They are only four months. I know this is a little young, but my main goal in acquiring the Dorking breed was to fill our freezer and we are running out of room. I guess I can put up a temporary pen, but I was hopping I could get out of that. What is the best age to butcher?
Thanks for you...
Could someone please post the american poultry standard of perfection for silver gray dorkings, or at least some key points? I need to make some more room in my grow out pen, so my first batch of dorkings are going to the freezer this weekend. I just want to make sure I'm keeping the right...
I hope the Dorkings work out for you. But if they don't, feel free to send them my way I raise game birds so I know how to deal with butt headed roosters.
Thanks BGMatt, you are one over the most respected members on here as far as I am concerned. You post on several of the threads I watch and you always have very informative and to the point advice. Thank you for your input. As far as the roosters are concerned. I was only going to save one...
I have been doing egg selection, and I will start with the developmental cull on the bator eggs. Then for this year I think I will make my next cull at butcher time, only saving the biggest and best birds for breeding. Then next year I can be more strict in my culling. What would you say is...
Thank you so much!! This makes perfect sense! That's what I was thinking, that there must be something wrong. Chickens should hatch at 21 days. I just did not know how or what to fix. I am going to do my best to take your advice. It is going to be super hard for me to toss developing eggs...
Thank you both so much for your input. This really helps. It is so nice to have you all here when I have questions. I'm sure ther will be many more to come
Is this something I can fix, if so how? If I start only saving the first few to hatch, will it get better over time? Or should I just not worry about it?
This is my first year working with Dorkings. I have been hatching some of my eggs to grow my flock. In doing so I have found that the dorking eggs are taking an extra day to hatch. They are not piping until day 22 and do not usually make it out of the shell until day 23. At first I thought...
Hello my name is Tina and I am looking into finding a good meat type bird that I can keep breeding stock of and raise my own meat birds every year. I have heard that dorkings are the original meat bird and are still a good choice for homesteaders who want to be self reliant. I was wondering if...