Congratulations! Raising and processing your own chickens is a huge leap towards great nutrition and self sufficiency! At first, processing your own meat birds can be confusing. How long does it take to get the bird ready to go into your freezer? Processing a broiler takes 5.5 minutes if plucking by hand and 4 minutes…
Raising your first batch of broilers? Super! Now you need to know how to house and care for your new chicks. For a batch of 25 broilers, you need: 16″ diameter heat circle in a 4×4 brooder area for the chicks, followed by a 62.5 sq. ft. (or larger) grow out pen to be used…
Thinking about raising your own meat chickens this year? You’ll be glad you did! Broilers are a fast and easy way to put quite a bit of meat in your freezer. If you don’t plan to butcher the birds yourself, you are going to need to find a processor and figure out pricing. How much…
Thinking about raising your own meat chickens? Awesome! You’ll love the taste and nothing tops the “I raised this myself” feeling. Now you’re wondering, how much will this awesome chicken cost me to raise and will they be worth it? Home raised broilers will cost an average of $12.38, which is $3.53 per pound. This…
Your chicken processing day is coming quick! Plans are all in place and things under control, or so you thought! Then a huge complication: your plucker is back ordered, for 3 more months! Now what? Consider hand plucking: it’s simple, easy to learn and faster than you think! To pluck a chicken by hand, repeatedly…
Why do you never hear about people eating rooster? Since they are chickens just like hens, can roosters be eaten or do we just eat the females? Many people eat roosters, they are the preferred chicken meat in some cultures. Rooster meat is less commonly eaten in parts of the world where industrial/confinement agriculture produces…
Interested in raising your own meat chickens? You will find tons of information online when looking for meat chickens. There are lots of choices of breeds each with special characteristics that are appealing. It’s enough to make you wonder how am I going to choose? The easiest chicken to raise for meat is the White Cornish Cross Broilers, which are also referred…