Raising meat chickens on barley fodder

[Harbisgirl]

Does anybody raise meat chickens on Fodder? I am going to raise Dark Cornish (not Cornish X). I currently raise egg layers and am going to try meat chickens this year. They will be free ranged but I'd like to supplement with fodder instead of commercial feed. I realize I'd need to include something else to get the protein levels where they need to be but I'd like to use Fodder as the main portion of their feed if its possible. According to the hatchery a free ranged Dark Cornish will take about 15+ weeks to get up to mature weight. Has anybody tried this?

 

[luvmypets]

Do you have a BYC account. If not I would try there more people specialize in chickens.

 

[Harbisgirl]

Yes, I do. And I did post there as well Just branching out hoping to reach a wider audience. Thank you for taking the time to make the suggestion though

 

[mysunwolf]

I've never done it, but it always sounds doable. We have raised hundreds of meat birds, from hatchery "heritage" birds, commercial lines of Cornish giants, excess cockerels from backyard breeders, and our own mutts. We've tried a number of grain mixes, commercial feeds, and scraps but never fodder specifically.

I'm assuming that by "fodder," you also mean the grain kernel. Some people are confused and feed only the green sprout part of the fodder to their chickens, which is not enough food. Don't forget that it helps to supplement pure grain or fodder feed with a vitamin and mineral mix. We like to use Fertrell poultry nutribalancer, but there are other options. We farm worms for extra winter protein, but have found that cooked beans and meats have been our easiest source of protein for our chickens.

Free range "heritage-type" chickens take about 16 weeks to reach 3-6lbs, depending on the breed. In my experience, it depends on what kind of stock you have. Hatchery stock will often be smaller and/or not to breed standards with growth rates. For your Cornish, I would weigh them at 15 weeks and see where they're at, and slaughter them whenever they reach 5lbs. I would not expect hatchery Dark Cornish to reach 5lbs by 15 weeks, especially if you're using mainly fodder, but I'd be interested to hear your results! Expect up to 24 weeks for the size you'd expect of a roasting bird (2-3lbs carcass weight). Remember that pullets will take longer to reach weight but will be rounder and have a more traditional carcass, whereas the cockerels will reach weight sooner but will have longer bodies, even on a Dark Cornish. Sometimes this allows you to slaughter the hens sooner for a perfect tiny round carcass, aka Cornish game hen Have you eaten and cooked heritage-type chicken before?

I agree with luvmypets, there is a specific thread on BYC that deals with using fodder for meat birds that it a great read, though I can't find anything on there anymore.

I'm eager to hear about your project as I'd love a better way to raise excess cockerels for the table rather than throwing out scratch grains.

 

[Sweetened]

This is probably not helpful to you, but just in case...

Last year we raised cornish x and it did not go well. My heritage roosters and barnyard mixes butchered out nicer than they did at 20 weeks. They were fed commercial ration.

Our layers used to be fed strictly on commercial layer ration. They stopped laying entorely over winter
We dont usually supplement light and still end up with 4 or 5 eggs a week but didnt get a thing for 3.5 months. After caring for a friends farm, seeing his birds laying endlessly on some of the cruddiest quality grains i had ever seen, we took a neighbour up on an offer to go haul a bunch of grain he dropped in an outbuilding. Its 90% hard wheat with wild oats, what looks like wild rice and some other stray seeds. I threw down some free choice oyster shell, no grit (they are on deep litter and there is gritty stuff in there) and have been feeding this alone (about 16% protein for hard wheat) and they are laying up a storm. They put weight back on jnstead of being winter stringy, a problem ive always had, and the roosters filled out remarkably fast.

We will be cleaning out grain bins this year to keep ourselves in this feed, and picking up some organic screenings as well aince i found a GREAT deal on some an hour away.

We will be raising heritage birds for meat this year, wyandottes and chanteclers mostly, and will do so on these whole grains

Good luck. Interested to hear how it goes

 

[Harbisgirl]

Mysunwolf, I did look on byc for a thread on fodder raised meat chickens but didn't find any. I found a few blurbs but no real discussion on it. Luckily, I think it's doable. I got a few responses on the post I put on the Fodder page on facebook and it turns out that it's totally doable. And you're right about the hens being wider instead of long like a cockerel. I knew that but wasn't really thinking about it. I was going to get males since they grow faster but now I think i'll do females just because I prefer a nice round bird (and they are cheaper). Or maybe I'll do a straight run and get a mix. Guess I haven't worked out all the details yet I"m getting my birds from Welp hatchery. I've never ordered chicks, always got them from the feed store or from local breeders (nobody around here has DC though) so this is my first experience with a hatchery. I asked around locally and the most popular seems to be Welp so thats who I will use.

And yes I do mean the green grass and the seed as well. I feed it to my layer chickens and they LOVE IT. But I've only been feeding it since about October so I don't have long term experience, and no experience with feeding it early right after chick starter. We'll see!

 

[luvmypets]