Bob Blosl's Heritage Large Fowl Thread

[Lacy Blues]

When I was a young boy we use to go bare food and nothing was more fun than staning in a fresh cow patty and then going to the river put our feet in the water and let the green stuff go down stream. Then we would get a bucket and gather up all the horse turds and throw them in the river and shoot them with the 22 and see if we could hit them. Maybe thats why my feet are acting up in my old age. I use the horse bisquets today for my birds in thier condtioning pens for them to eat and have some excercies with.

One of my mentors Vern Sorenson told me one time one of his favoite breeds was Black Sumatra. I never owned them but the color of thier feathers is like a Black East Indie duck. Sunning is the word. There has been some great one breed in the past fourty years and are part of the Heritage Fowl class.

Heritage Bantams are again many. I have White Rock bantams and Rhode ISland Red bantms and they lay just as good as the large fowl, they have plenty of meat to eat once you eat them and they will win in the show room. They eat one fifth of what a large fowl eats and you get the same for them when you sell them as you do with the large fowl. I get the same per egg and chick when I sell them in the spring and it cost me one fifth the cost to feed them as large fowl.

There for they are the best buy in my view for home steading. I also have Buff Brahma Bantams and the color on these are equal to a light brown leghorn. There is meat on thier bones as well but I can not hatch engouh for the demand for this old line out of Ohio that I got. They are great sitter which hatch the best chicks money can buy.

Bantams are not all that bad and many would be better off having them as large fowl. I have large fowl in White Rocks and large Reds but they eat like pigs.

Well I got to go out and hug Mr. Silkie. Buy they way Walt I got him from Marty McGuire last October to cross onto my cull pullets to make a sitting strain of females. He must be part of the old line you talked about. Thats a Heritage Chicken if there was every one in my view.

Have a great night and see you in the moarning. bob

I'm learning here that you're probably not much different than some of the rest of us.

 

[Robert Blosl]

Y a I use to be a so called west coast Yankee to these folks down here. Now I am a Red Neck.

Married a girl from Mississippi so I have changed. I would still love to live in Washington and fish for Steel head in the Rivers that came out of Mount St. He lens but that is not poss able.

This climate I live in is not good for large fowl its so hot and humid com paired to the mid west, North or the West Coast but I have learned they birds can adjust to this climate in about three to five years and do well.

Most of us give up by then and never know if we could have success in the first place. Some times some breeds do better in your climate than others. Many do not understand this or think we are Wak jobs when we suggest that to them.

Again these people are what we call here today gone tomorrow chicken people. When they go fishing they never catch any fish and always want to blame it on something other than them selves. I guess its just normal human nature.

Living on a farm in the country was SO much fun. Wish I could do it over again. bob

 

[ashandvine]

One of my mentors Vern Sorenson told me one time one of his favoite breeds was Black Sumatra. I never owned them but the color of thier feathers is like a Black East Indie duck. Sunning is the word. There has been some great one breed in the past fourty years and are part of the Heritage Fowl class.

Heritage Bantams are again many. I have White Rock bantams and Rhode ISland Red bantms and they lay just as good as the large fowl, they have plenty of meat to eat once you eat them and they will win in the show room. They eat one fifth of what a large fowl eats and you get the same for them when you sell them as you do with the large fowl. I get the same per egg and chick when I sell them in the spring and it cost me one fifth the cost to feed them as large fowl.

There for they are the best buy in my view for home steading.

Bantams are not all that bad and many would be better off having them as large fowl. I have large fowl in White Rocks and large Reds but they eat like pigs.

Its not the first time I have heard an arguement for bantams and I am considering it. There's breeds that are small but put out a lot of eggs, like the Norwegion Jaerhon, but if I was going for meat I would have to go with a bantam Fav or such. Still learning. Its worth thinking about now that I consider feed vs meat and how Americans eat more meat than any other country. I can live with a little less. Time will show me what to do. I could forego eating chickens if they were Sumatra. I am glad your mentor thought well of them. I can not yet say what it is that I find so alluring but the black iridescent feathers, the tight feathering, medium size, long tail.,.. that intelligent but keen head, almost raptor like... wow. And NO BIG COMB ha ha ha. I heard they were black and blue all through, like Silkies. The thought of eating that is... intriguing. I realized maybe its not bad to love the bird you are raising. If you, Bob, are really hugging a chicken (which I doubt) I can think about having a breed just because they are beautiful.... until the feed bill comes.
Its good to know about the horse manure and cow manure. I have a cow farm half a mile or less up the road and my neighbor is getting his daughter a horse in the spring. Sure explains why my friends partridge rocks lay tangerine yolks.

 

[nyanamia]

I"m definitely attracted to the shiny factor of a Sumatra.

Even the hens have a brilliant green shine. I saw a picture on another thread of a cleaned and dressed Sumatra and it had a pretty good drumstick on it. It was large fowl, though.

 

[Yard full o' rocks]

Folks, there have been multiple comments/questions/etc concerning the "dual purpose" of some heritage breeds, especially as it pertains to using some of them as meat birds.

I've "dressed" a few of my Rocks, but overall I've not been impressed. I'd love to hear how/when some of you process your "culls" for the table. I've skinned everything I've processed and perhaps that's the problem (??). Even in the crockpot, they were a bit "stringy". Maybe they were just too large. Do any of you have a timeframe you use for the age to process them? An age at which they're too old?

Also, I really don't want to purchase a $1000 plucker but would like to put some of the 100+ birds I raise that "Don't make the cut" into the freezer. It would certainly justify feeding so many for so long.

Anyone have advise/experience to share? I'm a hunter and a fisherman, so I'm up to trying about anything

Thanks

 

[Maggiesdad]

A chicken is never to old to eat. Some tips on how to treat heritage birds here.

 

[Maggiesdad]

Another thing - the crock pots of today run hotter than what they did when I was a kid...

 

[Lacy Blues]

Folks, there have been multiple comments/questions/etc concerning the "dual purpose" of some heritage breeds, especially as it pertains to using some of them as meat birds.

I've "dressed" a few of my Rocks, but overall I've not been impressed. I'd love to hear how/when some of you process your "culls" for the table. I've skinned everything I've processed and perhaps that's the problem (??). Even in the crockpot, they were a bit "stringy". Maybe they were just too large. Do any of you have a timeframe you use for the age to process them? An age at which they're too old?

Also, I really don't want to purchase a $1000 plucker but would like to put some of the 100+ birds I raise that "Don't make the cut" into the freezer. It would certainly justify feeding so many for so long.

Anyone have advise/experience to share? I'm a hunter and a fisherman, so I'm up to trying about anything

Thanks

How about around $20 for a plucker? See

We built one but I haven't used it yet. After seeing the video you will understand the following...

Ours is on a 3' threaded rod which we will attach to my husband's electric grinder that he will bolt to his work bench. Also am thinking about a way to capture the feathers as they're plucked so they don't get all over the place as well as me!

There are other ideas out there, a lot of them on You Tube. It would be easier, probably, to make a drum plucker that you just drop the birds into once scalded but I used one once when doing meat birds and there were several times that this machine would break a wing or even a leg. I think that's too rough. I don't want bruised meat. So, one at a time will be best for me. Besides, I don't have 100 birds to process. 20 at a time will be about it.

 

[Lacy Blues]

I think one thing we need to remember when we dress out our home grown birds is that they are not cornish crosses. I've grown up seeing chickens at the grocery store with HUGE breast meat and then I look at a processed bird at home. It is disappointing to some extent because in your mind, you expect to see something as meaty as what you see in the store. But remember the flavor that has been sacrificed by such a bird. You probably won't be as disappointed in the flavor of your heritage bird as you are in the way it looks.

Something I have considered doing is getting a cornish cross female or two and raising them as I would a normal bird and then crossing my heritage breed on this bird to increase the size of the breast meat etc., but I'm not there yet. I know this is sacriledge but I wouldn't keep a singe offspring. They would be ONLY for the freezer. In the meantime, I would continue to raise my heritage stock and improve them the best that I could.

My Delawares are about 5-1/2 months old right now. The only thing I'm waiting on is a scalder and then I have about 16 cockerels that need to go somewhere. And probably about 5 of my 8 hens as well.

We got a new (to us) freezer off of Craig's List last week for $95 for a 20 cu. ft. upright freezer in excellent condition. Just waiting on birds.

Last week I took out most of the bantams that I had. Black leghorn bantams. Beautiful little birds but I didn't need them and don't really know why I bred them. I needed bantam blood for my bantam Andalusian project but I think they probably had some oegb in them. I kept a trio to sell. I kept two of the Andalusian prototype cockerels for breeding next year.

I found a post on You Tube that showed how to "breast" some ruffed grouse, I think it was. With my back, I couldn't do the cockerels but I was able to do the pullets. I have almost 20 little bird breasts going into the freezer for some future use. Fast and easy - no plucking, and not much gutting. They have some pretty good sized breast meat on them! I was surprised.

 

[cgmccary]

Quote:
We process our Buckeyes usually at 18-20 weeks. They dress out at 3.5 - 4.0 lbs. Two of us used to hand pluck, but it would take us about 6 hours to do 7 birds from start to finish. We invested in a good plucker and now we can easily do 12 birds in about 3 hours from start to finish. This last round, we processed 12 with one cockerel that was 11 months old (I have had older too). Tonight, we had the 11 month old as chicken & dumplings (he dressed out at 5.5 lbs). We have cooked Buckeye stewed, fried, roasted, grilled, coq-au-vin, every way imaginable. Never had a problem with "stringy." I haven't had commercial CRX chicken in quite some time and find that it tastes like rubber to me. I have vowed not to buy commercial chicken again. Buckeye's dark meat is much darker and has a richer taste than your store bought chicken. I have been paying a lot of attention to increasing the breasts in my birds and find that it has paid off. Of course, the breasts are not CRX sized but they are certainly adequate. The Buckeyes' thighs are larger than CRX, meat has more flavor and has texture.

I am not the cook in the household but the older birds must be slowed cooked. We had a bird older than one year as coq-au-vin. My favorite way to eat Buckeye is split and cooked on the grill. It is so flavorful. Of course, you know to relax the bird in the fridge for a couple of days after slaughter (before freezing). Never cook the first day or two.

Another thing I noticed is that the free range birds skins were yellow and the penned raised ones were white. There was really not a noticeable size difference between those penned raised and those free ranged.