Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens (98 page)

All manure must be managed in a way that does not contribute to the contamination of crops, soil, or water and that optimizes the recycling of nutrients.

Among areas that remain unclarified is the minimum requirement for floor space. Some certifiers calculate minimum space based on birds per square foot, others base it on the overall weight of broilers — such as a minimum of 1 square foot per 6 pounds (0.1 sq m/2.7 kg), meaning each square foot would accommodate three 2-pound (0.9 kg) birds, two 3-pound (1.4 kg) birds, or one 6-pound (2.7 kg) bird.

Another area open to some interpretation is the use of artificial lights to extend daylight hours. Many certifying agencies require 8 hours of darkness every 24 hours. Some certifiers additionally require the lights to be bright enough to encourage normal activity and windows to provide some sunlight for broilers confined indoors.

The NOP standards continue to evolve. You may review the current set of rules on the Internet or by contacting the United States Government Printing Office. The National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service Appropriate Technology Transfer for Rural Areas (ATTRA) monitors these standards and translates them from governmentese into everyday language. ATTRA also maintains a list of organic-poultry-feed suppliers and provides information on natural methods for dealing with coccidiosis, mites, cannibalism, and other common poultry problems.

If you’re going to sell meat birds, obtaining organic certification may be worth your while. Certification is essentially a marketing tool to reassure customers of the quality of your poultry and justify your higher prices compared to industrially produced chicken.

But the never-ending stream of paperwork required for certification discourages a lot of people right from the start. First you fill out an application, which in itself can be a formidable document. Then you have an interminable amount of record keeping, detailing every step of production. Your operation will be inspected before your application is approved and at least once a year thereafter. Finally, you’ll have to pay certain fees, which may include a flat fee, an inspection fee, and a percentage of your sales volume.

Various certification groups work on local, regional, national, and international levels, but not all of them certify animal products. You’ll need to find the group that best suits your production needs, then determine whether or not you meet their criteria. Up-to-date details on organic certification and a list of current programs is included in the information packet “Organic Certification” available from ATTRA.

The poultry industry uses several different methods to determine the economic efficiency of producing meat birds. Since the cost of feed accounts for at least 55 percent of the cost of production, most economic indicators factor in the amount of feed used.

Feed-conversion ratio
is the total amount of feed in pounds (or kilograms) eaten by the birds, divided by the flock’s total live weight in pounds (or kilograms). Commercial broilers raised under efficient methods get by on as little as 1.85 pounds (0.8 kg) of feed per pound (0.5 kg) of weight gained to 4 pounds (1.8 kg) live weight. At home don’t expect a conversion ratio from an industrial strain much better than 2 pounds (0.9 kg) of feed per pound of live weight, or about 3 pounds (1.4 kg) of feed per pound of dressed weight. If your rate is significantly higher, take stock of your management methods.

Feed cost per pound
(or kilogram) is the feed-conversion ratio multiplied by the average cost of feed per pound (or kilogram). Determine the average cost of feed per pound by dividing the total pounds of feed used into your total feed cost. The lower this number is, the better you’re doing.

Performance-efficiency factor
is the average live weight divided by the feed conversion ratio, multiplied by 100. In industry, this index hovers around 200. The higher you get above 200, the better you’re doing.

Livability
is the total number of birds butchered or sold divided by the total number started. To convert that number to a percentage, multiply by 100. Good livability is 95 percent or better. If your livability is above 90 percent, you’re doing as well as most commercial growers.

Average live weight
is the total live weight divided by the total number of birds. The industry average for industrial broilers efficiently raised to 8 weeks of age is 4 to 5 pounds (1.8 to 2.25 kg). If your birds aren’t even close at the end of 8 weeks (13 weeks for nonhybirds), look for ways to improve your management methods. One way to improve your average is to raise cockerels instead of straight-run chicks. As a general rule, finished cockerels weigh 1 pound (0.5 kg) more than pullets at the same age and on the same amount of feed, and at the broiler-fryer stage they taste the same.

Average weight per bird
is the total dressed weight of all birds divided by the total number of birds. This index factors in weight lost both to excess fat and to uncontrollable inedible portions such as intestines, feathers, heads, feet, and blood. A good average for the edible portion is approximately 75 percent of a bird’s live weight.

Your management style will influence the rate at which your meat birds grow. Furthermore, different breeds grow at different rates and reach readiness for butchering at different weights — a bantam, for instance, will not be ready to butcher at the same weight and age as a Jersey Giant. To assess a bird’s readiness for butchering and the quality of its meat, examine it for these factors:

Feathering.
If you plan to pick the bird rather than skin it, butcher when it has mature feathers only, no stubby broken feathers or pinfeathers.

Fleshing.
A well-fleshed bird has a meaty breast, legs, and thighs.

Finish.
The best flavor comes from a bird with a nice layer of fat beneath the skin. To assess finish, spread the breast feathers and examine the skin. A creamy
or yellow color indicates good finish, while a reddish or bluish color indicates too little fat.

Conformation, or body shape.
The ideal shape of a meat bird ready for butchering is blocky and rectangular, not narrow and triangular.

If you’re raising meat birds for your own family use, you needn’t be too concerned about freedom from defects. You might, in fact, cull defective birds from your flock by putting them into the freezer. But if you’re raising meat birds for market, they must be free of such defects as crooked breastbones, crooked or hunched backs, deformed legs and wings, bruises, cut or torn skin, breast blisters, and calluses.

One way to assess the readiness of a meat bird for butchering is to determine if its shape more closely resembles a rectangle (left) or a triangle.

WHEN YOUR CHICKENS ARE PLUMP
enough to butcher, catch a few and examine them for pinfeathers. Chickens with emerging pinfeathers won’t look clean no matter how carefully you pick them, so let them continue to grow until they pass the pinfeather stage. When the time comes, confine the birds overnight with plenty of water but without feed.

To move them to a holding area, catch them at night, when they’re least active, to minimize struggling. Struggling depletes energy they need to relax muscles and keep the meat tender. Put them in a wire- or slat-floored coop where they cannot eat feathers or litter.

The goal of holding them without feed is to allow their intestines to empty, minimizing contamination during butchering. They need water, however, to prevent dehydration, which turns the skin dark, dry, and scaly and causes meat to get tough and stringy.

The worst part about killing chickens is the reflex reaction that causes them to flap and twitch for a few moments after they’re dead. During these death throes, blood gets spattered around. If butchering is going to upset you, flapping and bleeding are the most likely aspects to do it. That goes double for children, who may not understand that, even though a bird is still moving, it’s dead and isn’t suffering. Nearly every family has at least one member (or a neighbor) who can handle killing chickens.

Set up a killing place away from the rest of the flock, where remaining birds won’t get upset, and where you can easily clean up afterward to avoid attracting flies, wasps, and four-legged predators. Have on hand a trash can or large bucket
lined with a sturdy plastic bag, so you won’t be tempted to toss discarded parts on the ground.

Kill the chickens quickly and humanely with a minimum of stress, since stress reduces meat quality. Of several possible methods for killing chickens, the one most commonly used in backyards is the least suitable.

Using an ax.
Most people’s image of killing a chicken is to lay its neck on a stump and chop off its head. Using an ax is not the best idea, however. An ax severs the bird’s spinal cord, tightening the feathers, and also severs the jugular vein at the same time as the windpipe, letting blood into the lungs and contaminating the meat.

By hand (or foot).
A more suitable time-honored method is to dislocate the bird’s neck, which kills instantly. Hang the bird upside down by holding both legs in one hand. With the other hand, grasp the head with your thumb behind the comb and your little finger beneath the beak. Tilt the head back, and pull steadily until the head snaps free of the neck. Continue holding the head until struggling stops.

If you have trouble snapping a chicken’s neck by hand, use your feet. Grasp the bird by the legs and lay its neck on the ground. Place a broom or rake handle across the neck. With one foot on each side of the neck, stand on the handle and firmly pull the bird upward.

After the neck has been snapped, hang the dead bird by its legs with a piece of twine. Cut the neck on both sides and let it bleed out.