BREEDING FOR PRODUCTION...EGGS AND OR MEAT.

[LindaB220]

I've noticed ground turkey is mushy, I imagine chicken would be also. On turkey I buy them from the store in the fall when they are on sale. All the meat and fat, no skin, is cut off the bone and ground. I mix it with Italian sausage spices, buy the big bag of spice mix enough for 50lbs only costs a little more than 5lb mix. I also make venison sausage, and venison breakfast sausage as well venison I add 20% pork fat grocery store saves some for me at .29 cents a pound. The turkey I stuff it in hog casings with chopped onion and green peppers. So the mushiness wouldn't matter on that, once cooked it has about the same texture as pork sausage.
The duck I ground medium grind, I didn't notice it being mushy, but they were older birds, I just made regular burgers out of them.
Held together nicely.

Good info. Thanks.

 

[hellbender]

We get that much snow and everything shuts down for a holiday.lol

That's no snow at all for around here but we've been fairly lucky the last three years...not as much snow as usual but plenty of COLD!!!!!!!

 

[gevshiba]

I got behind and just caught up. Country Hatchery in OK has Muscovies and they'll pinion them.

 

[hellbender]

I got behind and just caught up. Country Hatchery in OK has Muscovies and they'll pinion them.

Thanks...I checked them out. They seem a bit expensive for what seems common barnyard fowl. I'm thinking of going ahead and kissing the butts of the folks in PA. and taking a road trip. At least theirs are supposed to be the heavier meat-bred type of whites and for something like one third the price of the bunch in OK.

Thank you very much for thinking of us!!!

RON

 

[hellbender]

I had a heart-to-heart with my family over dinner last night. With the three breeds of birds here (chickens), I feel we have enough diversity that we should NEVER have to order chicks from anyone else again...or at least so long as I'm alive.

Two breeds are as good for eggs as many, despite the fact they were bought for meat (capons)...they are Chanteclers and Buckeyes. The Dark Cornish will lay enough eggs alone to supply our home needs, despite the fact they want to go broody so much of the time. We have enough of them that even if most are broody at once, enough eggs could be purloined from them alone to supply our needs. IF we get the ducks, they will supply plenty of eggs too. I'm suggesting to them if/after the ducks get here, we close our flocks again and increase our bio-security and I suggested it in the strongest of terms so there should be no misunderstanding and I didn't mean perhaps.

 

[JRNash]

Good luck. Lol

 

[misfitmorgan]

We have a rather 'airy' dairy goat barn and we generally breed for Jan and Feb. kids. WE do NOT let the kids get even one suck of teat but rather bottle feed them from first breath if we can catch them. (We have monitors).

We keep the kids under heat lamps for a while but we have never had any freezing or frostbite problems and I assure you, it gets as cold and windy here as just about anywhere in the lower 48.

You dairy goat folks likely know why we bottle feed...(several reasons) but the best one for me is it makes it a simple proposition to get them to get upon the milk stand and stay there with very little coaching. Yes, they are pains in the butt however not nearly so bad as one who has been raised on the teat and will literally run up and down the walls and perhaps the ceiling when you first begin to work with it...I'd rather just shoot one like that .

No idea where you live but this was what we had last Feb just for temps...and the does kept having their kids are night.


We bottle feed most of our kids this year too, they come out a lot more friendly and easy to work with. I'm pretty sure if we had more goats or a smaller open barn we would not have had the problems, the barn they wintered in was a 50ftx120ftx14ft at eaves open barn ment for beef cattle, they got 1/4 of the barn for all total about 20 goats. We asked the barn owner if we could put up heat lamps or make heat hunts for the kids and they freaked out saying we were going to burn the building down and no way. So yeah the goats are not staying there this year for winter. We did notice this year we had almost all bucks.

 

[hellbender]

We live in the West Virginia Highlands, in a small mountain valley. Great place to live...I've said before, very few nights a comforter would be unwelcome.

 

[misfitmorgan]

We live in the West Virginia Highlands, in a small mountain valley. Great place to live...I've said before, very few nights a comforter would be unwelcome.

You guys were downright warm compared to what we had...we were in the barn milking one day, in the sunlight and it was the first day i actually thought wow its actually warm today, when we got done the barn thermometer said 6F. That was shocking lol. if summer would ever arm up we might be able to sleep a night without blankets, this weather is ridiculous we had frost like 2 weeks ago...in june!! Last year we had half an inch or more of frozen ice rain stuck to everything...on mothers day. Anyone else having problems getting their garden all in because of to little or to much rain? We have 15 of the 17 flats in so almost done with those, i'm not sure if we should even bother with seeds since it is gonna be like 3 weeks or more behind now.

 

[LindaB220]

I had a heart-to-heart with my family over dinner last night.  With the three breeds of birds here (chickens), I feel we have enough diversity that we should NEVER have to Byorder chicks from anyone else again...or at least so long as I'm alive.  

Two breeds are as good for eggs as many, despite the fact they were bought for meat (capons)...they are Chanteclers and Buckeyes.  The Dark Cornish will lay enough eggs alone to supply our home needs, despite the fact they want to go broody so much of the time.  We have enough of them that even if most are broody at once, enough eggs could be purloined from them alone to supply our needs.  [COLOR=0000FF]IF [/COLOR]we get the ducks, they will supply plenty of eggs too.  I'm suggesting to them if/after the ducks get here, we close our flocks again and increase our bio-security and I suggested it in the strongest of terms so there should be no misunderstanding and I didn't mean [COLOR=FF0000]perhaps[/COLOR].

A wise choice.