Posts Tagged ‘Mess On Your Hands’

Raising Meat Chickens in Suburbia

Wednesday, July 29, 2015

One week old: They grow

From Day Old to Dinner Entrée – If you want to make sure the chicken in your oven is raised well and processed humanely –Raise them yourself!

Most of my friends cringe when I tell them that we raise our own meat chickens and my daughter NEVER tells her friends for fear they will avoid eating over. But, this relatively simple process has become an integral part of our suburban homestead and food storage plan.

I’ve always had laying hens to provide us with eggs for the table and manure for the garden. And, when the girls were too old to lay they got to live out their life scratching around for bugs, churning up the soil and adding manure where ever they went; a mutually beneficial relationship I think.

It wasn’t until my friend Sandy bought and raised her first batch of meat birds that I really started to get interested in raising our own chickens for meat. But, raising 50 chicks seemed a bit too ambitious for a beginner, not to mention someone who lived in suburbia. So, several years ago I began by raising 8 Cornish/White Rock crosses, usually referred to as Cornish Rocks. These fast growing birds are the same breed raised commercially and sold to restaurants and supermarkets either as whole birds or in cut-up parts.

My test project was a huge success! All 8 chicks lived to their 8-week maturity, were healthy and seemingly happy, and the processing of the birds was nothing like I had imagined. When the project was over and we were feasting on own homegrown chicken, juicy and full of flavor I was determined that meat chickens would be an annual crop raised on our little suburban homestead. Read the rest of the story »