For the Birds

Part of our sustainable organic production plan involve chickens; both laying hens for eggs and broilers for meat production. 

We are not very serious about egg production.  We have six free range hens that produce enough for our family use.  We have an interest in producing more eggs, but we don't have a local market.  I'm sure we could work toward developing some limited local sales, but currently there is nothing established.



Free Ranging hens


The majority of our efforts will lie with the meat birds.  We purchased 50 (they sent 52) Cornish-cross chicks in April.  We decided on the Cornish-cross after going with a more dual-purpose breed in the past (White Rocks) and finding that they just took too long to mature.  The longer maturity time resulted in more feed, more work and more loss to predators.  So this year we are trying the Cornish-cross for the first time.   We have purchased our chicks from Estes Hatchery in the past, and we did again this year.  They are relatively near us (Springfield, MO) and always have a good selection of birds.  This year all our chicks arrived alive and all 52 are still healthy and growing good.

We keep them in a confined area until they are old enough to free range.  This year we are going to try a portable cage to help grow the chickens.  The portable cage will assist with containing them so we can better manage and protect them.  Predators have been a problem in the past.  We also hope to capitalize on the many benefits this rotational pasture method offers: healthy chickens, pest management, pasture improvement and improved marketability.

Keeping watch on the baby chicks

By moving the pen on a daily basis, chickens will experience a clean and fresh environment each day.  This helps ensure a healthy natural product.  Also, the chickens can be moved to specific areas to ensure manure is broken up or near a garden to control insects.  This may prove beneficial this year as experts are saying there will be severe grasshopper infestations.




1.25" PVC used to construct 10x20' portable pen

The pen will be used only during the day as it will not protect against nighttime predators.  We will be using a metal structure for nighttime confinement, as we have used in the past. 

Chicks transitioning to the outdoors and the pen