In our latest foray into the world of smallholding, we bought thirty day-old “Hubbard” chicks last week. These are commercial broiler type chickens, that should grow to a good size, and make excellent eating at the end of their short (but we hope happy) lives.
I was expecting them to be a bit ugly to be honest, so I was quite surprised by just how cute and fluffy they turned out to be!
They soon settled into their makeshift cardboard box brooder, and proceeded to eat….. and poop….. and eat…..
Until a week later, they had nearly doubled in size,
as well as growing some pretty decent wings!
Overall, we’ve been , gobsmacked, and somewhat perturbed by the rate at which they’ve grown. It all just seems so….. un-natural I guess. I think my unease stems from the fact that our aim is to grow table birds for our own consumption, giving them as much fresh air and grass as we possibly can, before hopefully realizing the benefits in the final ‘product’. However, these little guys just seem programmed to eat, sleep, poop and eat, so I feel a little sorry for them to be honest.
Still, it’s an experiment, and I’ll leave my final conclusions until ‘the end’ (at around 12 weeks old we think). We’ll see – I suspect they’ll taste ‘a bit like chicken’!!
An Outdoor Life 