Raising chickens for meat…
Last week, we received 25 cute, fluffy baby chicks. They will eventually become dinner, so I thought I’d share a post from January giving you a glimpse of why we raise meat birds (aka Cornish Cross).
Several years ago I began paying more attention to what my family ate and what additives, chemicals, antibiotics, etc. were hidden in our foods. Wow! It’s amazing how much garbage, fillers and colorings are in our day to day food consumption. Sadly, most of us don’t even realize how much money we’re spending on sub-par food and how much damage it’s doing to our health. While we’re not “health fanatics” anytime I can give my family some wholesome food I count that as a win.
Enter the backyard chicken movement, where regular folks like us can raise chickens for eggs and meat right in our own backyard! And it doesn’t take a huge space either. Once we escaped from the dreaded HOA neighborhood and bought a small farm, I went chicken crazy. Yes, I’m the Crazy Chicken Lady. I don’t mind being called that - after all, I’ve been called worse ;).
Anyway, we went all out and decided to have a laying flock for eggs, as well as meat birds for our family food. The beauty of meat birds is that they grow super fast and can be ready to harvest in 6-8 weeks. So the time commitment per batch isn’t too overwhelming.
We built a chicken tractor, which is basically a mobile coop that can house about 35 birds. Every single day, we move that tractor to fresh, new grass. Every single day the birds get a fresh salad bar of greens and bugs. They get to be chickens and live as nature intended, while also depositing fertilizer in our fields. And once their job is done, they provide us a clean, pesticide-free, hormone-free, pure meal for our table. We don’t take that lightly, mind you. In exchange for clean eating meat, we give them an awesome chicken life.
Now, I know you can go to Walmart and buy their whole chickens, run home and gobble it down. But, take a moment to think about the life that bird lived in a tiny cage or crammed tight in a warehouse covered in manure, never stretching its wings or seeing the sunshine. Many are over-fed with medicated grains, additives and fillers just to fatten them quicker, causing heart attacks and broken legs from their own weight. Then the carcass is injected with water to increase the selling weight.
Not all birds are raised in such terrible conditions, or so the Tysons and Perdues would like you to think. Many of the big producers now use the terms such as “cage free” which means the bird is not in a cage, but does not necessarily have any more space and does not have access to outdoors. Another term I laugh at is “free range” as the USDA says that as long as there’s a small peep hole door on the side of the warehouse where birds can look outside, having no full body outdoor access, they can label as such. With thousands of birds in a warehouse, how many do you think will get to look out that little side door?
So, we chose to do it the old-fashioned, more natural way. After we’ve put in the time and work to grow our own birds, we sure do appreciate mother nature and all she is capable of.
