Most of us think of our chickens as egg producers and pets. But don't most of us eat chicken often? Do you ever think about how chickens have evolved? Most of the world has chicken several times a week in their meal plan. We don't normally sell meat chickens here at Woodville Ace but we have and can order them. A few years ago we raised some Cornish Rock on our farm. It was amazing to see how fast these chickens grew and how big they got. It was a messy process, they eat and poop, and eat and poop, and grow rapidly. We processed them at 12 weeks instead of the 8 weeks that is recommended, and they were so big we had to use 2 gallon ziplock bags to put them in the freezer. But 14 chickens kept us in chicken for months. I could use one chicken for several meals, they each weighed between 8 to 10 pounds. But if you are planning to try this next year on your farmstead be prepared for the work. I recommend a separate coop just for raising meat chickens. Keeping them clean and fed with a high protein feed is your top priority. When the day comes to slaughter your chickens, be well prepared for the process way ahead of time. We skinned ours instead of plucking the feathers, which made the process much faster. But in the end it was worth all the work. Just knowing you raised your own food and you knew what went into them, was a reward in it's self.
I found this article today about what has made our chickens so different through the years. And how we are feeding the world with the genetic breeding of our meat chickens.
http://firstwefeast.com/eat/2014/10/how-did-modern-chickens-get-so-damn-big
