The Little Schmidt Family Farm

Cornish Cross Chickens ….

We picked up these chicks on September 16th (30 of them) and they were in the fridge on November 16th (29…. we lost one early on). Cornish Cross are a bit of a genetic ‘Frankenstein’ breed. They even require special vitamins/minerals in the last few weeks of growth or you can risk birds with broken legs because of how fast they grow. Gross, I know. We did pay to have the birds processed for us (would do that again in a heartbeat by the way) and while they ate natural/non-GMO feed we did not give them Organic feed.

It is our opinion, that if you are going to raise your own meat, that you do so in an ethical way. It is also our goal to put actual “meat” in the freezer without going poor. Other options (outside of CC chickens) produce substantially less meat and they take a lot longer to raise. This was really a cost efficient endeavor (even with paying for the processing). Some of these birds ended up at over 5# after processing. There was very little fat and frankly, the chicken meat (breasts and drumsticks especially) were quite impressive. Lots of great fertilizer for our garden was produced as well …. Here are some photos from start to finished product.