Coloured and hybrid chicken track
Red broiler, barred grey, hybrids: choose, raise, sell at the right age
Drawn from the School’s technical guide: choosing your coloured chicken, growth targets, rearing in an open-sided house and on an outdoor run, choosing the selling age. Benchmarks: Hubbard Premium (Redbro, JA).
This track is open to every registered student. The full text is in the technical guide.
- 1Choosing your coloured chicken: the range and its strengthsThe coloured chicken grows more slowly than the white broiler, but it is hardier, copes better with heat and gives firm meat, close to that of a village chicken. Choosing the right type of chicken starts with listening to your market.9 min read · 5-question quiz
- 2Growth targets week by weekWeighing without a benchmark is useless. Growth targets tell you what a well-managed coloured chicken should weigh at each age, how much feed it eats for each kilo and what it will yield as a carcass. They are the dashboard of your flock.10 min read · 5-question quiz
- 3Choosing the selling age: the right weight at the right timeKeeping a coloured chicken one more week gives a heavier chicken… but one that eats more and more for each kilo gained. The right selling age is the one at which what you get for the chicken comfortably covers the feed of the last week.10 min read · 5-question quiz
- 4Managing an open-sided house over 8 to 14 weeksBrooding a coloured chicken is done exactly like brooding a white broiler. The difference comes afterwards: fewer chickens per square metre, three feeds over a longer period, and a flock that stays two to three months in the heat, sometimes in the rain.10 min read · 5-question quiz
- 5The outdoor run: letting your coloured chickens out safelyThe coloured chicken can enjoy an outdoor run from 4 to 5 weeks. Done well, the run gives space, air and a chicken close to a village chicken. Done badly, it opens the door to predators, disease and losses.9 min read · 5-question quiz
- 6Health of a long flock and preparing the saleA coloured chicken stays on the farm about twice as long as a white broiler. That is more time to do things well… and more time exposed to disease, heat and theft. Health is built from the first day, and the sale is prepared several days in advance.9 min read · 5-question quiz
- 7Brooding the coloured chick: the first 10 daysThe coloured chicken is hardy, but the day-old chick is not yet. During its first days, it depends entirely on you for heat, water and feed. A delay taken at brooding is hard to make up, even over a 12-week flock; a good start is kept until the sale.10 min read · 5-question quiz
- 8Feeding the coloured chicken: quantities, selling age and FCRFeed is the biggest expense of a coloured chicken flock, and it is spent over 8 to 14 weeks. Knowing how much a chicken eats each day, how much it will eat until the sale and how much feed it took for each kilo produced is how you keep the accounts of your flock.10 min read · 5-question quiz
- 9Selling your coloured chickens: customers, weights and the festive calendarThe coloured chicken sells well, per bird or by weight, at markets, in maquis (local eateries) and for festive occasions. But a 10-week flock cannot be improvised: you know who you will sell to, what weight and on what date before you even order the chicks.9 min read · 5-question quiz
- 10Case studies: diagnosing a flock that is behind in growthA weighing is useless if you cannot read it. This lesson brings together everything you have learnt in the track through five field situations: a false alarm, a failed start, a sudden drop, an uneven flock and an end of flock that stalls.10 min read · 5-question quiz