July
2010
Fresh Chicken
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