Farming and Homesteading Heritage Poultry

[gg706]

We just have a fairly simple Weber smoker/grill (bought at Lowe's). I have only smoked store bought birds. We smoke 2 at a time. Smoking meat can be expensive, burning up alot of lump charcoal and smoking chips. So we fill up the grill. We will rub the chicken or inject whatever floats your boat, and let it sit while we prep the smoker. We have a chimney (bought at Lowe's) that you fill with charcoal (we use lump charcoal) and a burning newspaper under it to get the charcoal buring...takes 15 minutes or so to really get it going, you know when it ready when the flames start coming out the top of the charcoal. Fill up a bowl with water and put some of the smoking chips into the water to soak. I like the cherry wood, there are several flavors to pick from. Dump the burning charcoal on one side of the grill. We have a pan that belonged with an old toaster oven that we fill with liquid. (water, beer, apple juice...sometime all three) that pan is placed touching the charcoal but extends far enough across to be mostly under the chickens. Found out if the pan is not in contact or pretty close to the charcoal it does not get hot enough to do much good. We stuff an onion into each of the chickens cavity to keep the bird moist. Then place the birds on the smoker breast side up and breast toward the heat. Put a thermometer in the thickest part. add more fresh charcoal and some of the soaked chips directly to the hot burning charcoal. Put the lid on and watch the smoke roll!
We learned as we went. Our smoker gets too hot off the start..over 300 but if you close the damper underneath and close up the lid damper it starts to suffocate a little and bring down the temp. The dampers control the temp and opening and closing the lid alot is not a good idea. Ideally you want your temp to stay between 250 and 275. Keep fresh charcoal going in periodically if you let it burn down too much it takes a long time to get it burning again. We have had to fire up the chimney again and dump it in because we did not get fresh charcoal in soon enough. It is the dampers that control the temp for the most part NOT the charcoal. Keep your pan liquid up, don't let it run dry. Read somewhere the smoking chips only flavor for a couple of hours after that it does not flavor much so we add chips multiple times for the first hour then lay off after that. Sometimes we put the chips in again later just because we want the environment and smell of the smoke. We love it and smoke chicken almost every weekend. Any leftovers from the smoked chicken dinner gets prepared into fajitas, chopped barbeque chicken sandwiches etc. the following week. NONE of it goes to waste! Hope it helps. Good Luck with your smoker!

 

[gg706]

I saw that hatchery birds were disappointing. I must admit I did not read every page!

But I did get enough out what I read that hatchery was probably not the way to go. I think going to the poultry show is probably a good suggestion and Newnan is only 40 minutes from me so I could easily go and get some good info and leads on a source for chicks. Your black roo is VERY nice!

Edited....for roo not hen...

 

[Arielle]

Bob wrote:

"Most of the people are better off get tin chicks from hatcheries and stay away from the Standard Breed birds as their goals are not to be preservationist but to sell meat or eggs for a profit."

I would like to expand on the above, mostly with questions. Profit--- seems to me and I could be wrong here, that as feeding is a huge part of the bill ( 70% Hawes article) then how can I raise an economical heritage strain?

THe commercial birds grow muscling very fast or producevery high egg numbers. One OR the other, not both. THese super commercial strains require huge amounts of readily availalble feed: plenty of energy and plenty of protein, topped off with balanced vitamins and minerals. $$$$$ for the cos of thefeed and in a very short time. THe resulting product is produced at a profit.

I would love to expand this to look at heritage breeds as foragers. I have three breeds that seem to forage better than the others. THe BO and SS spend more time at scratching and looking; and the marans are way off in the woods scratching and having a merry old time in the danger zone ( jumped the fence). I have a SSH that is very flighty but I can hold him and carry him without a fuss. I would expect him to be a good forager too if he didn't stay holed up avoiding the roosters that harass him.

I keep thinking, how to use foraging type birds to make feeding more economical. Of course the difificult part is no Univeristy will spend the money on such a study. so I can only ask for input from the homesteading community anyone who can share. IMO I think to raise the birds over the time of year when forage is available and put them in the freezer by early fall for those headed to the freezer, then feed the hens for the winter for eggs ( and the roosters to).

Fred/ bob is this why those leghorns went to the freezer by early fall? Have I been thinking about this correctly?

 

[Cedarknob]

We just have a fairly simple Weber smoker/grill (bought at Lowe's). I have only smoked store bought birds. We smoke 2 at a time. Smoking meat can be expensive, burning up alot of lump charcoal and smoking chips. So we fill up the grill. We will rub the chicken or inject whatever floats your boat, and let it sit while we prep the smoker. We have a chimney (bought at Lowe's) that you fill with charcoal (we use lump charcoal) and a burning newspaper under it to get the charcoal buring...takes 15 minutes or so to really get it going, you know when it ready when the flames start coming out the top of the charcoal. Fill up a bowl with water and put some of the smoking chips into the water to soak. I like the cherry wood, there are several flavors to pick from. Dump the burning charcoal on one side of the grill. We have a pan that belonged with an old toaster oven that we fill with liquid. (water, beer, apple juice...sometime all three) that pan is placed touching the charcoal but extends far enough across to be mostly under the chickens. Found out if the pan is not in contact or pretty close to the charcoal it does not get hot enough to do much good. We stuff an onion into each of the chickens cavity to keep the bird moist. Then place the birds on the smoker breast side up and breast toward the heat. Put a thermometer in the thickest part. add more fresh charcoal and some of the soaked chips directly to the hot burning charcoal. Put the lid on and watch the smoke roll!
We learned as we went. Our smoker gets too hot off the start..over 300 but if you close the damper underneath and close up the lid damper it starts to suffocate a little and bring down the temp. The dampers control the temp and opening and closing the lid alot is not a good idea. Ideally you want your temp to stay between 250 and 275. Keep fresh charcoal going in periodically if you let it burn down too much it takes a long time to get it burning again. We have had to fire up the chimney again and dump it in because we did not get fresh charcoal in soon enough. It is the dampers that control the temp for the most part NOT the charcoal. Keep your pan liquid up, don't let it run dry. Read somewhere the smoking chips only flavor for a couple of hours after that it does not flavor much so we add chips multiple times for the first hour then lay off after that. Sometimes we put the chips in again later just because we want the environment and smell of the smoke. We love it and smoke chicken almost every weekend. Any leftovers from the smoked chicken dinner gets prepared into fajitas, chopped barbeque chicken sandwiches etc. the following week. NONE of it goes to waste! Hope it helps. Good Luck with your smoker!

I smoke in a cheap knock-off of the Webber grill, I do use a few charcoal bricks, maybe four or five with a couple added later, but use green [freshly cut] mulberry for the smoke. Mulberry is a trash tree here, and few seem know what a great flavor it has for smoking fish or fowl. I go cut some out of a fence row when I need it. It's free. LOL

A commercial white broiler kept slender on a restricted diet to get to breeding age, then culled because I only I use the pullets as breeders and this one was male, and smoked all day over mulberry. I'm probably done buying the so-called Cornish Rocks because my self-sustaining birds are nearly identical in shape to this one when they are processed, though the Cornish have shorter, thicker drums than this.

 

[gg706]

I have thought about attempting to find some wood I could cut myself to use for smoking. I have not found anything I thought would cook food well. We have alot of georgia pines and sweet gums here. So far I have just bought lump charcoal from Lowes or where ever...I can go through a whole bag or more in a day of smoking. Can get a little expensive! But we enjoy it so much...it is some food cooking and some entertainment as we have a few drinks and play cornhole while the meat is smoking. So it is a cheap date I guess! Your chicken looks great!
As for the Cornish. I have not raised or eaten ANY home raised chicken. I am considering getting into it and I am only repeating what I have read from other threads and have drawn my own conclusion. So take it for what it is if you choose to..... Seems the CornishX are VERY expensive to raise. Someone quoted $12.00 per bird to raise and she was withholding feed and attempting to range them. She said she would never do it again. I have been shocked at least 3 or 4 times by the cost it took for the poster to raise the CornishX.
Like Arielle, I would like to raise a dual purpose for homestead use even if it is a mix breed. Something sustainable that I can breed and raise for meat or eggs. That will be as cheap as possible on feed and range well. I am not looking to sell, just for my own use.
@ Cedarknob So you restricted the diet of the Cornish and get the hens to breeding age and breed them with a dual purpose breed roo? Which has evolved into a sustainable dual purpose mix breed with a good amount of meat? It probably sounds like dumb questions, but my Wyandottes and Araucanas I got last year as my first chicken experience as an adult are supposed to be dual purpose.....I cannot imagine there would be much to eat on them. There is not much there. Might get a few bites and that would be it! I thought about getting a meaty heritage roo to go over my Wyandotte hens to bulk up my stock. But maybe I should go Cornish female. ?

 

[bnjrob]

Our Javas so far are great as dual purpose. We just butchered our second cockerel this week because he was a runt that we don't want to breed. He dressed out at almost 4 lb even being a runt. Hubby has been just wild about the large leg bones and leg meat on the these guys. None of the chickens are a year old yet, but we have more than enough eggs for our use - they are still running anywhere from small to large eggs. Hopefully as they continue to mature, we will see more large eggs. We are always inundated with grasshoppers when it is warm and our Javas are grasshopper fiends. When let out to forage, they literally fly around the pasture to scare up grasshoppers out of the tall grass.

 

[Robert Blosl]

Here is my take on how to make money with the H chicken or The Standard Breed Poultry Breed. Choose a breed that may be in demand where people would like to order chicks at $8 each from you and eggs at what price you want to charge say $24. a dozen. They pay for There own shipping. You may have 20 to 30 extra nice birds that people would like to buy to show or to breed from. They would be $25 to $50 each.

Then if you have any birds left over that you dont want to sell as show birds or breeders to a beginner you eat them or sell them for $10. dressed to a person who wants a organically free range chicken to eat. Your profit is more than $3. for a dozen eggs to a person to eat. More than say $3. for what a hatchery chicken would be and then if you sold a hatchery chicken from your door step you might get $8. for them. You do the math.

If I get orders for 100 chicks at $8 each and sell 10 dozen eggs plus sell twenty birds for $35. each as breeders I did the best I could do for me down here.

If you lived in New York, Ohio Indiana where they have nice big shows you could get $50 to $75 per bird and they would be sold in two hours.

That is if you perfect your craft as a breeder for your favorite breed that is in demand. You may have one breed you love RI Reds. Then you may have Mottled Javas you sell them till the demand goes off then you convert to a new breed that is a hot demand for. Hope you see how you can make money with H chickens.

Not a lot of money to make but you should break even and you have the pride of having one of the top strains or lines in the USA.

If they are really good and can win at major shows the price even goes up by demand.

bob

 

[Arielle]

I have thought about attempting to find some wood I could cut myself to use for smoking. I have not found anything I thought would cook food well. We have alot of georgia pines and sweet gums here. So far I have just bought lump charcoal from Lowes or where ever...I can go through a whole bag or more in a day of smoking. Can get a little expensive! But we enjoy it so much...it is some food cooking and some entertainment as we have a few drinks and play cornhole while the meat is smoking. So it is a cheap date I guess! Your chicken looks great!
As for the Cornish. I have not raised or eaten ANY home raised chicken. I am considering getting into it and I am only repeating what I have read from other threads and have drawn my own conclusion. So take it for what it is if you choose to..... Seems the CornishX are VERY expensive to raise. Someone quoted $12.00 per bird to raise and she was withholding feed and attempting to range them. She said she would never do it again. I have been shocked at least 3 or 4 times by the cost it took for the poster to raise the CornishX.
Like Arielle, I would like to raise a dual purpose for homestead use even if it is a mix breed. Something sustainable that I can breed and raise for meat or eggs. That will be as cheap as possible on feed and range well. I am not looking to sell, just for my own use.
@ Cedarknob So you restricted the diet of the Cornish and get the hens to breeding age and breed them with a dual purpose breed roo? Which has evolved into a sustainable dual purpose mix breed with a good amount of meat? It probably sounds like dumb questions, but my Wyandottes and Araucanas I got last year as my first chicken experience as an adult are supposed to be dual purpose.....I cannot imagine there would be much to eat on them. There is not much there. Might get a few bites and that would be it! I thought about getting a meaty heritage roo to go over my Wyandotte hens to bulk up my stock. But maybe I should go Cornish female. ?

gg-- I'm on a big learning curve. Learned to butcher my own birds and eat my own birds this fall. I have been eating on average 1-2 roasts a week. My freezer camp birds are nealy all cckl, nearly all at 5 months old. THey are skinny, but the legs and thighs are big and juicy. I actually think the whole bird is yummy and I am eating the breast meat ( my least favorite on commercial birds) with relish. The texture is fairly firn, and almost chewy. I like the texture and flavor-- richer meat flavor, and I have to work at chewing. THe breast meat is VERY flat. Less meat than the legs.

As I walk around the free ranging birds I pick up the males and feel their breast meat, every one is a disappointment. Even my marans which are supposed to be a meat and egg type I would put more in the egg realm. THe Americunas are not meaty either. THe search continues . . .I have Sand HIll catalog--though I don't think it is as comprehensive as the ABLC listing.

Bone to meat ratio does matter to me. I can't eat the bones, I can make a great soup, and I think meat is moister when cooked with the bone in. Otherwise the cats like to try munching on them, with little luck, and I toss the bones in the compost. ( I recycle everything. )

An experiment:: hatch a series of buckeye chicks and raise them up for the freezer. I have one hen who raised her chicks ( hatched July) and only lost one ( it was unthrifty within a few days of hatching) SHe raised 12/13 and they are still running around. Moslty scavenging dropped g rain from other livestock. Wandering down into the woods and hiding under a floored barn. II wonder if these young pullets would be worthy mothers of buckeye chicks for the experiment.

 

[Arielle]

Our Javas so far are great as dual purpose. We just butchered our second cockerel this week because he was a runt that we don't want to breed. He dressed out at almost 4 lb even being a runt. Hubby has been just wild about the large leg bones and leg meat on the these guys. None of the chickens are a year old yet, but we have more than enough eggs for our use - they are still running anywhere from small to large eggs. Hopefully as they continue to mature, we will see more large eggs. We are always inundated with grasshoppers when it is warm and our Javas are grasshopper fiends. When let out to forage, they literally fly around the pasture to scare up grasshoppers out of the tall grass.

BO rooster was chasing the one fly that dared to hatch today!

 

[bnjrob]

BO rooster was chasing the one fly that dared to hatch today!

Love watching them chase things. We have one cockerel that chases his own tail feathers when they are flying in the wind.