Fall broilers

Although most of us think of chicks in the spring, it's worth considering raising a flock of broilers in the late summer.  Our pastures hit a lull in midsummer, but as temperatures drop, the grass starts to grow again.  Meanwhile, the vegetable garden is churning out excess produce like mad in September and October, and chickens love those rotten tomatoes and monster squash.  In fact, you can often let chicks graze in a mature vegetable garden until they're two months old without seeing much damage.

Last year, I was very glad Mark talked me into putting one more round of eggs in the incubator in August, so I repeated the procedure this year.  In our zone 6 climate, I consider Thanksgiving the deadline for getting the last broiler out of the pasture and into our bellies, so I aimed to have eggs hatch by the first week of September.  If you live further south (or are raising Cornish Cross broilers to eight weeks instead of heirlooms to twelve weeks), you could start your chicks a bit later.

Our last round of 2012 broilers are still in the cute and fuzzy stage, but we've already moved them to the outdoor brooder so they can enjoy pasture.  That's one more benefit of fall broilers --- it's never too cold to put your newborn chicks outside!

(By the way, these photos are last fall's broilers.  You'll see this year's Australorp broilers in later posts.)

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