All the kids gathered around to see the first meat chicks out of the barn!
Papa came home for lunch today to help me and the kids put the chicks out on grass.. the more I look at them the madder I am! ARG!! The last two years we've gone through a different hatchery because of the store hassle with our old hatchery and they kept sending us the wrong turkeys which we finally just stopped doing! I think we may just have to deal with the store next year! This year we ordered Cornish giant cockerels and got A LOT OF HENS!!! I mean come on people a few hens I can understand could slip by BUT OVER HALF OF OUR "COCKERELS" ARE HENS!!! And this momma is ticked right off!!
It's not the feed.. it's the same feed we've been using for 6 of the last 7 years. It's not the temps as the weather was better then normal and they've been in a barn with a heat lamp since we got them.. until today at 6 weeks old when we put them outside. Normally we try and put them out at about 4 weeks but these chicks just would not have made it. They are healthy, we've only lost 10 of the 300 we ordered and one of them arrived dead! They are just small!! We've done everything, and more, then we normally do and these birds just don't seem to be growing. Some of them don't seem to be growing at all..
Baby G loves them! No matter what size they are!
Two medium sized hens taking a look at the grass..
Group shot.. Some HUGE ones, right on track for their age, some TEENY TINY ones, and lots of medium sized birds. And LOTS AND LOTS OF HENS!!!
They seem to be attached to the cardboard that was in the barn to keep them out of the corners so we left one in the pen for them. The white stuff in the dish is milk which we normally mix into the feed but now that they are outside they can start getting it in a dish.
A close up for the hatchery.. Yes I've complained and emailed them.. I'm linking them to the blog in hopes that they'll do something about this..And to think we paid $20 extra for cockerels per 100 chicks..
and prices keep rising. I did mention this momma is MAD!!!
You want to hear the best part??
Because of where we live we only have, that I know of, two hatcheries to choose from.
At this rate we'll have 3lb birds and be happy they got that big
by butchering time, at 12 weeks! and be out of chicken by January!!
Time to spend some time on google I think.. and then on the phone..
Seriously hatcheries.. get it together!!!
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