetics for ya! ;D
If you go and read the Aviagen technical stuff your head will probably explode so i'm going to post up the basic procedures i'm going to be following.
We're winging it a bit with these and a lot of what should be done commercially, we as smallholders won't be able to do but we can get close enough with a little bit of work.
On the flip side we can do things the commercial boys could only dream of! ;D
Weighing 100% of the rearing flock to find the average flock weight and weight spread would be a dream come true for a commercial farm, that would take them a solid week with a very large squad of workers!
Now as none of us probably have any access to non bulk, cheap, specially formulated poultry feed manufacturers I'm going to be using 3 bog standard rations for these that you'll be able to get from any decent agricultural suppliers.
Starter crumb, growers, and a breeders ration.
0 - 28 days Starter crumb
28 days - approx 25 weeks - growers ration
25 weeks onwards - breeder ration
Easy enough so far? ;D
WATER
Access to fresh water at all times.
don't give new chicks cold water, warm it in the brooder area first, if its really cold then drinking it can chill them enough to kill them.
Easy :thumbsup:
FEED
These birds should be on a restricted diet from day 2 onwards.
This will go against how anyone on here has probably ever raised chicks before, usually we give them unlimited access to a huge pile of starter crumbs for as long as they like.
These birds are essentially eating machines, If we give them unlimited feed they will be over 2Kg by 5 weeks of age, never breed or even lay an egg.
We're aiming to have them reach 2Kg at 19 weeks of age, its a HUGE difference and will require a little care and attention.
Here's the Aviagen feeding guide.
Again we're going to have to wing it a bit on this, especially once the birds are off heat etc
These figures are for specially formulated rations and birds kept in a temperature controlled environment at around 21 centigrade.
Once off heat, mine will be kept at whatever temperature it is outside, so i'm going to have to feed them more than this to maintain them.
(http://i62.tinypic.com/2vwwf86.jpg)
The key here is keeping close to the target bodyweight, if we can do that we're halfway there.
As the most any of us will have is 24 birds (some only 12) it should be easy enough to weigh them at least once a week just to see where they are.
If they are too light we increase the feed slightly, if they are too heavy we keep the feed at the level its at until they return to target weight.
The amount of feed should NEVER be decreased to bring heavy birds back into line.
I'm expecting some people to struggle with this, its very hard to stick to and always tempting to give them a little extra as a treat ;D
Once they get too far out of line they'll never really recover and you'll just end up with some lovely big white fluffy hens running around that lay an egg once in a blue moon ;D
If you're having to feed them 100g each to maintain the bodyweight when the guide says 60g then so be it, its just a guide, we're running outside their brooding parameters so we'll just compensate to suit.
Bodyweight is the key, stick to it as closely as you can whatever it takes.
LIGHTING
The recommendation here is:
Day 1 - 23 hours light/1 hour dark
Day 2 - 23 hours light
Day 3 - 19 hours light
Day 4 - 16 hours light
Day 5 - 14 hours light
Day 6 - 12 hours light
Day 7 - 11 hours light
Day 8 - 10 hours light
Day 9 - 9 hours light
Day 10 - 8 hours light
Day 146 (21 weeks) - start to increase slowly to 16 hours per day as laying begins
Now i'm running electric brooders so i'm stuffed for keeping to this lighting programme, mine are going to be on 24 hours light till the heat goes off :innocent:
After that i'll bring them down slowly to 10 hours light per day, (i'm not going as low as 8 )
I will split the light up so they get a break period rather than 14 hours of darkness so they can drink and have a run about.
e.g. lights on for 8 hours through the day (8am-4pm) then give them 2 hours light between 11pm and 1am
That gives them two 7 hours dark periods, I'm happy with that.
The importance of the lighting restriction is not to bring them into lay/sexual maturity too early.
it would be possible to over feed them and give them too much light so that they would begin to lay at around 12 weeks old which would be a bit of disaster all round.
the egg numbers would be drastically reduced, they would be small, infertile and the birds would never reach full potential.
That looks a lot i've posted there but don't worry! :innocent:
Brief summary :
Feed Starter crumb till 28 days
start off at the feed amounts shown in the guide and adjust as necessary to the weight of the bird.
Lighting programme if you can or just wait till they are off heat like me.
:thumbsup:
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Very interesting, I am enjoying this post although I free range my table birds, it's still interesting to see how professionals do it.
Hope it all goes well for you.
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interesting but how are you going to stop the greedy ones over feeding?
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Because they are on restricted feeding they will clear the food that they get very quickly.
Its a big rush to eat it as fast as possible so as long as they have plenty feeding space and can't push each other out of the way then they should all eat at a similar speed and get a pretty even amount.
Similar to feeding pigs, as long as the food is spread around evenly they all get an even share and only fight over the last few bits.
I'm going to have 24 birds, i'll split them into 4 pens of 6 birds and just have one large tube feeder in each pen which will give them plenty feeding space.
Feeding a mash instead of a pellet will slow down the speed they can eat it at and again help even out the amount each one gets, commercially this is hard to do and pellets are normally used which are thrown out by a spinner system similar to a tractor spreading fertilizer except its spread over 360 degrees
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They're here! :thumbsup:
The males are mixed in now and are all sporting a rather fetching black head design done in the latest permanent marker style :innocent:
They are a bit huddled looking but I took the pictures seconds after I placed them into the brooder, they are a lot more spread out now :thumbsup:
(http://i61.tinypic.com/mue83q.jpg)
(http://i62.tinypic.com/2vxn89i.jpg)
(http://i60.tinypic.com/10z6b1j.jpg)
(http://i60.tinypic.com/a3ksrd.jpg)
(http://i62.tinypic.com/2vlsmk1.jpg)
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THIS IS the brooding pens i use 4 8 foot by 8 in a line and always use medicated crumbs .They hold 1 tray of 50 chicks and has much food as they wont .
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My brooding area for these at the moment is a 6 foot fishtank in my front room! :innocent:
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My brooding area for these at the moment is a 6 foot fishtank in my front room! :innocent:
Hahaha, that's as bad as me! It's usually a guinea pig cage in the living room. They are well socialised with kids dogs and cats by the time they progress to the outside run :chook:
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6 days in and they're looking good :thumbsup:
So far out of the 100 females and 20 males we've lost one of each, both within the first couple of days.
I actually went through every bird on the first day and made sure they were all eating and drinking, I found one male which didn't have any food in its crop and I suspect thats probably the one which died.
I weighed the chicks on arrival and they ranged from between 35g to 45g
I weighed them again yesterday at 5 days old and they're 70-90g so pretty much doubled in weight in 5 days.
Growing well and starting to feather up nicely.
So they are all now eating, drinking and past the dangerous stage, hopefully we won't lose many more. :thumbsup:
Most of them have been distributed out to the people who wanted some now, I'm keeping a few until collection/delivery can be arranged and some till they are off heat.
:thumbsup:
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Day 8
Lost another male, it started to fall behind the others and went down off its legs so I culled it.
The rest are growing fast, its noticeable every morning the change in size in them.
The males were given laser beak treatment at Day Old which basically passes a strong laser through the tip of the beak killing the tissue, same idea as laser hair removal I suppose.
This replaces the old beaktrimming (or debeaking as it used to be called) method of cutting and cauterising the tip of the beak with a red hot blade.
The tip of the beak goes black and this morning I spotted one which has now fallen off, looks a good clean job.
Average weight this morning looks to be around 110g which isn't far away from target weight.
Still feeding ad lib and on 24 hours light
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One of the group buyers has dropped out so I now have another 20 ish females and 4 males available.
Ideally i'd like them to go in batches of 10 females and 2 males but if you are happy to risk just having 1 male i'll sell 5 females and a male.
They cost me £4.20 each at day old.
I can keep them till they are off heat or longer for 50p a bird per week to cover feed if anyone is interested.
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Day 13
All looking healthy and growing fast! :thumbsup:
The feathers are coming in fast now too.
I'm still on electric heat bulbs so they're on 24 hours light and also still on ad lib feeding.
Staying pretty close to target weight, the odd one is a bit larger but nothing to worry about yet.
(http://i61.tinypic.com/2556w6d.jpg)
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:thumbsup: Jeez they all look so grumpy :-J
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I did wake them up for a pic :innocent:
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Day 20
managed to sell a few more on over the weekend so i'm almost down to a manageable level :innocent:
Some people are taking a few hens to cross with other breeds, La Bresse, Maran, Scots Grey, Wyandotte and even a Jersey Giant so that should give us a few interesting crosses to look at.
They are getting seriously chunky now, putting on lots of weight and their legs are massive.
I'm hopefully moving them outside tonight into their future home so i'll get some pics up once they're all settled.
Still have a few spare if anyone would like to try some.
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I've had a wee rough look at the costs of rearing these to produce hatching eggs/chicks.
Theres a bit of guess work involved so i'll err on the high side as most of us are going to be keeping them outside so they'll eat more than the Ross guide shows
I've done it for 10 female/2 males.
Purchase cost - £42
Feed cost to point of lay (22 weeks) - £75
thats based on 12 birds eating 150Kg (Ross guide says 116Kg) at roughly £50 per 100Kg of feed
From point of lay onwards I've taken the feed consumption as 200g per bird per day, guide says 169g
I'll be feeding them standard layers or breeders ration which I can buy at roughly £9 for 20Kg (£450/tonne)
I'll count their laying period as 40 weeks (for ease of calculating), from 22 weeks of age through to 62 weeks of age.
So each bird will eat 200g per day, 1.4Kg per week, 56Kg in 40 weeks, (i'll round it up to 60Kg)
60Kg x 12 birds = 720Kg so £330
So in total we're looking at around £450 in purchase and feeding costs to 62 weeks.
The Ross target is 175 hatching eggs per female over the 40 weeks, I'll be happy with 150 and that should be fairly easy to achieve.
So 1500 hatching eggs should cost us £450 to produce (30p each)
An 80% hatch rate should be achievable and would give us 1200 chicks (38p each)
Broiler hatching eggs seem to sell for around 80p - £1 each and chicks £1.50 - £2 or more each, so plenty scope to recoup some or all of the costs by selling excess eggs and/or chicks.
I've rounded up and erred on the high side for everything so hopefully we can do it slightly cheaper than that.
I've not counted incubator or brooder costs but mine are all done in the house so the cost can come from the house heating bill :)
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Will you have to keep buying in the parent stock or can you now breed you own ?
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The easiest way would just to buy in new ones but i'm hoping to get a few years out of these ones.
I'm only guessing here but I suspect the offspring will be quite poor breeders, if they can breed at all. its a super fast growing machine by design so even with a restricted diet they may struggle to remain light enough to breed.
I think the feed restriction required to do it would be more than I would be willing to do.
The birds that are bred from crosses with some of the pure breeds shouldn't be as heavy or fast growing though and should be ok to use as breeding stock.
They wouldn't produce birds as fast growing as these ones will but their offspring will still have a decent size and growth rate.
Something to look at further down the line once we see how some of crosses turn out.
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Any updates
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Not a great lot happening apart from eating and pooping ;D
Not quite true, I've sold a few more small batches of 2-5 females.
They have been moved from their initial fishtank home in the front room out to a brooder ring in the garage and over the weekend they were moved outside to an 8 x 6 shed.
They are still confined to the shed and still on heat, 28 days old today but I managed to get the door open for most of yesterday and they enjoyed lying in the sunlight :thumbsup:
(http://i62.tinypic.com/jr3fd4.jpg)
(http://i59.tinypic.com/mcrf6b.jpg)
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the project is working well ,Iv worked out it costs me 12 pound a hen point of lay i try to have hatching eggs from november till christmas .I then incubate for the first spring sale which is march 7 4 hens and a cock 65 pound saterday .Next sale may bank holaday i will loose all stock but the best 6 .Same whith the ewes keep the best 12 . i onley sell stock 8 weeks old so i can see the improvements if none il get eggs from a better line .
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35 days
I've managed to sell on all the extra birds so I have just over 40 left, my plan is to end up with 20 females and 4 males.
I'm keeping a few here for some friends till they are off heat which may well be this weekend.
I moved onto grower last week and have now started restricting the feed much to their annoyance!
The certainly let you know they're not impressed! ;D
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When off heat will they be ranging outside ?
If so will there feathers be weather proof ?
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I need to keep them inside for now due to the lighting.
I'm going to keep their daylength down to 10 hours per day to prevent early maturity.
I will split the light up so they get a break period rather than 14 hours of darkness so they can drink and have a run about.
lights will be on for 8 hours through the day (8am-4pm) then give them 2 hours light between 11pm and 1am.
Once they reach 21 weeks of age (which is the 7th July, 16 weeks away) i'll slowly increase the lighting to 17 hours per day at which point it'll be close to the natural daylight and they can get access to the run outside.
Yes, their feathers will just be like any other chickens, they spend most of their time preening themselves just now.
No thats not true, they spend most of their time eating! ;D
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8 weeks old tomorrow, time is flying in! :excited:
I'm hoping to see my first eggs around the first week of July so around 3 months today :thumbsup:
Managing to keep them in check so far but its not easy.
I now have two pens and have graded the females into large and small sizes so I can alter the feeding accordingly.
They are on a grower ration now so having to eat a little bit more compared to the starter crumb to keep them going.
Hungry things they are!!
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10 weeks!
Half way to eggs! :thumbsup:
most of them are running slightly heavy now, between 1 and 4 weeks ahead of target weight but not going to hold them back too much, they're wanting to eat all the time just now and just like pigs, act like they are starving 24/7! :)
despite them being on a HEAVILY restricted diet, some of them are over 1.5Kg (3.3lb) at 10 weeks old (They should be just over 1Kg)
None of them are fat or overweight to look at, they are just heavier than the breeding company recommends.
That might mean a slightly lower egg production to begin with but its not all about maximising egg numbers and over time we'll make these eggs up.
I've been letting them out in the run from 8am till 8pm too so they've been having a good scratch about and getting worms and grass.
Will get some pics up later, big cute fluffy bundles they are now
I could have sold the extra ones twice over, had loads of people after some this last month or so!
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19 weeks this Wednesday
They've got access to outside now and I'm hoping to see the first eggs in a couple of weeks with any luck :fc:
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21 weeks.
No eggs here yet but now heard of two people with some of these birds that have seen their first egg :thumbsup:
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I bet you will be a bit excited when that first egg appears.
Soooooo because its hard for me to keep up now, you are obviously looking for some questions. :eyelashes:
how many birds do you have now & How many male & female.
Have you lost any along the way apart from those you sold?
Any recent pics?
cheers
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Yep but would rather see more mating going on first before I start to see some eggs.
I have 10 females and 2 males here and a friend has the same at their place, I split them just incase something happens to one lot and we have a backup.
Yes a few have been lost, as far as I know out of the original 100 females and 20 males we've lost 6 females and 4 males, although two of those were within the first couple of days.
Some have just dropped dead, a couple had bad legs and the rest just never grew or grew very slowly.
A couple of the girls inside prior to getting out into the run area.
Lazy buggers they are! :innocent:
(http://i60.tinypic.com/1q1i83.jpg)
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First egg! :thumbsup:
Males are mating, saw both of them at it over the weekend :thumbsup:
They've been free ranging around the garden this weekend and have cleared up a pile of overgrown vegetation so might leave them to it!
They've also been eating my bees though!
I did call one of the guys that took a male and 5 females to ask how his were getting on.
He'd just fed them ad lib, they got too heavy, one of the females dropped dead and he just ate the rest :innocent:
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First couple of dozen due to hatch next weeks. :thumbsup:
I've got just over 50% fertility with this lot but they're just stating so should see better in the next batches :thumbsup:
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I hope things go well whith the hatch I'm on some think new I'm triying to breed my broodies got the stock all young will start spring all the best.
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hi all...
hows the project going?
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All fine so far but the chicks are just starting to arrive
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Hi Clansman,
re the chap who had some of your birds. When he said some got too heavy??? How heavy is too heavy?
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Mine are on fairly strict rations but I don't have a female under 3.8Kg (8.3 lbs) (they should be under 3.3 Kg still)
27 weeks old tomorrow and laying pretty well, I'm averaging 6-7 eggs per 10 hens a day, not earth shattering but i'm happy with that from birds which area bit overweight and running around my garden :thumbsup:
He doesn't know they weight but described them as small turkeys. :innocent:
I would imagine on ad lib starter crumb his would have easily been pushing 4Kg by 3 months
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so why is 4kgs too heavy for the table? Is heavier not better?
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It's not but these are/were breeders, they weren't supposed to be table birds and would have been to heavy to breed/lay.
I wouldn't keep table birds or at least these commercial Ross broilers to that weight, you would lose too many through heart attacks and bad legs etc.
3-3.5Kg is plenty for males, 2.5 for females.
Plus they eat so much feed to get them to that weight
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Thank you...makes sense. Maybe Id better put my Big Bertha on a diet
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Who's Big Bertha? ;D
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She's my largest and best Buff Sussex and I want to breed some other Berthas from her so if she's too fat Id better address it
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Weighed the first dozen chicks hatched at 14 days and they're all over 450g (1lb) so just about bang on the Ross guidelines :thumbsup:
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with that growth rate you should be careful they dont end up eating you!
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They're certainly shifting the feed, quite glad I haven't got a few hundred of them!
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Out of interest has anyone done a proper feed conversion comparison between breeds. That is how much feed it takes a Ross / a Hubbard or other more 'natural' meat bird / a dual purpose bird like a Marans of good strain to get to kill weight. Obviously the Marans is going to take 18-24 weeks but the Ross is going to get through more feed per day for it's shorter life.
It would be interesting to measure feed intake vs carcass weight. It might be fairer to joint the bird and so remove any excess bone. For example, a 2Kg Marans may have less meat than a 2Kg Ross.
I've sort of done this with dual purpose and I reckon somewhere in the region of £5-6 to get a cockerel to 24 weeks with feed at £6 per 20kg.
Anyone got any figures for Ross / Hubbard etc. ?
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I've sort of done this with dual purpose and I reckon somewhere in the region of £5-6 to get a cockerel to 24 weeks with feed at £6 per 20kg.
Seems very low, 20Kg in 24 weeks is averaging around 120g per day.
A decent meat bird could eat twice that in a temperature controlled environment and a lot more again if reared outside just to maintain body heat.
I'm hoping for a 2:1 feed conversion for these, the commercial guys are getting 1.9:1 regularly and i will probably still have mine under heat when I kill them,
planning to kill the pullets at 2Kg (hopefully around 40 days) and males at 3Kg (hopefully around 50 days) and use no more than 5Kg feed per pullet and 7Kg per cock.
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Day 20
managed to sell a few more on over the weekend so i'm almost down to a manageable level :innocent:
Some people are taking a few hens to cross with other breeds, La Bresse, Maran, Scots Grey, Wyandotte and even a Jersey Giant so that should give us a few interesting crosses to look at.
They are getting seriously chunky now, putting on lots of weight and their legs are massive.
I'm hopefully moving them outside tonight into their future home so i'll get some pics up once they're all settled.
Still have a few spare if anyone would like to try some.
Hi Clansman how's the project going ?
Did you ever hear back from any of the people who took breeder cockerels to cross over there DP birds ?
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was just coming to post on here! :)
My fist batch of chicks were culled last weekend at just over 8 weeks old, weights were between 2.6 and 4Kg.
Most of the females were 2.6 - 2.8Kg the males are anything from 3.2 - 4Kg
I should have killed the females 2 weeks ago, they've not put a great lot on since then and have just been chomping through the feed.
Males were pretty good, i only had one that started to show a bit of reluctance to walk around, not lame, just wanted to stand or sit rather than walk.
I've got some hens in with a Scots Grey cockerel and have some eggs in the incubator so will see how those go.
I'm using AI on mine now twice a week to help the fertility as the males didn't seem to be covering all the females so i've got pretty much 90% fertility now.
Will get in touch with a few of the other people, they were actually going to use pure breed cocks over the breeder hens as the breeder males are very large so will let you know how they've got on.
I have spoken to a couple of them who have just eaten their birds though, they got too heavy probably getting too much feed and started going off their legs.
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Some nice weights there mate.
Do you keep all the meat yourself or sell some. ?
Will be very interested to hear how the crosses turn out, are you looking to try and breed for a more sustainable table bird ?
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Don't sell anything, it's not worth it for me to get setup properly to do it so everything goes in the freezer.
I'm going to breed a few and see what I end up with, even if I end up with a smaller and slower growing bird it should still be good
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I guess that's where most of the brown ranger types come from.
I kept a Poulet Galouise hen back to breed with my IG next year to see what I get.
But your breeder stock should be a better starting point.