BREEDING FOR PRODUCTION...EGGS AND OR MEAT.

[cyborg]

Pretty!

 

[Fire Ant Farm]

I found a paper (old one) that may potentially support me keeping the two NN girls. (The CL girls still have to go - they are all potentially daughters of a hen that died of ALV 2 weeks after they hatched, 5 of 7, but tumbled in incubator so I don't know who's who.)

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03079458108418483

- Ant Farm

 

[Dave C]

@Dave C
very nice! Nice and chunky, the size I prefer myself but they will be huge in another month. What are these again? I see some single combs in the mix.

They are a slow grow Sasso Broiler from France, I'm looking to cross them with there Medium Grow Farm Rangers (similar to you RR) also adding in Cornish blood, I'm looking at doing 4 crosses to try then narrowing it down to two moving forward.

 

[Fire Ant Farm]

Quote:
They sure are great looking birds...

- Ant Farm

 

[draye]

AlohaChickens is already working on something like that (as is draye) - mottled NNs that look like SFHs (but I think the mottling is bigger). They are lovely. I tried with some hatching eggs from her, and they ARE lovely, but I had to cull them for unrelated reasons. There is a thread on them... These are some of mine when they were younger (taking a nap together): - Ant Farm

I thought you still had these. What happened?

 

[DesertChic]

I've got a link to my own vid on it...is that the one you mean? It's not the best vid out there, to be sure, but it's a vid on skinning..... As you can see, these WRs are well worth skinning...their feathering is so deep and copious that one is fighting through the feathers just to butcher. Very fine, very downy, so they stick to every little thing.

About how old were the chickens you skinned in this video?

 

[Beekissed]

Don't remember accurately but could have been 4-5 mo.? I know I didn't wait as long as I normally do(around 6 mo. or more for canning, less if for freezing), as I had wanted to get the fall butchering over so I could move on to more pressing things. These breeder quality WRs grow out a little slower than most birds that are raised expressly for meat~my rooster is a year old and is just now getting spurs~ and mine especially, as they are free ranged and eating mostly what they forage, so they don't put on the weight like a penned bird would.

 

[DesertChic]

Don't remember accurately but could have been 4-5 mo.? I know I didn't wait as long as I normally do(around 6 mo. or more for canning, less if for freezing), as I had wanted to get the fall butchering over so I could move on to more pressing things. These breeder quality WRs grow out a little slower than most birds that are raised expressly for meat~my rooster is a year old and is just now getting spurs~ and mine especially, as they are free ranged and eating mostly what they forage, so they don't put on the weight like a penned bird would.

That's awesome! Thank you! I'm going to try skinning chickens for the first time tomorrow and that's their age range.

 

[Fire Ant Farm]

Quote:
Had 5 boys and 2 girls, boys were quite small, too small for my flock goals, and I have limited room for breeding roosters, so I culled the boys. Plan was to keep the girls and breed back to Tank to carry mottling forward in some of my flock. Hoping I can still do that...

- Ant Farm

 

[CanadianBuckeye]

Check out this little girl. She is about 3 weeks old right now, and just starting to feather out. Her momma is a golden sex link, and dad is a Rhode Island Red. She is an experimental cross for my egg flock, and it looks like she will take after dad for color. Hopefully, she will be as prolific a layer as mom.

I have a somewhat similar cross, Buckeye and red sex link. they are lovely mahogany and white chicks. You can really see the Buckeye influence. They won't be as good a layer as yours though, but I'm hoping for reasonable egg production from them .