Todays weight

UPDATED WITH PICTURES BELOW ENTRY:

Weighed both the meaties and the regular chicks and they have almost caught up to them. Just a few oz off. The reg meatie I usually weigh is weighing in at 7.9 oz Not as much of a gain as I had expected. And the reg chick is just 10.4 oz. Not near as much gain as the meat chickens. Some of the bigger meaties weighed in at over 8 oz. One was 8.5 oz. 1/2 way to a lb! Seems unreal really that those little cuties will soon be huge chickens. I did notice something else about them (I noticed it yesterday for the first time) they have worn feathers on their tummy area and seems like they get some poo stuck to their down fur. I may have to change out the bedding more often then I would like to keep them cleaner. I will keep an eye on this and see if it improves. Its not just with the meat chicks that I notice this with but also the two reg chicks that are in the box. Never happened before with any other chicks although I never had 25 of them either!

The bedding is getting to the point where there is Nothing you can do to fix the smell. It's time to change out the litter tomorrow.

Finally got some pictures!

OK...I got pictures but you will have to scroll back a few days. I wanted to add them on the correct days. I will get more pics tomorrow and place them in the new entry. Helps in seeing correct pics with weights, dates etc... There are two added on the 20th and one on the 25th.

Well, I did not change the litter yet...what I did was stir it up and add just a little more fresh shavings and a little Diatomatious Earth or us chicken people just call it (DE)...FEED grade of course. DO NOT GET THIS AT THE POOL STORE!! This works very well and I'm trying to be as frugal as possible as long as it's not poo ridden and smelly. Doing those two things have helped. I will be chancing it on Wed or Thur for sure.

Our little Amber is already 7.3 oz and most of the other ones are getting up right around 7.5 oz. The two straggler hens I added (just standard mix laying hens) are just 10.1 oz so the meaties are catching up by leaps and bounds! They look almost as big now. Make sure you check out those pictures :D

No coop started yet.

Today's weight was 6.4 oz...still giving them water just every day but it's getting close to them needing more water. They have it almost gone now where as when they were first here they would drink maybe half of the gallon of water. We did NOT get started on the coop as planned but we did get the run of our bantams done today. I had to work all morning so we didn't get as much as we had hoped. Hubby had the fence put up by the time I got home...then we had to run to Menards to get a few things we had forgot for the coop. Thats about it for the day...We both have to work tomorrow so no telling what will get done tomorrow. I have to work 7 am to 3 again. Lately those have been my hours. I have more light time at home at least this way.

Updating...weight etc.

Well little Amber is weighing in at 5.4 oz here today...last weigh in was 4.0 oz. They are catching up to the standard chickens I have in with them. They have been still needing just the one gal refill on water yet every day but soon they will be needing more. Tomorrow we start their coop. We are also working on a run for my bantam cochins at the same time. Busy Busy! That is really hard work! I have their pictures on the computer now...I just have to find them and get them on photobucket. Its taking forever! But we have busy and hubby and I have both been working 40 hours a week. Not time for much else. I do want to keep this journal updated though since we want to keep records of this. OH by the way...they usually go though one of those larger coffee containers a day now in food! I will add up so far and put the first week's total down tomorrow. Have a good night all!

weigh in again

WOOT! I got myself another follower! WELCOME!

Well I took the same bird and weighed him/her at noon and today it went from 3.0 oz to 4.0 oz. It's crazy how fast they are gaining. Next time I have egg laying chicks I'm going to do the same. I curious exactly how much faster they grow compared to egg layer chicks. Took some more pictures today too. I'm going to go back and post the correct pics per time frame in my last entries when I finally get them uploaded. My camera is full so I have to get them off there to take anymore! LOL They have almost went through the full coffee container of food ...by tonight they will have. Filled that one up yesterday at noon! Good thing I found an easier way to blend the food up!

And see the two black ones...those are the two I added a few days after we got the meaties...they are just standard laying hen chicks that we will be keeping IF they are hens.

Heat lamp/ feeding amounts/ONE week old!

There heat lamp was kept off last night and they were all just fine. Running around like crazy today. One thing I noticed is that they enjoy cold water vs warm. We refresh their water 2 - 3 times a day for them. They are starting to get a little smelly in our garage so I will be changing out their pine shavings tomorrow. I hadn't noticed a smell before this (not bad for having 28 1 week old chicks in a large box) The two older ones have now taught all the little runts to scratch pine shavings in their water so I put the water on a few boards for height. Working better but they still manage to get some in there.
Soon we will be upgrading their waterer to a large one (5 gallon possibly). Haven't lost any at all and they all seem very healthy :D They are also starting to dust bathe TOO CUTE!

Weight of the one I have been weighing went from 2.8oz to 3.0 Seems the first day was a huge jump compared to these smaller jumps. I weighed many of the other ones and the runt weighed in at 2.3 oz and the largest ones are weighing in at 3.0 oz. I weigh them about noon or so when I weigh them just so it's the same time. The colors on these guys are looking beautiful. So many varieties! At least they will be fun to look at these next few weeks.

Another change: We are now putting the feed in our larger coffee containers so we have more ground up. We had been putting a little feed in the smaller container and used a mallet to crunch up the pellets into crubble form. Very time consuming so I went up to the kitchen to try to find a faster less messy way so I put a bunch in a heavy freezer zip lock bag and tried the rolling pin. UMM Don't do that! LOL It made a mess and I had feed dust all over the table. I ended up using the blender and it worked wonderfully. So now that we can grind more at time I'm putting it in a larger container. I will weigh it so we can keep track of the amount of feed they consume in their lifetime of 10 weeks. So far they have eaten 4 lb 6.8 oz X 2 Now we are putting it in the larger 4 lb coffee container so I will weigh that tomorrow.
I said yesterday to hubby "I wish we had all roosters so we could butcher all 25 of them" LOL He says...oh there ARE going to be 25 chickens going to the processor in 10 weeks. BUT we have 26... SHHH I don't think he remembered that part MWAHAHAHAHAHA We ordered 25 and they sent an extra. NOW I need help picking the lucky girl :D I DO have pics from when we got them and I am going to take more tomorrow and someday get them posted! I promise! You all can vote once I know which ones are hens. I'm not keeping no rooster that's for sure! OH and there is a poll at the bottom of the page so fill that out if your a reader! You don't have to have a journal to poll or to comment so PLEASE feel free to do so! :D I LOVE comments!

HOT one today!

It's 88 crazy degrees here! I turned the heat lamp off on the meaties and they are just fine. It's humid so that makes it feel even hotter! I just wish we had something inbetween...it went from 50's to close to 90's over night it seems! Well, the chicks are still getting along (I added those two new pullets in with them who are a month old) The two older ones have taught the meaties how to scratch up a storm, now I am changing water like three times a day! Crazy girls! Oh well, they are having fun. MOre weight gain today but not doubles. It went from 2.3 to 2.8 oz.

Meat chickens are here a whole day and....

They already doubled in weight :0 I weighed most in at 1.3 oz and now they are weighing in at 2.3 oz. They are working on their second lg coffee container of crushed pellets (Purina grower with 20% protein). They are running around like crazy in the large watermelon box I got for them at the grocery store (we just added a plywood floor and whala...a brooder! FOR FREE! What I can't believe is that they sleep under the heat lamp even though its been so hot out. WHEW! It's a really good thing that they all look pretty much alike becasue I would have them all named already as I do my laying hens. I don't know...this just may not be for me. When butcher time comes and the only ones I send off are the males, then we know! I will keep you informed on the weight growth and we are weighing all the food so we know how many pounds of food it takes to raise 25 meat chickens. AND I have my first follower! WELCOME TO MY JOURNAL! And thanks for following along :D OH I did get pictures but have not uploaded them yet. Will hopefully tonight.

I also added chicks to the meaties! I had two chicks that my silkie was brooding and they are about a month old now. I decided to add them to the other chicks so they have a coop this summer. I want them bigger and older when I add them to the hen house for layers (IF they are girls) pretty sure they are. This way they have friends for a few weeks and they have time to grow up. They won't be able to stay with mom that much longer anyhow. Should be interesting. They are all getting along great. Mother hen isn't so great...she is looking for them but she is starting to calm down now :( I feel bad!

Our Meat Birds Arrive!

OH NO, OH NO! CUTENESS running all over the place! We received 26 freedom rangers (got one extra) in the mail this morning (P.O.called at 6:30 am) we jumped in the car and ran and got them thinking we would have a few dead ones. They are all alive and doing well :D We dipped each of there beaks in water and they are all drinking and eating just fine. I have been sitting by the box watching them and they are just so darn cute! AM I really going to be able to take these beauties to the processor? I'm taking pictures (want to record their growth) and will post them later today.

Hubby says I shouldn't name them but I already have started LOL We have one "naughty nugget" who keeps pecking at everyone's beaks over and over and over again (he looks like most of the other ones but easy to pick out)! We have two darker ones I named Brunhilde and Auburn (brown color names). In my opinion the cutest ones ;) And the last one I named is the chipmunk looking one who is named "chip". I think I better stop now :D I'm already sad for them. Hubby says...well, just look at it this way...at least they are not crammed into one tiny cage and treated badly their 10 weeks here. Ya I guess that's true but still! It's going to be HARD! Stay tuned! It can only get better :D

Here is the crew:

Still NO chicks :(

It is 9:30 pm and I was hoping to hear from someone about where our chickens are but didn't :( I sure hope that they are ok after three days in the mail. AND I hope they are here in the morning. I will be at work at 4am so hubby will be in charge of getting them home and dipping all 25 of their beaks into water so they can learn how to drink. I hope there are still 25 alive! Will update tomorrow with news and hopefully pics of our freedom ranger chicks.

How we choose a Meat Bird

We all know there are several different types of meat chickens...from Cornish X (which is the most popular I think) down to regular ol dual purpose birds orpingtons, barred rock, white rock etc... We choose somewhere in the middle and went with Freedom Rangers.

We did a lot of research on them and found so much info in several different forums including Backyardchickens.com There we learned ALOT of info on raising meat chickens and where to buy them which led us to JMHatchery.com which is what we went with after looking at many hatchery's. Mostly because they are a family oriented business and we always love supporting those types of businesses.

After raising back yard chickens (our egg laying machines) for a year now we feel we are ready to venture into meaties. We have the coop material for them, the forage area for them (up to 15-20 acres), and now the know how to raise them :D SOO we did it and placed the order last week with JMHatchery. They were sent out on Wed...we were hoping to get them today (Friday) but they did not show up this morning at the P.O. I freaked and called the P.O. "nope they are not here yet". Then got on the phone with JMHatchery who did not answer at first so I hung up without leaving a message and thought I would try back. About a minute later they called ME back (caller ID) and asked if I had called. I really liked the fact that they even bothered to do that :D THAT is why we go with family based businesses. I told her my dilemma and she suggested I call the P.O. back and ask them for the number of the distribution center and maybe intercepting the order and picking them up there (never thought of that so I was happy with their response and they were very helpful)! I did just that and being a small town they were ok with doing that for me and in fact made the call for me as well. They called me back quickly and distribution did not have them yet either but they are expecting another shipment in this afternoon so if they get them they will call me and I will just make the 1/2 hour or so trip to go there and pick them up rather then making them suffer through another day of shipment. I just hope they show up there this afternoon. Will continue this when we receive our babies and let you know how many survivors we have.

WHY Meat Birds?

We were not going to get meat birds becasue of all the bad things we had "heard" about them but then decided that we would give it a try after seeing all the crap they pump into battery raised chickens. It's very sad, see here why I say that: Egg Production-The battery Hen... and we didn't want to support that any longer so this is why we have ordered 25 Freedom Ranger broilers. More importantly, we want to feed our children meat that WE know is healthy for them not filled with antibiotics and arsenic (it is used to promote growth, kill parasites and improve pigmentation of chicken meat). See this article for proof if you don't believe me Sciencedaily.com It totally shocked us! We were totally and completely oblivious to this.

There are so many other things (if you spend the time googling) that you can find out about this stuff. SO many new health risks coming from these things just to make the chicken grow faster or to have better tasting meat etc...it's crazy that this can even happen. I just don't get it and what comes next?

So this was what got us started and knowing these chickens will ONLY eat what we feed them makes it much more appealing to continue to eat chicken. Know some of you who know me may think..."YA right! There is no way she will be able to kill these chickens!... Well, your right. I'm not...we are sending them to a processor near our home for that. Will I be able to eat them! I think so! I guess time will tell.

OK my links don't seem to be working...just copy and paste to check them out until I can fix them.