Raising Chickens For Meat- Part 2, by Michele Cooper

I’m writing about our experience of raising chickens for meat. Since I didn’t want to kill chickens, we still found a way to raise our own, thanks to a friend who told us about chicken processors.

In part 1, we had obtained our chicks and told you about the things they required to grow strong and healthy in their plastic bin in our home. I also told the funny story about how my husband reacted when I shared my plans to move layer chicks into our first home together. (It all worked out really well. Jeff helped me with the chicks.)

Chicks Grow Amazingly Fast

Anyway, back to raising meat chickens. The chicks grow amazingly fast. Within a few weeks at most, the bin, which seemed plenty big enough a few weeks prior, became very crowded. At that time, I needed to move them to their chicken tractor. The problem was, I didn’t have a chicken tractor.

Rolls Royce of Chicken Tractors

I really love the chicken tractors that Dave Duffy built for Annie. It is the Rolls Royce of chicken tractors. I showed my husband the article Dave wrote, complete with detailed instructions and beautiful pictures and told him that was what I wanted. He read it. Then told me he might be able to get to it in late summer. That would not work.

A Very Simple Chicken Tractor

The chicks were very crowded at this point in time and mostly feathered, so I got online and found a very simple chicken tractor on YouTube that only required four 8-ft. pressure treated 2×4’s, three livestock panels, two large eyebolts, some chicken wire, and a 5ft by 7ft tarp.

Two of the 2×4’s were left at the 8ft length, but two he cut to 5ft. He fastened them together– the 8 ft. boards on the sides and 5 ft. boards for the ends. Also, he cut four little triangles out of scrap pieces of plywood and used those in the corners to brace it a bit, because I would be dragging the cage around every morning.

Then, we fastened the livestock panels on the inside of the frame side to side, making a rounded cage. After those were firmly attached, we covered the livestock panels with chicken wire and attached it securely with black zip ties. (Black zip ties hold up better in the sun than white ones.)

We then cut the remaining livestock panel to size to make doors on the front and back of the cage, and we also covered those with chicken wire. I fastened them onto the front and back of the cage using ***bailing twine***amazon.com/Lehigh-Group-PB1060-Heavy-Binder/dp/B001GQPYQC. You could certainly use something better than twine to fasten the doors on; I was just in hurry and trying to be as cheap as possible. Finally, I attached the tarp over one end of the tractor, so the chickens would have their choice of sun or shade, and some protection from rain, if need be.

Able to Pull the Chicken Tractor Around

Now we had a chicken tractor, but I needed to be able to pull it around, so I took six pieces of bailing twine, tied two each end to end to make it longer (which made three long pieces of twine), then braided the three long pieces to make a stronger rope and one that was easier on my hands. I was going to tie them to the sides on each end of the front of the tractor so I could pull it around, but my dear sweet hubby went into the shop and grabbed two large eye bolts and screwed them into the sides near the front and I tied my braid onto them. I also added four small bungee cords, one on each corner to hold the doors shut.

Next Year

Personally, I would have liked to have pull twine on both the front and back of the tractors. We will next year, but this worked okay for the first year. It makes pulling the tractors into the place I wanted them much easier than grabbing the back, lifting it, and pulling it into place (and potentially letting a chicken loose, which required me chasing it around and putting it back in the tractor).

Heat

Even though we built the chicken tractor in the barn, and the barn would shelter them somewhat, we were still having morning temps at below freezing, and the chicks were not fully feathered. So I went ahead and hung another brooder lamp in the tractor, under the tarp area (to help hold in heat). I fastened it up, very carefully, so that I did not need to worry about it falling onto the hay on the floor and catch my barn on fire.

Once temperatures warmed up and the chicks had more feathers to keep them warm, I pulled the tractor outside. When pulling the chicken tractor, I had to watch carefully, as it took the chicks a few days to learn to move with the tractor, and not get their legs stuck under it.

Fresh Grass and Weeds

I moved the chicken tractor around every morning so the chickens would have fresh grass and weeds. They ate a lot of weeds and had fresh greens, but it seemed like they did more pooping than eating. Once the chicks are several weeks old, and mostly feathered, I started removing their feed every night (but leaving the water) and gave it back to them in the morning. This gives them approximately 10-12 hours without feed, and it helps to regulate their growth and prevent heart attacks. Believe me; they eat plenty of food during their 12 hours of eating. I had three gallon chicken feeders, and they went through almost that entire amount of food per day as they got older.

Poultry Processors

If, like me, you don’t want to kill and process the chickens yourself, you will be taking them to a poultry processor. Poultry processors are available in most states. The best way to find them would to be to run a search for poultry processors. As I just did that again, I find a number of sites, some listing USDA processing plants and some just listed as small poultry processing plants.

As A Money Making Venture

If you plan to grow meat chicks as a money making venture, be very sure to check the laws in your state first. I took my birds to a plant that is licensed by the state of Idaho, which would make it legal for me to sell my birds at a farmer’s markets in Idaho but not in Oregon, where I live. That was absolutely no problem for me; I was growing the birds for our own consumption. If you live in one state and want to sell your birds in another, you may have to take your chickens to a USDA processing plant (again, check the laws in your state).

As of this writing (September 2018) there was not any difference in the cost between the state licensed plant and the USDA plant, but there could be. So, if you have several plants near you, you might want to check. It cost me about $3 per chicken to have them dispatched, cleaned, cooled and packaged in vacuum sealed bags.

Be sure to contact the poultry processor several weeks before you plan to have your chickens processed and make an appointment. Their time slots can fill up quickly.

Since we had over an hour drive each way to the processing plant, we brought a large ice chest and ice to keep them cool for the long drive home.

Costs

Now, as a warning, growing your own chickens for meat is likely going to be more expensive than buying them at a grocery store. The large mega farms grow the chickens in large barns under terrible conditions, where there is not much room for each chicken to move and urine and feces everywhere so then they need to be on small amounts of antibiotics to keep them alive, and then they process them by the thousands, which is for them, a lot cheaper than processing a few at a time. Taking them to a processing plant, if you don’t want to do it by yourself, costs about $3 per chicken, which again raises the cost of raising your own meat.

Healthier

However, your homegrown chickens will be healthier, a whole lot tastier, and you’ll know what they have been fed. You will also know that they have lived nice little chicken lives, eating greens and bugs as chickens should, before they become your dinner.

See Also:

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17 Comments

  1. re:
    Chicken feed

    As noted in the article, chickens are omnivorous. Chickens and turkeys consume pretty much anything, but prefer bugs and green shoots.

    For chicken or turkey meat sold in grocery stores, avoid it if the label says ‘vegetarian’ since the birds were probably fed scratch containing soy and cottonseed. Neither of those are fit for animal feed, not for chickens nor for cattle.

    And as noted in the article, factory farmed animals are confined in appalling conditions, requiring heavy doses of antibiotics to make it to market. Every time we eat animals raised with antibiotics, we remove that category of antibiotics from helping us during an illness. Epidemics of Staph and MRSA are directly related to consuming meat overflowing with antibiotics introduced in animal feed. This is an environmental disaster… and may lead to the end of ‘Life As We Know It’.

    I grew-up on a farm, I live on a farm, I teach farming. I have some experience in the matter.

  2. I surely can’t say it’s fun, but killing and processing your own chickens would save you a fair amount of money, 75 dollars for your 25 chickens. We catch, then hang the chickens upside down a while. This causes them to relax which makes deheading them much easier. We have chopped off their heads or cut them off with a knife ( or our sons liked to use a machete). We let them hang a bit to bleed out then take down and process. My husband doesn’t like chicken skin so we just skin them and then remove the guts. I am not fast but can skin and gut one in 4-5 min. We then rinse them and place them into a clean 5 gallon bucket filled with cold water to cool them . then we take them into the house to cut and wrap. I take the necks and backs and pressure cook off the meat and then can the meat and the strained broth. If you didn’t cut up the chickens it really wouldn’t take that long. We too like knowing what our chickens ate and that they had a pleasant life while they lived.

  3. Animal processors earn their money but my budget is tight so I harvest my own animals. The first couple of times you kind of fumble around but after that you get better and faster. For chickens, I follow about the same process as “Sis” but I leave the harvested chickens in an ice cooler until the next day. Then I either pressure can them or freeze them. Be sure to save the carcass and feet for making bone broth. The feet contain a lot of collagen and gelatin which are very healing. I usually freeze them until the cold weather comes when I have more free time.

  4. I was wondering if anyone has operational experience with a Geodesic Chicken Coop?

    Zip Tie Domes – Geodesic Chicken Coops, https://www.ziptiedomes.com/kitindex.htm
    Fun with the Geodesic Chicken Coop, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvmoOFJwctk, 3:10
    Building a Geodesic Chicken Coop for Pastured Poultry, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bek9WTIVD7g, 3:49
    Moving the Geodesic Chicken Coop, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NlR2mwTtlk, 4:30
    How to Attach Handles to Your Geodesic Chicken Coop, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pU6VRplspPE, 1:19
    The Best Chicken Coop is a Geodesic Dome (8 Reasons), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mizMrlz5wXY, 15:16
    How to Make a Greenhouse Door for your Geodesic Dome, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlqK8aSDRKM, 4:33

  5. I think that it is advantageous to process your own chickens. One problem with taking your chickens to a processing plant is that you do not know if the chickens you receive from them are in fact the same you took to them. Another problem is that pathogens that exist in a large processing plant can infect your chickens. If you process your own chickens you know for sure that the chickens you are eating are your own and are as pathogen-free as possible.

    1. Actually, in this particular case, we were sure we had the same chickens. This is a little family run processing plant, and you have the option of staying there and watching the whole process, or going and coming back to pick them up (the first time we went and came back, the 2nd we stayed). Further, they make appointments, and our chickens were the last ones of the day, and they are only processing one batch of chickens at a time.

  6. My parents and grandparents raised chickens for eggs and meat. When time came to butcher my grandmother would cut their heads off with an axe. It was the job of us three small boys to chase the now headless birds and bring them to Mom and Dad who would pluck, singe and gut them. I remember the horrible smell, like burning hair, when the small feathers were burnt off with a burning rolled newspaper. Dad killed hogs, an uncle would even kill and dress out a beef, but would take it to a processer for butchering.
    I miss those days.

  7. After raising and selling poultry for years, I take mine to an Amish family for butchering. They run a wonderful place they my turkeys done in no time flat. They use a small gas motor to power the plucker after scalding them the ladies do the rest of the preparing. Their facility is so clean that you could eat off the floor (not that you’d want to!) And Andy is what I’d say a continuing education Amish might look like. The neighboring Amish bring vet/medical problems to him and he helps them solve them such as mastitis in their dairy herd. All organic of course!

  8. Thanks for the article, havent done a batch in few years i think maybe this year i’ll reclaim the chicken tractor and start again. If i had the option id have someone process mine too, Its alot of work to do solo and a homemade chicken plucker still cost us 100 bucks by the end of it. Works great though, batches of 50 make long days, i love the skin though yummm, i also got fast at processing the birds into tenders, breasts, wings and thighs. Really improves the usefulness of daily cooking.

    Thanks for sharing your story with us.

  9. I cruise through small batches of birds pretty quick with a little drill-powered plucking attachment called the Power Plucker. I got it on Amazon (I think) a few years back and its processed many dozens of birds, along with one of their metal processing cones. They offer a kit that comes with the plucking device, a metal cone, and a Mora brand knife

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