A Little Experiment: Part 1

Those of you who followed our blog last spring -- our first "in the chicken business" -- might remember me bemoaning the weather (see our April 2010 archive ). I'm looking out the window watching it snow/slush/sleet (whatever it's doing) and praying we don't have a repeat performance of last year's chilly, snowy spring. Not lookin' so good, at the moment. My eager daphne, daffodils, crocus and violets are buried under wet, gloppy snow, with more continuing to fall. Sheesh!

Even as weather-focused as farmers are, I wouldn't bring it up if it were warm and sunny, but because we ordered the first batch of chicks yesterday, it's on my mind. We're much better-prepared this year, of course, with new tricks and all sorts of know-how under our belts to help mitigate the inconvenience and stress caused by frigid outdoor conditions. For those of you just tuning in, the reason this is a big deal for us is that we raise "pastured poultry". We're committed to getting the chicks out on pasture as early as possible (our mid-summer arriving batch goes outdoors at 3 days of age). That's essentially impossible when the grass is snow-covered or rain soaked. The chicks are much too fragile to handle such conditions until they're at least a good two weeks old, which is a lot of a life that only lasts 9-10 weeks. So, current conditions being what they are, we expect to keep them indoors for at least a week. Let's hope it warms up soon; I don't think anyone will dispute we've seen enough precipitation for the season.

Rain, sleet, snow or shine, the chicks will be here this coming Wednesday, March 23rd; 105 little cheeping balls of yellow fluff. Well, five will be a slightly different color of fluff. We ordered the usual 100 White Cornish X ("Cross"), which is the typical meat-bird breed. We then ordered five Red Cornish X, which is still a meat breed but more of a heritage type of meat chicken.

We decided to get the five Red Cornish X birds as kind of an experiment. "Heritage" meat is really gaining attention within foodie circles, but the average palate doesn't always appreciate the more richly flavored, darker meat. These birds also have smaller breasts and overall darker meat. Our plan is to see how these five Red Cornish X chickens ultimately compare to the White Cornish X. We will compare feed conversion, weight gain, dressed weight at 9-10 weeks (when we butcher the whole batch), appearance of the dressed bird (these don't have the white skin people are used to seeing on the typical broiler/roaster), and of course, flavor.

We'll keep you all posted on how it goes, starting off with some photos of the chicks when they arrive.