Spring Broilers

Last year we only did two batches of broilers.  They were both called "Black Broilers" at the hatchery.  Ethan got excited about them, because we had been doing batches of the Cornish X Rocks, which we didn't like for several reasons, the chief ones being that if the food and water wasn't far enough apart they would eat themselves to death and have heart attacks and the way they would get so large and immobile that they ended up lounging on the cactus and blackberries and get really gross cactus-spine pimples that ruined the carcass.

The first batch of "Black Broilers" turned out great.  They grew well and were extremely vigorous, to the point of being hard to catch.  Unfortunately, the next batch we got (from the same hatchery--I won't say any names) were just awful.  We gave them the same food and the same care and it was about the same conditions, but it was like they had sold us a batch of reject black sex-linked laying hens.  There were maybe six roosters who got to be a decent size, but the rest stayed like laying hens.  We even grew them out for an extra month, hoping to get something out of them, but alas.  A good 1/4 of them were only the size of pigeons--literally, I have to cook three of them to feed our family.  But the most disturbing thing was that when we processed them we found one of them was deformed and had been born with no wing on one side.  It wasn't like it got ripped off or anything.  The skin was perfectly smooth, it just didn't have a breast or wing on one side.  When I wrote to the hatchery and told them about the deformed bird they sold us, they sent back this completely inadequate reply:

We appreciate the information and will keep this information for our records.  All breeds can grow differently from year to year depending on external conditions.  We appreciate your business and look forward to your future orders.  Thanks again for the information.

It's really too bad, but there will be no future orders!
We did get some really nice batches of laying birds from them.  Our Araucanas and Barred Rocks are great chickens and they came from that same hatchery.  However, the last batch of laying hens we got from there we lost a bunch when they first arrived, and they just don't seem as good as the other birds.  I wonder what changed.

Anyway, I'm really excited about this new batch of broilers.  My uncle in Maryland suggested we try the Freedom Rangers.  He had already grown several batches with great results.  They seem to be what we were hoping for with the black broilers--a good meat bird that is also suited to an outdoor, small-scale production model.

An interesting story:  when Ethan picked up the chicks at the post office, they had two batches of chicks for pick up that day, so he had to give them our address so they could tell the right one.  The other batch was from the same hatchery that had sold us the bad batch of "Black Broilers."  Ethan said our chicks from the Freedom Ranger  hatchery were peeping like mad, but the other batch sounded very weak.  The woman at the post office told him, "I don't know what's wrong with these other chicks.  They don't seem to be doing as well.  They didn't even have any air holes in the box when they got here."

So far they are growing well and thriving.