Today our batch of meat chickens (Freedom Rangers) arrived at the post office and Anna picked them up. The 51 chicks are 2 days old. Since this is our first experience with an actual meat bird, we will be keeping detailed records. They should be ready for harvest around July 7/8.

In other news, we have decided to cut back significantly in our chick hatching. After a review of the records, we just aren’t really making enough for it to be worthwhile. We definitely have a market for the Jersey Giant chicks, however, the other breeds don’t seem to sell very well. And when you are running 5 heat lamps at a time, it costs $5-6 a day to raise the chicks and your electric bill gets pretty high. So while we can make some money selling chicks the first week after they hatch, we lose all the profits on the extras that don’t sell.

With arrival of the meat chicks, by my spreadsheet we have about 162 chickens on the farm right now,and less than 50 are mature. Between all the different chickens, we are using about 30lbs of feed a day (that was before the 50 meat chicks got here). Did I mention it’s time to cut back.