13
July
2010
Chickens are ready!
I just wanted to let everyone know that our broiler chickens are getting bigger. I think they are about 5 lbs or so for the bigger ones and the smallest are probably around 2.5 lbs. We will start butchering next week and continue as we get orders and until they are all gone. Our target dressed weight is 4 lbs but we can get them a bit smaller or larger depending on preference. I wouldn’t really recommend going much over 6 lbs as the meat can get a little tougher at that stage, but if thats how you like your chicken then, by all means request that, they still taste great in the crock pot or pressure cooker.
Right now we have 25 cornish cross broiler chickens which are almost ready. 25 red broilers will be right behind them followed up by 25 jersey black giants after those. We selected these three varieties as a test run of different production systems. We hope to score the final product on tenderness, flavor, cost of production, and survivability to come up with a reasonable production method and mix of birds. Feedback will be very important for this and we certainly welcome any feedback you have.
The final per pound price for chicken will be $3.50 and with a 4 lb target weight each bird will be around $14.00. When placing an order please let us know if you want the giblets included. This price is for a whole chicken, optionally we may be able to cut and wrap the parts separately for an additional cost. Those of you who purchased chicken from us last year will notice the final per pound price is higher than last years price which reflects some lessons learned from last years trial run. We learned the actual amount of feed it costs us to raise our birds to maturity, the time it takes to feed and water our birds each day, and the mortality level we can normally expect as well. The factors listed figured in to a more realistic price point for us to make raising chickens for meat something we can keep doing.
Get your orders in quick as we do not expect these chickens to last long and the extra will be taken to the farmers market in the next two weeks.
Dewayne
Posted: Chickens
28
October
2009
Halloween is around the corner and so is the last Idaho Falls Farmers Market of the season. Many people asked us last week if we would make it to the next market and so far it looks as if we will. We still have peppers and tomatoes to sell as well as green leaf lettuce, arugula, radish, kale, colard greens, chard, and spinach. Not a bad mix for this late in the year if I do say so myself. Don’t worry if you miss the last market, we will be stocking the Eagle rock Co-Op as often as possible.
We still have chickens available around the end of November. We brought in 300 chicks and have been raising them in one of our greenhouses. They have taken up a little over a third of our smaller greenhouse and are doing a good job of turning the soil, rooting out all the bugs, and fertilizing for the next crop. They are still fairly small for commercial standards. Last time we weighed a few they came out to average around 2lbs each. According to commercial production guides we are behind the growth curve but this doesn’t bother us. We are feeding them grass, apples, a commercial grain mix, and plentifull supplies of worms they scratch from the greenhouse floor. No commercial operation would do things this way I suppose, its not efficent and economical enough. We also have them in twice the recomended space for full grown adult 8 lb birds. I can’t imagine having those birds 4 times the size they are now and living in half the space. Well so much for effiency eh? If your interested in some fresh or frozen chickens fill out an interest form by clicking here. They will be $2.50 per lb and can range from 4-8 or more lbs. As I mentioned earlier they should start becoming available around the end of November.
Hope to see many of you at this weeks farmers market, if not I am sure we will see you around.
Dewayne Arave
Posted: Chickens
20
October
2009
So we went ahead with the chicken order.
For those of you who didn’t hear, we ordered 300 baby chicks to grow until the end of November. These are Cornish rock X’s and grow very fast. These little guys grow fast, at 21 days old they are now over 1lb and should be somewhere at or near 8lbs by the end of November. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: Chickens
