I'm curious as to what causes the green sheen vs blue sheen. Because in Crevecoeurs, I read that blue sheen is undesirable, so I wonder how it comes about?
Bob Blosl's Heritage Large Fowl Thread
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OK, the difficulty is where you, or anyone else lives. You need to find out about the regulatons in your state for meat and, perhaps, eggs. Then there's the question about whether or not there's a market where you live for farm-fresh, local food. We've been able to do alright here in NH because we have both non-suffocating government regulations and a strong local food economy that pays a decent price for the product.
Eggs are really the key, meaning the development of a good egg market will help you break even; it pays for the grain. Still, as mentioned above, trying to work in some modern notion of "your time has value" will blow this right out of the water. Here, though, you have to pause and ask what is enough of a return.
When we were at the height of our markets, we were doing pretty darn well and sold a lot of poultry and eggs. I had stopped teaching. I was farming full-time, balancing market days and on-farm days, working constantly...and I actually mean constantly. Finally, after multiple years of this pace, I realized one day that I wasn't having fun anymore, in the sense that the beauty, or rather my awareness of the beauty, had deminished greatly. People would visit our farm and remark at how wonderfully beautiful it was, and all I could do was think about the work. We realized that all we ever talked about was how much we worked.
Then I started thinking about the tradition of old New England farms, which often involved multiple crops and products the sum of which made a living. I started to think about my teaching as a crop and as one that paid rather well, at that. I realized, for how much I was working, I might as well return to teaching, make twice as much, and return to enjoying the farming. It was a good move. Now I am free to do only that, which I want to do, and if I don't want to do it, I don't have to.
There are many aspects of the poultry farming that can make money come towards you. First of all, what are you willing to do, and what can you do? What is legal? What are the regulations? What markets are there? What actually fits into your schedule in a sustainable way?
Then there's thinking about earning in a different way, and I really mean this. Our freezers are full of meat and quart bags of frozen stock. Our fridge has tons of eggs, and quarts of pickled eggs. Barring a little beef and pork from a farm down the road, our protein comes from here. This is what we eat. Between the poultry and our gardening we spend much less at the grocery store, and I do mean much less. I'm not suggesting that one saves any money per se, but that the money spent here replaces the money spent there. Moreover, the quality of our food is distinctly superior. Thus, I don't compare our chicken to corporate chicken product; rather, I recognize the vastly superior product that we enjoy every week and recognize it as such. You ask yourself how much this chicken would cost you at a supermarket, a chicken of equal quality, and then you start to realize that you're doing pretty well.
What do you earn spiritually from your poultry hobby in this short life time? I know it can be, perhaps, a bit awkward to discuss things on this level, but there is valuable spiritual aspect to farming and gardening that transcends religious institution and sect. The very root "cult" in agriculture means both "growing" and "worship". St. Benedict said "ora et labora [pray and work]", and the work he meant was manual and agricultural work. St. Paul says "rogamus ut quieti sitis, ut vestrum negotium agatis, et ut operemini manibus vestris [We ask that you be still, the you mind your own business, and that you mork with your hands]." I have found the work, even the work of shovelling litter, to be outstandingly centering and valuable, deeply valuable, making it a kind of earning. When I become too stressed in my life, crazed from business, a good day spent taking care of the chickens is worth a spa visit and then some.
Then there's the social aspect. Chicken shows are fun, and the more involved you are, the more you get your hands dirty, the more you go out on a limb and chat with people, the more fun they become. You learn so much in mini-lesson from the folk there, and there's a value to that. Plus, chicken shows, even going away and staying at a hotel, and gas, etc.., costs a lot less that going away for a weekend in the big city of your choice for shopping and fine dining (where they serve you crap industrial food anyways).
Now, because of our business aspect, we have developed a rather solid infrastructure, such that we can tend to multiple breeds, not just in a survivor method, or some random shuffling of this or that in a constant disarray, but we have a place for everything and everything in its place. We have found systems to be absolutely key to success, everything working smoothly. Moreover, we are perfectionists. I believe that most people with a good set up are best served by keeping one breed and only one breed. Keep that breed, aim to make it the best in SOP quality and then start honing in on it's prodcutive qualities such that your birds are the place to go to all who might want stock. One breed done well is an outstanding achievement. The barns shown on this thread, a few pages back, are excellent examples of building suitable for the production of one breed. You need breeding pens, brooding pens, growing pens, and, perhaps, fattening pens. If you must have a second breed, make it divergent, a breed that offers a different experience and a different product. This means, though, either doubling your infratructure or cheapening your product. Every breed you get makes the other breeds suffer unless you are willing to invest in the total infratructure needed, which gives one pause. This above all else, if you are trying to do poultry in a way that it doesn't monopolize all of your funds, do not over extend your resources with multiple breeds.
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Well, super-duper thank you. I just sent her a message. I'll let you know if it goes anywhere.
Best,
Joseph
I'm not certain. I know that strong green sheen is associated with vigor. In the example given, the birds had the nice green sheen in the extend of the feather. The blue was only n the small bar in the tip of the spangle.
I've never heard of blue sheen in Crevecoeurs, then again, most Creves I've seen were of rather low quality, the females especially being quite mat.
I am convinced it is in the genes. Period.
Thanks Yellow House and BarnGoddess, I'm just having fun and learning, and my birds are hatchery birds. But I like them and think they're very pretty and personable and they have actually become my favorite birds in the yard. So naturally I've become more interested in them and what makes them unique 
- May 19, 2009
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Hi,
I was reading an classic poultry book and they touched on this subject. There is a lot of faddism in the poulty world. I suspect you have probably read Daniel Pinks', "A Whole New Mind". He is surely right. Now we do live in a design-driven age. So I coupled that with the old advice from the book... to succeed, one needs to keep to the latest fads in poultry. Keep each one for the hottest years and then move on to the "next big thing". . Whether that be a new breed of chicken, a fancy new waterer, a new assessory for the coop, a nutritional supplement "everyone" has to have. Both the old advice and the new trends suggest for greatest profit one needs to continually surf the latest trends.
Best,
Karen in western PA, USA
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We are seeing far too much of the faddism in poultry now. The newest unrecognized color, or weird obscure breed, gets the big $ to the detriment of the established breeds that need help. $100 a chick, for a breed that only thrives is a designated area ? 12 chick minimum? That's nuts ! The sharks are getting rich at newcomers' expense.
Great posts Joseph.
This is the inside of the gray and white barn. It is 30 years old.....just repainted it so I took some pictures. The inside is 8 pens of 4 X 8 pens. They can be used for growing, mating or conditioning. I put this back door in with the idea of leaving it open on really hot days, but never used it in the 30 years. This building stays pretty cool.
Walt
This is the inside of the gray and white barn. It is 30 years old.....just repainted it so I took some pictures. The inside is 8 pens of 4 X 8 pens. They can be used for growing, mating or conditioning. I put this back door in with the idea of leaving it open on really hot days, but never used it in the 30 years. This building stays pretty cool.
Walt
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- May 19, 2009
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I should have explaied myself better. I wasn't meaning what you said above, I was meaning true heritage birds. For instance, Greenfire is bringing over Brown Sussex from a top show flock. If bred well, they will be money makers to get folks started right in that color variety. There is a such a thing as being a fountainhead farm for top quality new breeds. Then there is the Little Peddler line of Marans. they will be released this year by a lady in Calif. who has some stock from Brenda. Again a chance to make some money distributing top quality birds to folk interested in them. The list goes on. We talk a lot about sharing these breeds. About getting them in the hands of other serious breeders. Personally, I don't think it would be a bad thing to be a ongoing source of high quality birds in those breeds. However, there does come a time when those sought after birds start to saturate the market. The original distribution has taken hold. Then move on to the next breed whch needs distrbution of quality birds to serious breeders.
Do I intend to do this with my Light Sussex? Absoutely not. I don't care about making money with them. But that wasn't the question. The question was how many ways can I make money in poultry?This is just one and I didn't make it up. Another veteran poultryman did.
Best,
karen
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