BREEDING FOR PRODUCTION...EGGS AND OR MEAT.

[gjensen]

Quick question: As I think ahead about hatching from my Cream Legbars this spring, I was wondering - they are on layer feed right now (which they actually love and are doing well on). I'll want to switch them to their breeder ration soon. What do you guys use - game bird feed? Ideally it would be something I can get hold of easily, at Tractor Supply or similar...

Forgive me if this has been answered before, I couldn't recall.

- Ant Farm

Edit to add: the NNs are on Flock Raiser, so I always have that around, but wasn't sure if that's sufficient.

Flock Raiser is ok. Their is not much difference between it and the Dumor chick starter, other than some misc. ingredients. The chick starter costs less.

If you are really concerned with chick size, hatchability, fertility of the parents etc . . . . but only want to shop from Tractor Supply . . . . . Give them evenly mixed chick starter/ layer, calf manna according to the directions, and hulled sunflower seeds as a treat. Just throw them a few handfuls everyday. They should already have fresh greens, regardless of the season. Do not neglect the grit. Make sure they are getting a surplus of sunshine and fresh air. The water should be clean, and their housing in good shape. They should have already have been de-loused and wormed.

This is not a bad diet to feed them while they are molting. It is not a bad idea for the entire year. Breeding birds are not commercial layers. The Layer ration is formulated for the commercial layers. Commercial breeders know enough to know to formulate a breeder ration for their breeders.

Flock Raiser is not a bad feed to feed all year round. Just add some Calf Manna and hulled sunflower seeds during the breeding season. You could get away with less, but the little extra makes a difference.

Males should not be fed layer rations.

Their combs should be bright red. Their feathers should be in good condition. They should be glowing with good health and vigor.

Breeders should be in excellent condition. Not average or acceptable. We treat breeders differently than layers etc. We want them in top condition the entire year.

With experience, if they do not seam 100% to you, get them there. Excellent condition is easier to maintain than to recover.

What I am trying to communicate is a standard. OK is not good enough. Most flocks are not in top condition, but their owners would not know it. That does not mean they are being neglected. Most receive adequate care, and the birds know no difference. However, breeding birds is another level of responsibility. You want excellent stock that is in excellent condition. You want the offspring in top condition. If you are going to breed Naked Necks, you should be breeding the best Naked Necks in the country.

 

[gjensen]

While it seems hard to some, it is better to cull at hatch than to feed out the birds you are going to cull anyway.
Wyandotte have a rose comb and every once in a while, a single comb chick will hatch. These I cull immediately.
Any that can't hatch on their own are culled as well. I don't assist. I find they don't offer vitality to my breeders. Any that are not bouncy examples of health and vigor are culled.

Once chicks are feathered, any extremes in color are culled with a few exceptions. Four week old birds can be skinned, gutted, washed and pressure cooked. They can then be fed to the dogs or as protein for the breeders.

I bred a white cock to my Columbian hens to get good size, better combs and lovely yellow legs. Some of the F1 chicks were almost white pullets to breed to the CW cocks and there were a number of barred cockerels that I allowed to grow out for the freezer because of their nice size. Surprised to get a couple of nice large barred pullets that I added to the layer flock.

As others have stated, I don't give birds away unless it is a pair for a 4H student or for our family.
I supply eggs to my family...MIL is 92. She helped raise her family on her egg money back in the 1950s. So she appreciates the eggs and occasional home processed bird.

Good post. There is no good reason to feed what we would not breed.

I do give eggs away. I sell a few, but many of them get brought to shut ins etc.

 

[hellbender]

It's more difficult to go 'cold turkey' than expected.

I don't like this laptop but It will have to do. It's going to be far more comfortable traveling South this time than last. Saving a few bucks was absolutely not worth it because I really did suffer last time and I will not but Ariel through that. From GUA to POA will be a bit more than 17 hours with two stops. We're taking very little luggage and will buy clothes there...then ship them back near time we intend return. Excess baggage can ruin a person. We can both use some new rags and I hope we can get some reasonably good rags for not as much as that damnable baggage charges.

 

[Our Roost]

Hi, I am following your spring plans. haha! We got hammered with snow the last few days. Cochins and Malines braving and enjoying. I have Neiderrheiners on order and can't wait til things start to unfold in spring. Warm up your incubator!

 

[Fire Ant Farm]

Flock Raiser is ok. Their is not much difference between it and the Dumor chick starter, other than some misc. ingredients. The chick starter costs less.

If you are really concerned with chick size, hatchability, fertility of the parents etc . . . . but only want to shop from Tractor Supply . . . . . Give them evenly mixed chick starter/ layer, calf manna according to the directions, and hulled sunflower seeds as a treat. Just throw them a few handfuls everyday. They should already have fresh greens, regardless of the season. Do not neglect the grit. Make sure they are getting a surplus of sunshine and fresh air. The water should be clean, and their housing in good shape. They should have already have been de-loused and wormed.

This is not a bad diet to feed them while they are molting. It is not a bad idea for the entire year. Breeding birds are not commercial layers. The Layer ration is formulated for the commercial layers. Commercial breeders know enough to know to formulate a breeder ration for their breeders.

Flock Raiser is not a bad feed to feed all year round. Just add some Calf Manna and hulled sunflower seeds during the breeding season. You could get away with less, but the little extra makes a difference.

Males should not be fed layer rations.

Their combs should be bright red. Their feathers should be in good condition. They should be glowing with good health and vigor.

Breeders should be in excellent condition. Not average or acceptable. We treat breeders differently than layers etc. We want them in top condition the entire year.

With experience, if they do not seam 100% to you, get them there. Excellent condition is easier to maintain than to recover.

What I am trying to communicate is a standard. OK is not good enough. Most flocks are not in top condition, but their owners would not know it. That does not mean they are being neglected. Most receive adequate care, and the birds know no difference. However, breeding birds is another level of responsibility. You want excellent stock that is in excellent condition. You want the offspring in top condition. If you are going to breed Naked Necks, you should be breeding the best Naked Necks in the country.

Thank you so much. My reason for wanting to go with TSC is that provided I check tags for dates, that's the place I can get the freshest feed as they have good turnover - I had some trouble starting out with "fancy schmancy" feed that was stale or had gone off (not enough turnover/demand, I suppose), and also I don't have TONS of chickens, so it does take some time to go through it. If I pick a common feed type for everyone (like Flock Raiser), then provided that it meets their needs with or without supplementation, they'll have fresher feed because I will go through one bag faster (rather than have two or three partial bags getting stale). Also, fancy schmancy had me driving all over creation for 2-3x as much money - and still it was sometimes stale...

I have a month or so to get them into condition - this afternoon I started mixing in the flock raiser into their feed to transition them, and I'm worming everyone right now anyway (breeder or not). Will dust them this week or weekend, though I've checked them carefully recently, and there's nothing I could see. They've been getting BOSS handfuls as treats the past few days, so I'll continue that, and I'll get Calf Manna next time I'm at TSC and check out the directions. I will probably only aim for hatching 4-6 out of my CLs this spring, as I'm not starting with much (three pullets, one of whom I'm not going to breed). I'm getting some hatching eggs in a week or two, so those will go in the 'bator first. I think I'm going to wait until next spring for hatches from my own NNs, as they aren't even 18 weeks yet - unless I try for a fall hatch.

I have Gail Damerow's Hatching & Brooding Your Own Chicks - which I have to say is really excellent! In the egg hatching part it discusses breeder health and it has a section on egg shape an hatch issues (didn't see it until after I asked here

...)

- Ant Farm

 

[Our Roost]

Hello Mr. Jensen. Breeder ration feed kind of caught my eye. You went right into chicks so fast on this comment, I got the 2 confused. Could you divulge a bit more on what you are feeding breeder stock. I currently feed all my birds as if they were breeders.

 

[NanaKat]

Hi, I am following your spring plans. haha! We got hammered with snow the last few days. Cochins and Malines braving and enjoying. I have Neiderrheiners on order and can't wait til things start to unfold in spring. Warm up your incubator! 

We have had snow and freezing temps for several days too. day temps are now reaching above freezing until this coming weekend. My birds feel like termites in a yoyo.
Have thoroughly checked the incubators for any repairs, changed a wafer and have air hosed the fans...ready now to sterilize them for Spring hatching.

 

[AnthNDacula]

On the topic of feed... I've very old school and like my chickens to clean up waste and turn a profit. My birds go to bed with a crop full of oats to keep them thru the night. They have enough "home made feed" and a bunch of greens to get them thru the next morning until I can let them out around 9AM. During the day they free range and work the pig pens for waste. Pigs spill a lot of food. The "home made" feed for pigs and chickens is grocery store bread (800 pounds/$50), protein shake powder ( free from a local factory), oyster shell and kelp meal. I guess that's a little unorthodox these days, but I estimate may eggs have about an 80% profit margin. Oh I also give them cooked beef and pork liver when it doesn't sell.

This is how my Appalachian grandfather fed his birds and they were definitely self sustaining. I also lived for a while on a commercial dairy in Austria where they had geese and chickens cleaning up after the cows. Those birds never got purchased feed but they profitably produced tons of eggs and the 50 or so geese were butchered and sold at Christmas for a tidy profit. I'm not advocating for any particular method of feeding but if you are breeding for egg and meat production you must at some point be looking at why you do it. For me it has to be about profit.

Anthony

 

[dfr1973]

The main reason I bought Silkies:

There are 29 chicks under the six of them, with only 13 being Silkies. Two nights of frost but no cold casualties. The cute factor is certainly a bonus.

On the topic of feed, I don't give layer crumble/pellets. I do a combo of Flock Raiser, the Mid-South Game Cock "maintenance" with fermented scratch being the variable. When cold (for FL) I increase the fermented scratch, then decrease it a bit when warmer. They also get some kitchen scraps, get to pick all meat bones clean, oyster shell for the layers, or eggshells on the compost heap, and each group gets a couple times out in the enclosure to graze grass or weeds along with whatever bugs, lizards, frogs, etc they can catch. Then again, the chickens are mostly for us - although I am trying to get a couple new egg customers as we are up to our ears in eggs and it's only mid-January. It just gives me a warm happy joy to look out and see my birds shining in the sunlight, so I guess you could say I try to keep them in show condition (if I showed).

 

[Fire Ant Farm]

Without going into "quote overload" to thank everyone individually, I wanted to note that I find the discussion of feed strategies very helpful. As things change and evolve with the flock, I find myself revisiting some of the same questions (like this one), often with different perspective and therefore different answers. And, indeed, I figure it'll be like this for years as I continue to learn...

- Ant Farm