Dark Cornish economics

We decided to try out Dark Cornish cockerels for our first broiler experiment since they are supposed to be good foragers and very predator resistant.  It turned out that predator resistance wasn't really necessary in our instance, and our cockerels seemed to be lackadaisical foragers.  The meat will be a bit better for us than storebought since the chickens did consume some greenery and insects, but we clearly spent more than we would have on grocery store meat, or on raising Cornish Crosses.

Here are the stats on the 12 week old birds, which averaged a mere 2.25 pounds dressed weight apiece:

Big producers focus on the feed to meat conversion ratio, which in our case was about 6:1.  This is double the average for Cornish Cross broilers, meaning that our chickens actually consumed twice as much grain as a similarly sized Cornish Cross would have.  That's the precise opposite of the goal of our forest pasture experiment, so we'll be moving on to a different breed next year.

Meanwhile, we still have two thirds of the cockerels bulking up for another month or two.  I'll let you know if their figures are any different, and how the 12 week old birds compare in taste to older birds.  Stay tuned!