[sabrina]

We are raising some chickens for the freezer. What is the best feed to give them once off chick crumbs. At the moment we have one lot on growers and another still on the chick crumbs. Can they get mixed corn ?

[Stereo]

Would be good to have a thread on finishing traditional / pure breed birds for meat. Any advice out there? We have raised birds just on growers and also did a small batch of Copper Marans who had a lot of mixed corn from 16-20 weeks and were lovely meat birds, the best we had done.

So, say you can tell girl from boy at 12 weeks (or earlier for many) and separate them then, what do you feed the boys on for the best carcass? People say corn makes them fat but my Marans had way more fat than other birds I did and after roasting were superb. The fat made them.

So what's the ideal diet for a trad breed meat bird?