Here's a pic of our half-grown broilers at 4 weeks. I had intended to do a week-by-week picture update to chart their growth, but alas...the last photo shoot we did with these birds was at 3 days old. What you expect to do and what you actually accomplish are not always the same when you work on a farm. I'll try and do better in the coming weeks...
Our first batch of broilers grew larger than we expected--some around 7.5lbs dressed out (a small turkey). Turns out that they have no sense of restraint, and will eat whatever you put in front of them. So with the batch above, we're going to stock less per pen, feed them less grain (to encourage more foraging and exercise), and hope for smaller chickens. They were, of course, still tender and delicious...but big, honkin' birds. We materialized our first local meat fantasy tonight...fried, pastured chicken. Holy crap--it was good!
Expect a future post from Elliott and I on our adventures in bringing the birds to South Carolina for processing.
-Arianne
7.5 lbs, that's a big bird! Glad that you got your first batch under your belt without too much complication. I might be down your way soon, so maybe I will give you a ring and swing by for a visit.
ReplyDeleteI loved that you had big birds available! I bought one for Thanksgiving. Hey, chicken tastes better than turkey, and a big chicken is plenty for three people... :-) Waiting on your processing adventures...
ReplyDelete