We moved the 6-week old turkeys into the poultry tractor ( the movable shelter) this morning. The shelter was ready for the new occupants since Noah and I brought the 60+ meat birds to Adams Turkey Farm this morning for processing. It seems like only a few short days ago that the day-old chicks were arriving at the farm.
The meat chickens, now nine weeks old, looked great and were ready to go. We had to wait a couple of extra days to have them processed because Dave and Judy had some equipment problems in their processing facility, and they couldn't process any birds while they waited for repair parts to arrive. Ben and I loaded the chickens in the back of the pickup, and Noah went with me on the 50-minute ride to Adams'. Noah was a great help in unloading the birds, as he climbed into the back of the truck and kept crowding the birds towards the tailgate where I could reach them.
Dave and Judy were doing double-duty today, trying to catch up on the backlog of chickens their customers wanted processed. On a normal day they would process 150 or so chickens, but today they thought they would have to do over 300. Throw in the fact that they were doing all of this on a hot, humid July day, and I would say they were earning every penney of the fee they charge for processing our birds.
--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont
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Posted by Blogger Chris at August 1, 2005 05:28 PMWOW I never though my son would be right on key!
He was looking over A Stromberg Calalog and decided he wanted to raise Turkeys the Royal Palms and even has names that he wants to give the three he wants but I have decided to go flowblow on this after seeing the figures. SO you are getting $2.50 a pound is that after processing or before? It sounds good if we end up with a lot of 45 pounders..
On with another thing Who is the C Halverson Hi
I do family lineages and well my family had a lot of pages in every ones books is what I am finding out I have cousins that have Halversons on the lines but I hardly even know the family any more. So I call my self just one of the branches in the tree of life.
I am not sure where they hail from but I do know where my own family hails from
That would be the Ball family of Arkansas and Montana I should of went up with Grandfather and dad and mom when they went but some others decided that I needed to deal with their business. So I could not. I sure missed something I guess when mom came home and talked about the ranches back in Montana Taylor's I belive they were. Ranching and farming has been trying to run in my veins for ages. Both sides where of long lines of Ranches and farms. I just have not gotten in to it till now. And I hope the Turkey deals really open the gates to the rest. Nora Mae Smith
Hey Jonathan, I am curious as to what the cost is to process a chicken. My wife and I want a hobby farm and I want meat chickens to sell to help with the cost of feed. I was wondering if it is more cost/time efficient to have the chickens processed by someone else or to process them by ones self. Thanks for your newsletter!
Chuck in Alaska
What kind of meat chickens are they and how much does each one weigh after 9 weeks of growth?
Posted by: Barbara Bahun at August 2, 2005 12:58 PM