I mentioned recently in a post explaining my absence from writing that one of the distractions at the moment is the raising of meat chickens. The image above is one of said chickens which is of Ross 308 breed. These are what I term ‘Frankenchickens’ as they are specially bred and patented line of chickens specifically for meat rather than eggs and they are not a heritage breed like Buff Orpington or Light Sussex which are termed as dual purpose chickens by which I mean one suitable for both eggs and meat.

The main reason that I chose the Ross 308, besides the fact that they are relatively cheap to buy as growers which are off supplementary heat (something that I need to do as I’m not yet set up to raise chickens from day olds or from fertile eggs), but also grow incredibly quickly with the correct food and husbandry methods. The Ross 308’s can go from chick to ready for dinner in about fifty to sixty days when kept in the optimal, for this breed at least, environment of the broiler shed. However mine are relatively free ranging and have access to the open air which shed grown chickens do not. I’ve been pleasantly surprised to how well they’ve adapted to open air living but I suspect that the greater exercise they get here as opposed to what they get in broiler houses may mean that they reach slaughter weight slightly later than the birds permanently kept in broiler sheds. We shall see how they grow but they seem to be doing OK on a mixture of growers pellets and chicken grain.

So far I’ve seen none of the physiological horror stories that I’ve heard that meat breeds like the Cornish Cross (the US equivalent of the Ross 308) can suffer from such as legs breaking because the muscle has grown so fast. I’m closely monitoring feed consumption so that they get enough to thrive and grow but not so much food that they grow too fast for their bones to handle. In commercial broiler sheds the chickens would be slaughtered way before such conditions would become apparent but because mine are free ranging they need to be kept longer before they go off to the slaughterman and therefore must not be allowed to balloon out. If I don’t raise a perfect, healthy and happy chicken then it would not be considered as Kosher and I would not be allowed to eat it. Therefore it’s in my own interest to make sure that these meat chickens have the best and most natural environment that I can provide for them at least before they go off to be slaughtered. I don’t want the carcasses coming back with notes saying that they are ‘trayf’ or unkosher because of lung disease or broken bones or the hip conditions that unusually large broiler chickens can suffer from.

Part of the reason for choosing this Ross 308 chicken, despite the issues that specially bred meat chickens can suffer from is the quick turnaround. I want to know in a reasonable time frame whether raising my own meat is practical and economic, something I would not be able to do if I was raising a heritage breed which takes a lot longer to mature and which consumes a lot more food to get to an acceptable slaughter weight. So far I’m doing well as regards breaking even but at the moment I’m winning. However even if I only break even at least my chickens will have a better and slightly longer life than would a commercial broiler chicken have. Commercial broiler chickens spends their entire very short lives continually eating and drinking and sleeping in their own shit because they are too chunky to hop on a perch.

If the Frankenchickens are healthy at slaughter and tasty (for taste I’m going to put them on corn for their last week or so when they go on to Chicken Death Row), then I might think about getting some more but I might bite the bullet and get one day olds and put them underneath a heat source such as an Electric Hen. That way I can control all the inputs into the birds with regards food and living conditions and possibly end up with better birds and better meat because of it. I love eating chicken. I can eat it in all sorts of ways fried, roasted, in sandwiches or made into soup. However I’d much rather eat chicken that led a happy life and didn’t have to sleep in its own shit before going to Freezer Camp.

If the Frankenchickens work out but I decide against another flock of just Frankenchickens then I’d certainly look at getting a few dual purpose birds of various sorts to go along with the Frankenchickens. The dual purpose birds have less and more tougher meat but that meat is said to be more tasty than that from commercial broilers so it will be interesting comparing them. If I can get both eggs and meat from the same sort of chickens then it’s a case of winner winner chicken dinner plus egg on toast.

It’s an interesting experiment for sure. I don’t believe that I will save masses of money over buying prepared chicken but at the very least I will be eating chicken that has had a reasonably happy life and a chicken whose inputs with regard feed and medication I have controlled to the best of my ability. We won’t be ending up with £2.89 chicken of the sort you can pick up in Tesco, but I suspect we will end up with better chicken because we’ve put some effort into raising it.