7 Weeks Later a Great Product and Happy Customers

We took our chickens to be butchered on Tuesday, June 19 after raising them for 50 days (just slightly over 7 weeks). We did a live weighing at 42 days to make sure we were going to make our target weight for butchering. We targeted between 5-6 lbs for our dressed (processed ready to be cooked) chicken weight. We have found over the years that our customers prefer that size because most people want a chicken that is big enough to have a decent meal, perhaps feed 2-4 people, but not so big as they have chicken leftovers that they have to eat for multiple days afterward. We took the chickens to be processed at Martzahn's Farm Poultry Processing in Greene, Iowa. Martzhans' do a great job. The facility is state inspected and the birds always look great when we take them home. They also do a great job offering additional services like custom bagging and cut-up chicken if that is what your customers want. I would recommend them to anyone wanting to have their poultry processed. After processing we went about weighing, separating and delivering the chicken to our customers. Below are a few quick facts about this batch of chickens for those interested:

• Started with 125 baby chicks, 116 made it to processing
• During the 50 days the chickens ate 1950 lbs. of feed just 50 pounds short of a ton. ( All of which I had to carry into the chicken house in 50 lbs. bags. I'll have to figure out a better system for the next batch :)
• During the last three weeks the birds drank on average 18 gallons of water in a 24 hour period
• We used 7 bags of large wood shavings for bedding during the 50 days
• Our dressed chickens weighed an average of 5.52lbs (we hit our goal almost right on the nose)

Overall, the first batch of chickens for 2012 went extremely well! We would like to say thanks to all our wonderful customers and we look forward to serving you in the future. We still have a few to sell so if you are interested in purchasing some feel free to email me at aelling@springcreekfarm.net or contacting me through the Contact Us page..