Reviving the thread a little, partly to help me keep track of my own thoughts about this year's poultry-related progress in regards to my 2025 wish list. This is a bit of a rant to help me organize my thoughts so bare with me here.
Cornish cross were messy and pitiful but boy were they big and pretty darn tasty! I will say the meat can be rather bland unless well seasoned. I kept one pullet (the most mobile of the bunch) and have 2 (5 were duds) of her eggs under a broody due to hatch in a week or so. 3 of the 9 I butchered have been eaten via grilled, rotisserie, and most recently battered and deep fried. I think I will get another breed of broiler next year, possibly the pioneer broilers at Meyer hatchery and just maybe keep a few back for breeders.
Note to self: part out most of the birds to save on freezer space, deep fried is the way to go anyways! Also, pressure can all birds over 16 weeks. Much easier and makes a quick meal.
Note #2: no impulse buying at the feed store! Of the 7 I picked up only 2 are to my liking. The barred rock is the best of them with the diamond duchess a close second. I could live without the GLW, white leghorn (spastic), bantam cockerel, legbar (why is she bantam sized?), and sapphire whatever (already have one).
My Barnevelder pullet is runty, she was incredibly slow to feather out as was the buckeye but at least the buckeye looks like a proper chicken now. I thought for sure I'd come out to see the barnevelder dead at some point but she keeps on living. She will likely be culled as I cannot see myself hatching eggs from her, but who knows, maybe her egg laying ability and egg color will surprise me.
I got 2 turkey eggs to hatch, one white and one black. Black one is getting white mottling and the white one has grey/blue markings. They are FANTASTIC! So friendly but they are only 11 weeks old so we shall see if they stay lovable. Current guess, white is a jake while the black is a hen. If so you can bet I'll be trying to hatch eggs from them come spring.
As for the possibility of ducks... due to unforeseen circumstances I now have 2 chocolate brown ducks, not sure on breed nor gender yet. Honestly I could do without them as they are so messy and spastic. If they happen to be males they'll be processed.
And lastly, for the eggs that I hatched out it seems I have plenty of new colored layers and nicely patterned birds to pick from. My only issue is not getting a nicely patterned cockerel. Currently I've kept a SLW X BJG male but he may very well get replaced by one of the 3 broody-raised boys who could carry the blue egg gene.
I have 58 chickens and 3 eggs cooking. Need to get that number down to 30 before snow flies. 10 I plan to process and hopefully I can sell/give away 4 pullets I can do without and whichever girls who lay brown eggs in my egg color project. If I can stick to a strict rule of only keeping fast maturing birds, I should also look into culling any pullets who don't lay by 24 weeks old. I also have 4 bantams, one mille fleur d'uccles cockerel, an EE hen and her 2 daughters fathered by a BJG. I do not need these bantams but the EE hen is a fantastic mother so she has her merits, perhaps her daughters will be good broodies too.
Once I get my numbers down I can start looking into what I want to do for next year... Oh who am I kidding, I already have a few ideas!
