BREEDING FOR PRODUCTION...EGGS AND OR MEAT.

[3riverschick]

My birds have been molting HORRIBLY! Seriously, half of my hens look like they've been beaten daily with a broom. Even my roosters look tattered.

Put them on Nurena Feather Fixer if they are ovr17 weeks old. I heard what marvelous things it did for others birds. How great their new feathers and how some even laid thru the molt. Tried it on my last season and they were right. Wow. the birds did great thruthe molt, the new feathers were awesome.

Best,
Karen,iH

 

[lpatelski]

Okay, it's not chicken, but we have been breeding them for production...my first Tilapia harvest from my aquaponics setup!





The larger was measured 14-15 inches long and the smaller was 12-13 inches long. The fillets were about 3/4 of an inch thick at their thickest point. These guys had about 7 months to grow to this size. It's been a long time since either my husband or I had filleted a fish, but we didn't do too badly and I know we'll only get better at it from here.

Oh YES! What type - breed - are your Tilapia? What are they eating to get to that size?...I have been dying to start that project. Your fish are just beautiful. Are they breeding or all one gender?

 

[ronott1]

Put them on Nurena Feather Fixer if they are ovr17 weeks old. I heard what marvelous things it did for others birds. How great their new feathers and how some even laid thru the molt. Tried it on my last season and they were right. Wow. the birds did great thruthe molt, the new feathers were awesome.

Best,
Karen,iH

Yay!

I have posted about feather fixer before--Amazing stuff!

Around here, TSC carries it.

 

[Fire Ant Farm]

Okay, it's not chicken, but we have been breeding them for production...my first Tilapia harvest from my aquaponics setup!





The larger was measured 14-15 inches long and the smaller was 12-13 inches long. The fillets were about 3/4 of an inch thick at their thickest point. These guys had about 7 months to grow to this size. It's been a long time since either my husband or I had filleted a fish, but we didn't do too badly and I know we'll only get better at it from here.

Wonderful!!! I want to have a set up like that one day... Need the infrastructure first, of course.

Quote: You know, I went back to their coop to do some poop scooping under the roosts, and really looked around - and though the birds look ok to me, there were feathers everywhere. Including many orange feathers (so from the GNHs). How on earth I could have missed that... The Cream Legbars are molting bad and the hens have stopped laying.

I gave everyone BOSS today, and bought some kitten food while I was out today to help supplement with good animal protein temporarily... (Or should I get back in the car and go to TSC specifically for Feather Fixer?).

- Ant Farm

 

[Fire Ant Farm]

Quote:
OK, so that's a yes... Off to get my car keys...

 

[ejcrist]

@bnjrob already gave you outstanding advice, but I will also add my two cents here since I've basically dividing my breeding program into two primary lines, one for meat birds and one for egg birds. My setup allowed me to keep smaller individual flocks of laying birds, which also allowed me to become familiar not only with frequency of laying, but egg size, color, shape, etc. I'm one of those nerdy people who actually tracks egg laying on a spreadsheet, and it's proven exceptionally helpful to me when deciding which birds I want to breed for egg laying tendency. For example, my BR named Luna is an outstanding layer of jumbo-sized eggs. She was the first bird to start laying at 18 weeks to the day, and even during the harshest molt never dropped below four eggs per week. Her sister BR named Sky proved far more sporadic in her laying, averaging 4 large eggs per week and dropping to only 1 per week during molt. It was a no-brainer as to which one I would breed, and all of Luna's offspring have been fantastic layers that start early and lay jumbo-sized eggs.

I've also found it helpful to mix hens that lay different colored eggs in the same nesting area. I won't use trap nesting because of the heat out here, but once they're all laying in the same boxes it's really easy to discern one bird's eggs from the others based on color alone.

Thanks for the input DesertChic - appreciate it and it's good advice as usual. The sectional breeding coop I'm building now will have 6 coops with attached runs, and then after that one I designed a smaller 2 section coop and runs for broilers only. I don't want to use trap nests at all either for the same reason - much too hot here to leave 'em trapped in a nest box for any period of time. I like your idea on how to determine who to breed based on laying record - I never thought of that.

Oh and BTW, your tilapia look super fantastic! I'll get my setup up and running at some point but I just have too many chicken and vegetable garden chores going on at the moment. We eat a lot of fish and tilapia are bar-none our favorite. I'll have to send you some garlic next spring to cook with your your sides with the fish. You're really doing a lot of good at your place. I'm jealous.

 

[DesertChic]

Yay!

I have posted about feather fixer before--Amazing stuff!

Around here, TSC carries it.

That works well for me in the winter months, but not with this summer heat. I tried one bag of it on my chickens and even my NNs were too hot. Instead I've just bumped up their protein and adding more black oil sunflower seeds and that seems to have stimulated feather growth....FINALLY.

 

[DesertChic]

Thanks for the input DesertChic - appreciate it and it's good advice as usual. The sectional breeding coop I'm building now will have 6 coops with attached runs, and then after that one I designed a smaller 2 section coop and runs for broilers only. I don't want to use trap nests at all either for the same reason - much too hot here to leave 'em trapped in a nest box for any period of time. I like your idea on how to determine who to breed based on laying record - I never thought of that.

Oh and BTW, your tilapia look super fantastic! I'll get my setup up and running at some point but I just have too many chicken and vegetable garden chores going on at the moment. We eat a lot of fish and tilapia are bar-none our favorite. I'll have to send you some garlic next spring to cook with your your sides with the fish. You're really doing a lot of good at your place. I'm jealous.

LOL! Don't be jealous! I still suck at gardening....and I will definitely take you up on that garlic offer. I LOVE garlic. Do you just plant it straight in ground here? Our soil is so sterile that I've hardly gotten anything to grow in it.

And you're welcome to come on out and check out our aquaponics setup!

 

[DesertChic]

Oh YES! What type - breed - are your Tilapia? What are they eating to get to that size?...I have been dying to start that project. Your fish are just beautiful. Are they breeding or all one gender?

I honestly have no idea what breed they are. I was just grateful to buy the fry before the local gov't put the kabash on owning any. They've labeled Tilapia "an invasive species" and are somewhat stubborn about making allowances for aquaponics enthusiasts. And they breed like crazy! We left several schools of babies in with the adults to grow naturally...survival of the fittest and all...and have about 15-18 of those groups remaining, all various sizes and ages, swimming right alongside the giants. We also pulled out 20 fry about a month ago, not one of which was longer than 1/8th of an inch then, and just added them back to the big tank now that they're all 2-3 inches long.

We just feed them a Purina fish food for pond/game fish. As long as you don't overpopulate the tank they grow really, really well.

 

[ejcrist]

LOL! Don't be jealous! I still suck at gardening....and I will definitely take you up on that garlic offer. I LOVE garlic. Do you just plant it straight in ground here? Our soil is so sterile that I've hardly gotten anything to grow in it.

And you're welcome to come on out and check out our aquaponics setup!

Oh ok, cool. I'll take you up on that for sure one day soon.

Yes, I just plant everything directly in the ground after I amended the soil with compost of which I'm sure you have a fair amount, or following a cover crop/green manure.Our soil and probably yours too, is very high in minerals and only needs a healthy dose of organic matter to do very well. It may look sterile but it's just waiting for the proper ingredient to spring to life, believe me.