I was looking at McMurrays and the Cornish Cross males are the preferred bird, they grow faster. My question is do the males crow/ make more noise than the females? And are there and challenges with raising the cornish cross with egg layers?
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Will you be processing the meat birds yourself or will you hire someone to do this. I'm asking because I thought it would be great to raise my own meat birds but I don't think I could butcher them myself.
Yes, I too would like to know the meat birds that would be best for our temps. I don't plan to get any until I get a bigger freezer (5 cubic ft is too small even for just two people) but I really do want to raise my own birds.
The Backyard Chickens forum has a topic dedicated to this, but it doesn't really deal with climate issues, only personal preference.
Michael, I am going to make a separate enclosure for my meat birds, I keep my hens as pets and I don't want to get attached to the meat birds only to kill them later. The Garden Girl has a video on how to make an enclosure that sits on top of a 4 x 8 garden bed for the meat birds.
I have right now, 5 Americana, 4 Rhode Island Red & 10 Cornish Cross Meat chickens. They all live in the same coop, and are not particularly noisy except when they feed, they squawk a bit. I did a design after the GardenGirls. I have 4x4 raised beds that are in a grid spaced with 3' paths between. So my coop is larger that 4' and larger than 11' long to have the chix add their value to my beds. Meaties will grow very fast and be harvested in 8-9 weeks and males get larger faster as the picture shows. These are about 4 weeks old and I bought them from Pratts. I will by them online next time to save a few bucks
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The Backyard Chickens forum has a topic dedicated to this, but it doesn't really deal with climate issues, only personal preference.
Michael, I am going to make a separate enclosure for my meat birds, I keep my hens as pets and I don't want to get attached to the meat birds only to kill them later. The Garden Girl has a video on how to make an enclosure that sits on top of a 4 x 8 garden bed for the meat birds.
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