I went to the hatchery at about 10:00 am and the hatchery men said they were a slow hatch.  When I returned just after noon they were all dried off, looking good, healthy and active.  They all drank and ate well from the start except for a runt who seemed unable to sit down or to lie down to sleep.  This runt died about day eight.  We should have culled it sooner but no apparent harm came of keeping it.

Birds were brooded in a 32 square foot pen on peat moss and wood shavings with red heat lamp on thermostat reduced a couple of degrees per day. Only the area immediately below the lamp was heated. Birds were moved outside to grass in 120 square foot pen on day 19.  There was no major weather related stress throughout the growout period.

Feed was Timothy Yoder's broiler ration which contains Fertrell Poultry Nutri-Balancer.  Seven hundred sixty (760) pounds of this feed were consumed by these birds.  Feed conversion was 3.3:1. (All weights throughout this discussion are carcass (dressed) weights with necks and tails but no livers, hearts or gizzards. Since the portion of the diet consisting of forage from fresh pasture was unmeasurable, the feed conversion is calculated only from the ration provided in the feeders.) This data has an estimated  +/- 10% reliability since I was sometimes weighing feed in buckets with old spring scales and sometimes just counting dead-full scoops as weighing three pounds each.  This figure checks well with the difference (out of fourteen hundred pounds) having been fed to an equal number of Cobbs which were hatched three weeks later.  Feed was never more than three weeks old. Feeders were allowed to run empty each night for four or five days from about day ten to day fourteen, and again the night before any partial pen harvest. Otherwise feed was always available. Water was always available.  A handful of granite grit was added to the feeders every few days. Hard-boiled eggs were added to the feed for the first few days. Chopped raw beef liver was added to the ration for a few days around the two week mark.  Fresh grass clippings were given during the last week in the brooder.

The taste of these birds is excellent. (Several customers reported that they were the best chickens they had ever eaten!) Breast meat was adequate but noticeably less full than four and a quarter pound six week old Cobbs.  Comparison was not side by side; but week to week, roasted on our own table.  No customer complained of (or stated that they noticed) the slightly narrower breasts.  (If any repeat customers mention this I will let you know.  I still have a few Cobbs to harvest in mid-October).  One customer noted toughness, but it was determined that she had gone straight home with a bird which had not yet fully cooled and put it straight into the oven before it went through rigor mortis.

I had no leg problems nor any other sort of problems with these birds.  They stayed up on their feet and active until harvest.  (Cobbs raised under the same conditions began to sit around a lot at about five weeks).

Taste, economics and availability will be the determining factors for me in deciding what chicks to buy in the future. At this time it looks as if raising Cobbs is more than forty dollars more profitable per pen than raising the experimental D x H birds, with most of the added profit coming from weight rather than from the better feed conversion.
 
 
 
 
 
 

First harvest at seven weeks four days
Median harvest at eight weeks three days
Final harvest at nine weeks three days