BREEDING FOR PRODUCTION...EGGS AND OR MEAT.

[NanaKat]

292 pounds of beaver castoreum certainly won't go very far as a "natural flavoring". Think I'll stick with vanilla bean.
Rendered skunk fat was used years ago as an oil in making salve. So I'm not opposed to the old ways of doing things...just not interested in attempting the process.

Hubby doesn't like the smell of wet chicken feathers and heads to another task when I butcher the birds. We sometimes get the family together for a mass session. His 92 year old mother is a great teacher. We set up stations and scald and pluck.

 

[speney]

I rent from my grandmother last year was the first year I was aloud to have a rooster. My son ( he was my cousins child but she loved drugs more) I had him for three years but the state decided to send him back to her in july, loved the chickens but the first thing I taught him was that they gave us eggs and we ate the extra roosters and old hens. He was four years old and completely understood this especially since he went hungry so often even at that age he was funny about wasting food and probably always will be. He understood we could love them and take care of them but they had a purpose it's a shame how many adults I find that can't understand this concept every time a new person came over he showed them his chickens and would explain how we loved then and then ate them you should have seen the looks on these people's faces I actually almost lost him to the state because he explained the process to his case worker it took a lot of talking on my part to explain that he wasn't being taught animal cruelty but a way to live a healthier life thankfully I ended up in front of a judge that was raised on a farm and understood my way of life.

 

[AnthNDacula]

Beaver tail aside. Does anyone have an opinion about what bantam breed lays the most eggs. About 8 years ago someone dumped off a few bantams of unknown breeding on my farm, and while I had them I was getting $3/dozen for "cocktail eggs". Those birds eventually disappeared... probably due to a hungry hawk who just couldn't manage the standard girls. Now I've got a small fenced garden outside my Florida room and wouldn't mind some yard ornaments to go with the rose bushes... especially if they could generate some income. I love Sebrights but if I remember correctly they lay very few eggs. I've heard that White Faced Spanish bantams are good layers. Even Ameraucana bantams might work. The color would certainly add to their sales appeal. But I've got no idea how many eggs they lay. Chime in if you've got any ideas.

 

[CanadianBuckeye]

I hope you understand that we show goat people have a habit of spinning myths about the earless lamancha correct?

Well you have to admit they do look odd! Freaked me out when I saw the first ones, I thought their ears had been hacked off with a rusty knife too- I was greatly relieved when someone told me they are born like that!!! LOL

PS: Actually "Beaver Tails" are a kind of pastry ............... so if you are visiting up here, feel free to order one off the menu!

Back to bantams: They certainly can lay a huge egg in proportion to their size. I'd also be interested in hearing about any bantams bred for egg production- haven't read anything about that.

 

[DesertChic]

"Natural" flavoring doesn't mean from what you think, "natural" raspberry flavor isn't ness. from raspberries. I remember the horror when I first learned that!!!!

I know, right? I've spent the past 15+ years studying food, nutrition and the food industry in this country....which is why I'm now so determined to grow as much of our own food as possible. When I worked in the power industry my department(s) received GAO reports straight from the government. I was the only one who read all of them (a good way to pass the time on graveyard shifts). The information they contained about our mechanized food industry horrified me, and then horrified my husband when I came home from work and told him all about it. Most of our friends and family think we're a little crazy...and I think they're woefully uninformed.

 

[DesertChic]

Beaver tail aside. Does anyone have an opinion about what bantam breed lays the most eggs. About 8 years ago someone dumped off a few bantams of unknown breeding on my farm, and while I had them I was getting $3/dozen for "cocktail eggs". Those birds eventually disappeared... probably due to a hungry hawk who just couldn't manage the standard girls. Now I've got a small fenced garden outside my Florida room and wouldn't mind some yard ornaments to go with the rose bushes... especially if they could generate some income. I love Sebrights but if I remember correctly they lay very few eggs. I've heard that White Faced Spanish bantams are good layers. Even Ameraucana bantams might work. The color would certainly add to their sales appeal. But I've got no idea how many eggs they lay. Chime in if you've got any ideas.

I can't speak to which may be the best, but I would recommend that if your goal is egg production that you stay away from the broodier breeds. My Silkie girl is an excellent layer until she goes broody, which happens consistently after she's been laying for only 5 weeks at a stretch. I know some people with bantam Cochins who have the same problem.

My EE pullets are supposed to be large breed but are all much smaller than the other large breeds I own. They're okay layers of colorful eggs. I'm getting about 3 eggs per week from each of them right now with no artificial light, and they began laying about 4-7 weeks ago.

My best "bantam" layer is my large fowl Barred Rock/Silkie cross. She's a little bigger than my Silkie hen, but much smaller than my Barred Rock girls, and averages 6 eggs per week, currently weighing about 1.45 ounces each after 5 weeks of laying, and again...no artificial light being used.

 

[DesertChic]

I rent from my grandmother last year was the first year I was aloud to have a rooster. My son ( he was my cousins child but she loved drugs more) I had him for three years but the state decided to send him back to her in july, loved the chickens but the first thing I taught him was that they gave us eggs and we ate the extra roosters and old hens. He was four years old and completely understood this especially since he went hungry so often even at that age he was funny about wasting food and probably always will be. He understood we could love them and take care of them but they had a purpose it's a shame how many adults I find that can't understand this concept every time a new person came over he showed them his chickens and would explain how we loved then and then ate them you should have seen the looks on these people's faces I actually almost lost him to the state because he explained the process to his case worker it took a lot of talking on my part to explain that he wasn't being taught animal cruelty but a way to live a healthier life thankfully I ended up in front of a judge that was raised on a farm and understood my way of life.

Great story! I can easily imagine peoples' reaction because I endure the same thing myself. My son's high school friends think it's totally cool how I get fresh eggs, but are positively aghast that I would butcher any of my chickens, and their parents are just as mortified. I've been asked repeatedly and rather accusingly how I can be "so cruel", to which I patiently respond with a description of how the average industry chicken lives out their life as opposed to my own chickens, and sometimes even show photos of workers wearing hazmat suits to enter an industrial chicken warehouse. Then I remind them that just because they buy their food at the grocery store, that's NOT where their food comes from. That horrible warehouse is. Usually their next question to me is, "Do you sell any of your butchered chickens?"

 

[Arielle]

 

Good for you!  It will be far easier from now on.  Certainly everyone has their own way of doing various aspects of butchering so I thought to mention that we allow the birds to 'rest' in fairly strong salt water for at least three days.  It helps remove most blood and the meat is more tender and less likely to be stringy.  JMHO

X 2. Brining makes a huge difference in both flavor and texture. I normally brine mine before I plan to cook them though, not right after processing. I never thought about doing so immediately but now I want to try it. Oh....and in case anyone is interested, here is a brine recipe given to me by a close friend:

2 gallons water
1 3/4 cups Kosher salt
1/2 cup white sugar
2 TBS Morton Tender Quick
2 TBS onion powder
2 TBS garlic powder
2 TBS paprika
1 TBS white pepper
1 TBS powdered ginger
1 tsp mustard powder
1 tsp powdered sage
1 tsp nutmeg

The last time I used this I brined the bird for three days and only use salt, pepper and butter for seasoning during roasting....and the meat was tender, juicy and very flavorful without the chicken flavor being covered up by other flavors. 

Will have to try this recipe. Especially on the old birds.

 

[hellbender]

My first ADGA registered goats were LaManchas. Within 5 years we had two herds; a milking herd and a show herd. Of course they were all excellent milkers but we never crossed the strains. The first was a buckling and 2 doe kids from The Tyler Mountain herd in Cross Lanes WV. I don't know if the record still stands but for years the Buredettes had a doe (Tyler mountain's Big Nanny May) that was the top producer of ALL breeds and that is where we got our milking herd starter quad. They were very large and likely the ugliest goats that ever lived but did they milk!!!

We then got the 'show' bug and bought three 'wet' kids, a buckling and two does from the Coast Side Herd of California and they were all 3 shipped into Pittsburgh PA in a dog crate. We did a lot of winning with those goats and they were real milkers too.... Eventually, the President of Mountain State Dairy Goat Assn. offered us too much money for the show herd and we made a deal that we would sell them if they also bought the Tyler Mt. bunch and he wanted the show line so badly, I heard he got a loan on some property to buy the whole bunch.

We didn't have goats for about a year after that but we got the 'itch' again and we have had Sannens primarily ever since with a sprinkling of old Togg lines brought in by AI for hybrid vigor and graded up from Experimental to American with our Caprikorn Saanen herd from Maryland. We still have a few straws of Old Shagbark Togg semen in the tank that we ultimately bought from our neighbor who used to let us keep our semen in the tank when his dairy cow venture was still intact.

EDIT: For spelling of Caprikorn

 

[miss heny]

Our hear is both show and Miller with Kashmer, uhm southfork I think, noble oak and some smaller farm names in it. In the 4H show we down very very well but hoping to do more ADGA for legs