We
butchered another third of our cockerels last week, and I decided to
crunch the numbers on these 16 week old Dark Cornish.  You might
remember that at 12
weeks old, our cockerels weighed an average of 2.25 pounds per dressed
carcass, which came
out to a cost of $2.51 per pound.  Our 16 week old birds weighed 3
pounds apiece, and the new weight cost us $4.33 per pound in
feed.  Clearly, letting our cockerels get older makes the feed to
meat ratio worse, not better.



The 16 week old birds
were also considerably spunkier.  I thought it was cute the first
time I saw the cockerels roosting on
the coop roof, but
now I’m wondering how we’re going to capture the last 9 birds before
our last butchering day.  Even worse, when Mark went into the coop
to catch his first chicken on our kill day, the chickens were so big
and vigorous that one accidentally gave him a big scratch across his
face.



I had been considering
keeping a
breeding pair of Dark Cornish to experiment with next
year, but I’ve changed my mind.  I’ve decided we don’t need — or
want — a predator resistant breed, and would instead prefer something
sedate and docile.  So the last 9 broilers are slated for
slaughter this week, and next year’s experiment is simmering on the
back burner.

Jamie
from Alaska sent me a photo of his new bucket waterer in action.  He wrote:

Meanwhile, Louisa pulled
out a stopwatch, then emailed to say:

David wrote in too:

Thanks for reporting in,
everybody!  If you haven’t taken the plunge yet, our homemade chicken
waterer kits are
extremely affordable, and — as David says — your chickens will love
them even more than you do.