Do Meat Birds Still Work on a Small Farm? Moving Broilers from Brooder to Pasture Today
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- Опубліковано 30 кві 2024
- Join me today as we move our week and a half old meat birds from the brooder to fresh pasture. I’ll be going over our brooder set-up and pasture based chicken tractor, while talking about why I’m not interested in scaling this side of the farm up!
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Good to see that trusty chicken tractor still doin’ it’s thing. And your farmhands are second-to-none……and we’re pleased to see Sawyer’s cowgirl hat is getting its wear!
🤣🤣🤣…she’s the most intense thing out here
I can definitely see that being the case 🤣
We raise gloucestershire old spots and american aberdeen cattle, and lately we've been struggling to sell our cattle, but interesting enough, our piglets are sold out already as feeders and they're not even been weaned yet. Is crazy how the market works sometimes. Good video as always.
Hey, congrats on those sales! Yes, I’d agree, the markets are rarely sensible these days…I’m thinking back to the covid toilet paper hoarding days…I was like, “…but don’t you need food to have a real need for tp??”🤔
@@birchfieldfarming 🤣🤣🤣💯💯💯
@@ranchorey.🤠🍻
Great looking chickens and cattle 🇳🇿❤️🙏🏼
Thanks!!🤠
Hi Jason, that is awesome that with having 102 Meat Bird Chicks you moved 101 out to pasture. Couldn't ask for any better results. They must be a pretty hardy breed of Chicken.
Ehh, Cornish are actually pretty fragile in the beginning. I mean, we’re basically playing mamma hen for a few weeks, which can be disastrous if unprepared. The only thing I’ve found more difficult upfront was turkeys. Turkeys are extremely fragile when young and find ways to die! Hope ur well, Ben.😀
Beautiful bull calf and gut fills look great, too. Suck rings work. 2 styles: pierced and pinch-on.
Interesting, I’ll have to look into that thanks!!
@@birchfieldfarming our vet used the piercing tool, my hand strength was never good. The screws were tiny. Pinch ons were easier, but came off sometimes.
@@user-kv2pt4lu9yGood to know, I’ll be looking into pinch now that I know someone who has tried.
@@birchfieldfarming look for different sizes, i think there are 2.
I'm really hoping to add birds to the mix next year. What resources do you recommend for learning?
Joel Salatin’s Pastured Poultry Profits is the only book you’ll need - follow that brooder temp chart on pg 39 to a T. Beyond that, plenty of good stuff here on the Tubes.👍
Thank you for sharing your experiences and knowledge. Do you make a living on farming alone? Or do you just supplement your grocery list? I have about 12 acres of mediocre pasture on 70 acres of land in Western PA, and a couple of more acres of clover that I could do meat birds on. What do you recommend I farm there. I was thinking Red Polls but don’t know how many the land can support? I have a building that I could use as a chicken coop for layers, 25-50? I believe I could do 4 chicken tractors and a few hundred broilers twice a year? I would like to have several feeder pigs each year (pasture fed?). Not sure about sheep or lamb but heard there was a significant market in Pittsburgh, about 50 miles away. Thoughts?
I’m farming full-time, but I also believe in farming like those wiser generations before us - feed family first, then the excesses are sold to local community. My philosophy has been one of limited inputs and equipment and doing what we can with what we have. That’s lined up very well with grass-fed ruminants. Sheep are many times more profitable than cattle (1/2 the gestation and twice the offspring). Grain is expensive, focus in on developing and using native pasture. Find livestock that thrive in your location. One animal unit per acre (1000 lbs) is about what we support here without rotation. My email is in channel description if I can further assist.
Do you put out full grain too while on pasture or. Just once a day ? I've never seen CC be fully pastured
We feed from our feed schedule the full daily amount once in the AM just after moving. Hope that makes sense. I think we’re up to just over 20 lbs a day for our 100 at about 4 weeks old. My goal was a dressed bird at 9 weeks between 4 and 5 lbs, and we hit that pretty consistently.