BREEDING FOR PRODUCTION...EGGS AND OR MEAT.

[BantyChooks]

Lurk on BantyChooks! Ask any question you dare...

I'm sure I'll be around to bug you all with some of my 3,283 questions if there's some I can't find the answers to through research. Thanks.

 

[Fire Ant Farm]

Everyone got soaked cat food today. The Naked Neck adults vacuumed it up in less than a minute, as did the German New Hampshire girls ("Golden Girls") and the Marans, Cream Legbars, and olive egger - basically, all the laying hens went to town. The boys like it but eat less. The grow outs got some too. (the GNH NNs and Puppy's kids - calling them the Enterprise coop [keeper boy is Kirk] and the Botany Bay coop [keeper boy is Khan]). They did that whole, "Is it gonna KILL US?!" thing but ate some of it (and I put some on top of the dry crumble in their feeder and they ate that). Everyone's laying nearly every single day, so I think I'll start doing cat food at least once a week for them, as well as the growouts as they are starting juvenile molt. (I did it in the winter earlier to prepare them as breeders before collecting their eggs for hatching as well.)

"Mommy, Is it gonna KILL US?!?!"


As I was doing it I realized - because this is a grain free formula being used for the animal protein, my chickens get fancier cat food than my cats do!

- Ant Farm

 

[Fire Ant Farm]

OK, I got weights on my German New Hampshire-Naked neck crosses today. It's week 13. I almost didn't do it (it's tiring and time consuming), but I'm glad I did.

Their father, Tank, is a Naked Neck who is remarkable for being very large as a chick and early fast growth - he slowed down after about 10-12 weeks and is a respectable 7-8 pounds now. (He also has very "New Hampshire" like coloring). Their mothers were two German New Hampshire hens, nearly identical, from a good breeder. Tank is on the chart as the blue line for comparison (I'm using him as my comparison for all chicks I'm growing for size this year). A late bloomer that surpassed Tank (Snape) is green for comparison and a different shape of growth curve - Snape is about 9-10 pounds (I think), but bigger than Tank as an adult certainly. Boys are orange, girls are purple, showing the clear size difference I usually see with NN females and males.

These chicks showed early fast growth, larger that their father, but roughy a similar trajectory. But in week 13, they have now tipped upward in weight, and I am wondering if that's the slower GNH influence now kicking in. Note that I gave these juveniles some cat food (one cup for 14 chickens) yesterday. I think this is too soon to attribute it to that, but I suppose it's possible? It only happened with the boys, maybe hormones? That's when the GNH boys started getting big. (I should also note that Tank and Snape were raised in the fall, and 12-13 weeks was when it started to get a little chillier here.) Theories, theories, theories...

Anyhow, here's the data. They are HUGE - biggest boy (Kirk) is almost 6 pounds at 13 weeks - and body shape is excellent on the best boys (there are some narrower bodies among the smaller non-keeper boys). They are also extremely sweet tempered (similar to their father). Between these and the S&Gs, things are going well for dual purpose NNs here.





- Ant Farm

 

[lcertuche]

Cool. I really need some NN's. I hear really great things about them.

 

[DesertChic]

Cool. I really need some NN's. I hear really great things about them.

You'll find a lot of NN fans here...and on the Naked Neck thread. There's a lot to love about the breed, and they're terribly under-appreciated.

 

[bramblefir]

It's sunny today! Our weather's been like this lately:

Except that it's not summer and it's been 7 months...

Anyway, I wanted to share a picture of one of my English Orp hens out with her brood of goslings. She's a big girl, but I'm thinking they might outgrow her "assets" by 5 weeks.

 

[Gorman Farm]

It's sunny today! Our weather's been like this lately:

Except that it's not summer and it's been 7 months...

Anyway, I wanted to share a picture of one of my English Orp hens out with her brood of goslings. She's a big girl, but I'm thinking they might outgrow her "assets" by 5 weeks.

She is a beautiful hen...what color do you cal that?

 

[bramblefir]

She is a beautiful hen...what color do you cal that?

In English Orpingtons it's called Jubilee. It's basically just a Red Mille Fleur. Speckled Sussex are the same color too.

 

[Beer can]

It's sunny today! Our weather's been like this lately: Except that it's not summer and it's been 7 months... Anyway, I wanted to share a picture of one of my English Orp hens out with her brood of goslings. She's a big girl, but I'm thinking they might outgrow her "assets" by 5 weeks.

Cute,Lol! They'll still follow 'mom'. My dad hatched a bunch of wild turkeys under a black japanese bantam yrs ago. Pretty funny when they grew a little, watching those giants follow little mamma crow.

 

[Turk Raphael]

Just when I thought I had regained my sanity after the crazy BS I've been through over this past year, I seem to have stomped around in the tall weeds long enough to step into a new pile of ##IT. I had all my breeding plans worked out and all was full speed ahead but...a lady in Jeffersontown Indiana (just across the river from Louisville) offered me 5 young American Bresse pullets that are out of birds her 'wife' ordered from Florida. I should have said NO for a hundred reasons but the one that first comes to mind the fact that some of their siblings were hatched with "feet problems".

Many folks think they are being bred too close due to the very narrow genetic bottle-neck of the breed in this country. I had mentioned to them that I would half-way like to take a shot at them in a small way but didn't say what I would do. What I should do is wring their necks and forget about it but I'm just intrigued enough to give it a shot.

My Hillbilly helpers are returning this spring to help me again because they really had a good time while they were here last and had good use for the money. I go ahead and mention my plans in this paragraph...My helpers are going to bring me 3 seasoned Black Australorp cocks from Jason and I plan to cross them over the Bresse...injecting some seriously needed ultra-wild genetic material...then pick out the best phenotypically correct male offspring back over the pure American Bresse hens....

Why??? Because I can. What do you think @Kev ?