Real Self Sufficiency - Living Better for Less
Keeping Chickens for Meat - Raising Table Birds
by Cara Harrison
Whether growing on your male chicks or getting specialist meat breeds keeping chickens for meat at home is becoming increasingly popular. With increasing coverage of factory farming methods of chicken and poultry in general growing a few chickens at home for your Sunday dinner is becoming prevalent with home chicken keepers
Looking after Table Chickens
Standards of Care
You should give your meat birds the same standard of living conditions as you would your egg layers. They need at least one square foot of coop space and one metre square of run space per bird as well as entertainment such as dust baths. Feed and water should be supplied adlib and should be topped up and freshened on a daily basis.
Feeding Table Birds
For dual-purpose breeds or general cock birds you can feed them along with their sister hens until 14-16 weeks of age on unmedicated growers pellets. Usually hens are moved to layers pellets by 16-18 weeks of age and at this stage you can choose one of two ways to feed the birds intended for the table.
The first feeding method you can use is to allow the cock birds to eat the same layers feed as the hens and this will lead to a slower growing bird that is still full of flavour and will mean you can continue to run the birds together and not have multiple types of feed. If doing this I would recommend moving the cock birds you are going to cull onto a diet of corn to improve flavour for the 3 days before killing. The birds will be table size by 22 weeks of age for a smaller carcass.
The second method is to separate the birds and move them onto finisher pellets. This feed helps to increase the body mass of the bird quicker and will mean you have a larger carcass or will be able to cull the bird sooner. I would again recommend for the 3 days before you are going to cull moving the cock birds onto a diet of corn to improve flavour.
Timetable & Feeding Regime
For meat specific breeds the timetable differs a little. You can use usual feeds in the form of chick crumb, growers pellets and then finishers pellets or you can use feeds that are aimed at obtaining a higher body weight sooner such as broiler starter and broiler growers.
The bird should be moved from starter/chick crumb at 3-4 weeks of age to a growers pellet and then at 7 weeks of age move the birds to a finisher pellet. You will then have a bird ready for the table from between 8-10 weeks. You will notice however, that although the birds eat for a shorter period than a dual-purpose breed they eat a far increased amount and you should therefore give larger feeders and drinkers and always top up the food and water daily if not twice daily if possible.
All birds need to be kept under heat after being hatched until at least 4 weeks of age. Obviously if rearing with a broody hen they do this for you, but with broilers and incubators hatching you need to make sure you keep them warm and clean to decrease any losses at the early stages.Table Chicken Keeping for Meat
This article is part of a 3 part series on raising chickens for the table.
The first part, Keeping Chickens for Meat - Breeds, discusses what breed to buy.
The second part, Keeping Chickens for Meat - Raising Table Birds, covers raising the birds and the feeding regime for various ages.
The third part, Keeping Chickens for Meat, Costs and Returns, covers the economics of home raised table birds from various breeds.
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