I have chickens

[sesa]

Picked them up this morning, 22 of the hungry little buggers, if all goes well in 6-8 weeks I'll have a freezer full of chicken.

[Glutton4...]

Aaaaawwww cuuuuties! They'll grow really quickly if they're like the others on here

[Hans Mum]

awww very cute, are they all destined for the freezer

[Nicos]

Awww...have they all got names yet????

6-8 weeks? - what breed are they?
I have two 9 week old bantams and there's nothing of them!!!!

[sesa]

They are cornish X, they are supposed to weigh 6-8 lbs in 8 weeks, we shall see

[davefromthechipie]

They are cornish X, they are supposed to weigh 6-8 lbs in 8 weeks, we shall see

Great so they are GM birds then thats fab

[sesa]

They are bred to grow fast, I wouldn't say that they were any more GM than any other breed of chicken.

[FionaH]

Go for it, still got to be healthier eating than the ones in Tesco

[davefromthechipie]

They are bred to grow fast, I wouldn't say that they were any more GM than any other breed of chicken.

6 weeks seems too fast to me ! the same time as the GM birds breed for meat farms ,You know the birds suffer from weak bones ,arthritis and live in constant pain freerange or not ..
I'm not saying your chicks are but its worth finding out as we dont/shouldnt buy chickens that have been genetically modified for fast meat . It will be the next thing to go when batt farm are gone I hope

Saying that your chicks in the pic do look great

[Hilary B]

Breeding (and feeding) for speed of growth is why factory-farmed ones don't taste of anything. If you grow them a bit slower, they will be healthier, and tastier.

Factory farmed chickens get neither day nor night, but only a perpetual twilight in which they have nothing to do but eat. If you bring them up more like proper chooks, they may grow to size in about 10-12 weeks, without becoming too heavy for immature leg bones, and will be a lot better eating.

[bluemoon]

Sesa is in the US. I've complained repeatedly about my US published chicken book, but only because things are done very differently over there and it is a bit irrelevant to anyone starting out in the UK. People buy day-old chicks there (and they are sent via the post ) whereas here we tend to buy point of lay pullets and that isn't something that's often an option in the States. Anyway the fast growing chicks Sesa describes are, I believe, a simple Cornish x Plymouth Rock, which does grow incredibly fast, largely due to the fact that they eat continually with none of the usual chicken behaviour to distract them or use up calories. As a result they lay down meat at an incredible rate and I believe convert feed to meat at an estimate of something like 2lbs of feed to produce one pound of meat. These birds are white too, so have 'clean' looking skin and unobtrusive looking lumpy bits where the feathers have been plucked (note the use of technical terms here). Just to confuse matters even more, what they call a Cornish we call an Indian Game, so it's just a cross of a couple of old fashioned breeds which we're all familiar with. Nothing GM about it at all, just something people have been doing for generations... though we don't know what the chicks are eating.
See, just because I didn't find the book too helpful doesn't mean I didn't read it and pay attention.

[HayleyB]

They are cuties though but I have to say that I prefer to eat something that has had a bit of life to enjoy first...