Chicken Raising

[Jaggid Edje]

So I got some free chickens, and I figured, what the heck...eggs are delicious.

So I built them 2 pens and set one to lady chicken only and the other to allow both genders. That way I get unfertilized eggs from the one pen and built up more chickens with fertile eggs in the other pen.
I made the hatching pen smaller, so my handlers would keep more of the lady chickens in the egg-laying pen. It has all worked really well and I have 30 hens laying eggs right now. (I set auto slaughter to 30 hens, 1 rooster).

My question is, is it worth leaving this set up so I continue to hatch at least some new chickens, for meat?
I noticed it isn't much meat per chicken and was thinking it might just make sense to set the hatching pen to males only so all the hens get kept in the other pen until/if I lose some hens.

Just curious what other people do.

Also, I don't particularly 'need' a ton of meet, I raise camels, alpacas and elephants too.

[glass zebra]

What do you mean with "isn't much meat per chicken"? At what age do you slaugther them? A chicken egg it worth 5 meat in nutrition.

[jerrypocalypse]

Mine's a little different. I have two adjoining pens, one for roosters and the other for hens. I open the gate and let them mingle until I have around 20-30 fertilized eggs, then split them back up for unfertilized eggs for food and until all those eggs hatch and the chickens grow up. I would likely do something similar to yours under normal circumstances, but I can't slaughter them due to using the animal personhood meme. So I let the chickens grow up and "cull" my herd when a trader comes around or when I do a caravan to sell my unwanted roosters and reduce the number of hens to start the process again.

[Jaggid Edje]

Originally posted by glass zebra:

What do you mean with "isn't much meat per chicken"? At what age do you slaugther them? A chicken egg it worth 5 meat in nutrition.

Adult age, of course, I'm not slaughtering the little chicklets.

Keep in mind, I said I'm raising camels and elephants....in comparison, a single chicken is hardly any meat at all.

I'm not talking about the eggs in any way, I DO want those. It's the slaughtering of chickens I'm not sure is worth it. I mean, you got the time it takes the handler to kill it, the time it takes to haul it to the meat hooks, the time it takes to butcher....it's not a lot of meat for all that time, and unlike camels and elephants the hide is also useless.

So I'm thinking, I'd be better off doubling down on elephants or camels if I need more meat, and just freezing chicken birth entirely.

[Markus Reese]

Chickens free range give a fair bit. But personally? I just get the set amount of hens I want, keep a couple roosters and then am good.

Once in a while, I let them breed again, usually once a year, just to keep the stock young.

[Jaggid Edje]

Originally posted by twistedmelon:

Chickens free range give a fair bit. But personally? I just get the set amount of hens I want, keep a couple roosters and then am good.

Once in a while, I let them breed again, usually once a year, just to keep the stock young.

That's an excellent answer, thank you. I hadn't even considered their relatively short lifespan. I believe that's what I will do as well.

[Bababooey]

One comment about eggs, They take 15 days to spoil so if you have some in a freezer it can get you through solar flares. Meat may rot in that flare.