Our Chickens

We raise chickens for eggs and meat.  We started out with 15 Rhode Island Reds, a breed I've always liked but never raised before.  That was about four years ago.  Over time birds died and in 2011 we added 15 Black Sex-Links.  The Black Sex-Link is a cross between a Barred Rock and a Rhode Island Red.  They call them sex links because the males look something like a Barred Rock and the females are solid black.  We received them in April of 2011 and by August they were laying huge, dark brown eggs.  My egg customers went crazy over these new eggs.  The Rhode Island Red eggs looked small and faded out in color compared to the sex link egg.  So this year we added 15 Golden Sex Links to our flock.  The plan is to butcher our layers after three years and by keeping different breeds it allows me to know how old they are.

Our Black Sex-Link Layers getting outside in the morning

When I was a kid I remember seeing chicken in the store for sale called "Stewing Chickens", usually less expensive than broilers.  No more, as the commercial egg growers now use a very small chicken and when they are past their prime egg laying time they get turned into pet food (the completed bird, feathers and all).  These old layers need to be used in some type of soup or stew, but when cooked for a long time they make a wonderful dish.  The meat stays firm compared to using a regular broiler, which gets mushy.  Once you taste the difference you don't want to use a regular chicken in one of these dishes.  Last week our plan was to butcher the balance of our Rhode Island Reds and I had commitments from customers for all of them at $5 per pound.  Turns out we didn't sell any of them but gave them to friends and kept one for ourselves.

Our Black Sex-Link Rooster

Last year we changed our feed for our broilers to a soy-free product and our average production fell from 5 lbs. per bird to 4 lbs. We buy our feed in 320 lb barrels as part of a small co-op, getting wholesale prices and pay a small delivery charge.  Results from other growers in the co-op were the same or worse, some of the growers had chickens with major leg problems.  This year we went back to the old company and our average production increased to 6.1 lbs per bird and they consumed the same amount of grain.  We had many that dressed out nearly 7 lbs., and one at 7.1 lbs.  We were very pleased as we like a large bird.  These are not your commercial broilers that do nothing but set and eat grain, not knowing what to do with a bug if they found one.  Our flock was truly free range, going out into a pasture to eat weeds, grass and bugs during the daytime.  We received them about the 6th of April, 11 weeks later butchered the first half (chose the larger ones).  The second 25 were butchered a week after that.  So our freezer is full, with cheeses, berries, goat meat and now chickens. Next project: firewood.

The chickens eating fresh weeds from our garden

We cooked one of the new, large broilers a few days ago and it was wonderful.  Almost melted in your mouth.  Tender and juicy with a flavor unlike store bought chicken.

We ended up with 41 broilers out of 50 that we started with, about 10 were females, and 249.5 lbs of broiler meat for the year.  Average weight per bird was 6.1 lbs.  They ate about 1000 lbs of organic grain at a cost of about 30 cents per pound; worked out to $7.32 per bird or $1.22 per pound.  Very good for an organic free-range chicken - local farmers I know charge $5 per pound for organically pastured raised broliers.  It takes us about 32 hours to process the birds, and very little time to raise them.  Usually we have friends help with the processing which makes it a four hour day split into two days.  I wonder how many pounds of grain the rats ate?  Next year I'm going to bury hardware cloth to keep the rats out of the broiler coop at night.  One of the dark sides of raising farm animals is rats.

Today's project:s: making blue cheese, raising the buck area fences that connect to the girl's area, and going into the three honey bee hives.

Note: If you live on South Whidbey Island and re looking for farm raised broilers, check out Joli Farm.  Here is the post from the Grange Food News:  

Joli Farm, Freeland, which sells Whidbey Island Eggs at Bayview Market will be selling broilers soon. The birds are Red Rangers, pasture raised  and currently 9 weeks old. If you order birds, they will be custom processed in the on-site WDA licensed processing plant, at around 11 weeks of age, that’s two weeks from now.  So call 331-5058  and get your order in.

Most people I know who are raising  broilers are just doing  it for themselves and a few friends. So it is great to have local pasture raised birds available again for public sale.