Raising your own meat birds isn’t super difficult but it isn’t exactly easy either. If it is a project that is on your family’s heart, my best suggestion is going to be to JUMP IN. But, try to be mostly prepared! Here is a one stop guide to raise your own meat birds with the most important things to consider when approaching this project.
This post contains affiliate links, which means I make a small commission at no extra cost to you.
Why raise your own meat birds?
For our family, knowing where our food comes from as often as possible is important to us. Behind the mortgage, our biggest budget item is food.
Groceries in 2025 is an expensive line item even when you don’t buy organic or pasture-raised foods.
Now we are dealing with an egg shortage crisis, avian flu, and now approval for an avian vaccine in our meats that we will likely have no clue they’ve been vaccinated with as we consume it.
The only way to be perfect and absolutely avoid trash in the food your family consumes is to raise it all yourself so you have total control over it. That scenario isn’t possible for my family currently (and “perfection” is unattainable) but I do know we can make (and budget for!) small baby steps in quality foods.
Here is a read with 5 reasons why Johnson Home chooses to raise their own food (or get someone with the space to do so for us).
Questions to ask yourself before raising your own meat birds:
1. Can I make a brooder affordably?
You will need a brooder to raise meat birds as they are coming to you as 2 day old babies. They need shelter, heat, food, and water. Baby meat birds eat and poop a lot (and will continue to do that all 7-9 weeks you have them! Like, a whole lot.)
Do you have materials you can repurpose into a brooder box that keeps your meat bird babies safe from predators like your house or barn cats and your pet dog, maybe even outdoor predators like rats? Yes, rats.
Brooder Options:
- large cardboard box like for an appliance or something similar (reinforce the bottom with plastic before adding wood chips so moisture from water and poop doesn’t cause the bottom to fall out upon a move).
- large plastic totes like these
- a cleaned IBC tote with the top cut off
- homemade box from wood scraps
- a plastic kiddie pool
- a large dog kennel with a wood chipped floor (dog kennels can be multi-purpose: brooder, quarantine, transport, and more)
The size of your brooder will depend on how many baby birds you will raise at one time.
Generally, our meat bird babies only stay in the workshop in large plastic totes for about 3-4 days before they make the move outside. No, they do not have their feathers by then! But this is how we safely make that move AND protect them from predators and weather.
Hardware cloth is a homesteader’s best friend (the wire pictured in the pool photo and below in the chicken tractor design). You will find so many uses for hardware cloth from chickens to garden! You do NOT want “chicken wire”. It will protect birds from very few predators.
2. Can I make a mobile shelter or chicken tractor?
You will need supplies to make a mobile shelter or chicken tractor. Materials aren’t exactly cheap. Time and energy to make the tractor is going to need to be intentional. You will be a graduate of YouTube University when you’re done.
Alternatively if you do not want to (or cannot make it happen) to create a shelter that moves to fresh pasture daily, you can opt to keep your meat birds in a secure enclosure like a chicken run.
The reason I do not love this option is because meat birds eat and poop. A lot. They are not very active so they will sit in their waste if not encouraged to move to new grass daily. Meat birds do not roost at night so they will sleep in their waste as well. Keeping meat birds in an enclosed chicken run may mean a smelly and super gross situation for all involved.
Another option is to purchase electric fencing that is able to be easily moved daily or every other day. Your meat birds will still need weather protection, though.
Here is the design we use. Admittedly, it may not be the very best design but it is getting the job done raising our own meat birds just fine safely.
Meat Bird Chicken Tractor Design easily moved without machinery or additional equipment
3. Can I afford to feed the meat birds a high protein diet they require?
Meat birds cannot simply eat layer feed.
They need a very high protein diet between 20-22%. There are feeds specifically for meat birds.
In my calculations, each meat bird will eat about 12-15 pounds of feed in the 7-9 weeks needed to grow out meat birds.
Caveat: meat birds are generally ready between 6-8 weeks, depending on size of your preference. We have decided we like the quality of the meat at around 7.5 weeks. The size is about 3.5-5 pounds per bird but the meat is tender at this size. This weight equals about 12 pounds of feed per bird for 7.5 weeks.
4. Am I mentally able to process (kill) my meat birds?
This is a big one. For most, it’s a moral one.
For me, Katie, I am not at a point yet where I am comfortable being the Chicken Slayer. I know how to do it if I had to but I choose not to at this moment. Everything else I can handle with comfort and no problem. Because of this, I am the Chicken Tender doing 95% of the daily chicken care and my husband is the Chicken Slayer. Our son and daughter help with scalding, plucking, and eviscerating.
It should be noted here that Johnson Home meat birds are well taken care of and respect for their life is of utmost concern. That’s animal husbandry AND respect for God’s Creation. Our birds are prayed over and the Good Lord is thanked for their provision before the first sacrifice is made.
But that’s just us.
A better way to slaughter chickens
You may have heard of your grandma chopping the chicken’s head off and tossing the body in the yard to settle down. You’ve heard the saying “running around like a chicken with its head cut off”? This is that scenario, though it’s not likely the chicken will RUN; they will flail around for a few minutes.
Johnson Home chooses to cut the jugular after the bird has been calmly put into a processing, hugging, or killing cone. Because the blood rushes to their head, it calms the bird down. This method using a knife and one cut allows the bird to slip away into Glory quickly with no pain. Yes, the body will have some nerves to work out but when done properly, that bird’s life ended immediately and there is no suffering.
You do not want a wild, excited, stressed out bird just before the kill as they will secrete adrenaline into their muscle meat which is what we eat later. As Joel Salatin says, you can indeed eat stress. If the animal is stressed before slaughter, it will be left in the meat we consume.
Here is the design for the killing cones we use made from upcycled 5-gallon buckets and zip ties:
Chicken Processing Cones for $5 each
Or you can buy these premade cones.
5. Do I have enough space to raise my own meat birds?
Where there is a will, there is a way!
As a homesteader (if you identify as one), you know a characteristic of one is to be creative and use what you’ve got.
We have raised 5 sets of birds on less than 1/2 an acre. Our property, as recorded on the county tax map, is 1 acre. That includes our home, husband’s 42’x42′ workshop, quite a few garden beds, a greenhouse, chicken coop and run, fire pit area, driveway, and more! That doesn’t exactly leave us with a lot of space to raise birds.
Most of what I just listed exists in the backyard where we raise our birds. So we are definitely working with less than half an acre. And we have found we can move 2-3 tractors 2 times a day for 7.5 weeks in this space.
It’s only been this last fall 2024 raising that we even used the front yard at all. I’ll use “we” loosely as my husband was not a fan of the blue tarped tractors decorating our front yard. The amount of cars that slowed as they rode by brings a smile to my face.
Here are all the details on how we once raised 68 meat birds on less than 1/2 an acre (this is the most we’ve ever raised at once and we didn’t even use the front yard for them!)
Where can I order meat birds?
If you do not have a local hatchery (we don’t), order online from reputable hatcheries like Dahline Poultry (not sponsored).
Are you ready to raise your own meat birds yet?
I hope so!
It’s our mission at Johnson Home to encourage others to take back traditional skills by sharing learned experiences and to offer the community homemade and homegrown alternatives.
Our goal with this blog is to inspire you while sharing truths, good and bad, about raising your own food. If we can do this on our small scale homestead, you can too!
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