Recent content by VT-510

I went for it today, cut the daily ration down by 25% and the bedtime toss is now corn. These Red Bro's are VERY active, fast as all hell in the open field (if one escapes) and also good foragers. Weight conversion is maybe not as good as Cornish X but close. I did the X's last year and as far...

Do you think cracked corn would lower the protein enough w/out adding too much fat or would it be a wash as far as fat weight vs. protein weight? I ask only because I have corn on hand to feed my pigs. It's going to require some futzing unfortunately...but too big is better than too small.

Sorry, forgot to mention that. I move them twice daily, and unlimited feed during the day, one 30lb hanging feeder in each. The 6/7 week olds (65 per tractor) will go thru that in the day for the most part, I scatter a couple of pounds in each tractor at night to keep them occupied. The others...

So I have a chicken operation going, I send 80 birds a week down to a restaurant in NYC. I get 200 chicks every 2 weeks and send the larger ones at 7 weeks and the second group of 80 at 8 weeks. This leaves me with 20+ birds to sell off my farm. My target weight is 3 1/4 lbs for restaurant birds...

I am doing 160 meat birds in a 10'x20' tractor that I have open out on a fenced in area. I have been moving the tractor every 2 days, but it is not enough. There are 5'x5' sections in each parcel where I move where the grass is completely matted down and will die. I thought I could rake up the...

I read about extending the day from the a.m. side, so for the last week my light goes on at 2:30 am and off at 7 am and they go to roost at dusk around 4:30 pm. Seems to be working, the new poulets (just 6 mo.) have all started laying as of this week and some of the six birds I inherited last...

Well thanks for all of that, small birds or not (Narragansett's 6 mo. old 9 1/2 lbs and two at 7 1/2 lbs) they were the BEST turkeys that I or anyone at our table had ever had. Looks like I'll be doing it again next year, can't wait. I withheld on the pork skin idea too, would have just been...

Thank you. One for the learning curve. I didn't know they had such a long mature rate also. They were 6 months old and were fed Poulin Turkey Pellets for the majority then a mix with that and cracked corn and beer to finish. Their frames are a decent size, they just look too thin. I'll try and...

Well that was a disappointment. My 3 Narragansetts TOGETHER weighed 24 LBS. Two were 7 1/2 one was 9. My X-Rock chickens were that big after 10 weeks. Don't know what I did wrong, they had free access to food, I fed them beer and cracked corn for the past 2 weeks, fresh harvest pork fat for the...

"Barding", excellent. Thanks to you both so much for the thoughtful replies.

Hey there, thanks for that reply and I am in total agreement (in practice and otherwise) with your statements. I wanted to try the skinned bird just to try something different, and the fact that I am cooking two, an 18 pounder and about a 14 pounder and thought that I might experiment on the...

Hi All.... I just finished harvesting my pigs and put a bunch of skin in the freezer along with the usual bits. I am about to harvest and process my 3 Narragansetts on Monday and was thinking about wrapping one of them in this fine pork skin before baking. I have found NO info about this on the...

I am about to process 21 birds tomorrow (first time), when one is doing so many and I cant fit them all in my fridge to rest, I was thinking of buying a couple large garbage cans and filling them with ice water, replenishing the ice as needed. Comments?

Okay thanks. I have put my turkeys in a house that was used by my new layers while they were getting to the other hens. Right now the turkeys are in a 5'x 10' run attached to their coop, in the middle of a 30' x 80' bird fenced in area where I chicken tractor my broilers around and house my...

Is it okay to pasture turkeys (3 month old) in a field that has had chickens (both broilers and layers) pasturing on? The guy I got them from said that the feed that I give them needs to be medicated for fear of "Black Head"(?) disease, a transferable disease from chicken to turkey. Is this true?