BREEDING FOR PRODUCTION...EGGS AND OR MEAT.

[AnthNDacula]

I have no doubt that kept in chicken houses w/ the only food source being what humans give them in a controlled environment this is absolutely true. But in real life there are other modifying factors. The Delaware chicks are free if you have a Delaware flock, cc's will cost in the neighborhood of $3 each give or take for sales or different shipping costs. If the Delaware chicks die before harvest you are just out the food, but the cc you are out the food plus the cost of the chicks, and there are more likely to be preharvest losses w/ the cc. Most people keeping a dp flock and harvesting from their own birds have some amount of "free food" in some form of natural available food (grass, bugs, weeds, garden waste etc...) the dp (Delaware) are more likely to utilize that decreasing the amount of bought food it will take to get them to harvest point.

I am not anti cc at all, I just hate seeing comparisons that only account for food costs.

Thanks for pointing that out Kassaundra. I'm not making any judgement calls on the research results other than WOW isn't it great that someone is doing concrete research for us to learn from. It seems to me that any business (giant sized or hobby) requires the owner to look at their resources and take advantage of their unique assets. Free ranging, garden scraps, home bred chicks, etc. are precisely the things to look at and decide whether you can shave something off your costs and be competitive.

Today I had a woman contact me and ask to buy only Ameraucana eggs. Based on Dr. McCrea's study comparing Delaware brown egg production to Ameraucana blue egg production I was able to tell her those eggs cost more than double to produce and therefore would cost $15/dozen. (Normally I just put one blue in with 11 brown and charge $6) I expected to not hear back from her but now she and her husband are hoping to visit my farm. $15 A DOZEN!!! Boy I'm glad I read that article. Knowledge is power, and all I had to do was raise my price based on research.

 

[Beer can]

Vegetarian feed hens, another sale gimmick IMHO, marketed towards the the vegi eaters...
Interesting note, S&G poultry with their hybrid meat birds do not carry the 'cornish x' and have supposed heritage 'white rocks' and naked necks.
I've decided to add NNs this yr, for a Cemani NN cross. I have access to cemani culls cheap, pure bred but if they are not pure black through and through, ie 'mulberry comb' , she doesn't use them for breeding. The pics Kassaundra posted awhile back of fibro NN has made me decide not to go with a giant silkie cross. I'll hatch out one batch for he he's and ha ha's, but I think my fibro project is going to take a different route. Besides that I'd like to try some NN to see if they are what the French gastroexperts say, the best tasting chicken in the world.

 

[Our Roost]

Currently, many concerns have risen concerning the longevity and health of the worlds commercially raised chicken. The quality of the bird we are consuming has declined and studies are questioning just how much longer we can consume it. In reality, its becoming a health concern.
Good you mention the Java. I don't and won't knock people raising the Cornish cross, yet there is an amount of information people should be aware of. I'm not preaching here to anyone but its just not my bird of choice for a meat bird. Funny, but my own efforts to work with an old and rare meat breed haven't been very successful. An ongoing salvation effort still in progress! guess the whole satisfaction feeling comes from what we ourselves raise within our own coops and yards.

 

[Fire Ant Farm]

Vegetarian feed hens, another sale gimmick IMHO, marketed towards the the vegi eaters...
Interesting note, S&G poultry with their hybrid meat birds do not carry the 'cornish x' and have supposed heritage 'white rocks' and naked necks.
I've decided to add NNs this yr, for a Cemani NN cross. I have access to cemani culls cheap, pure bred but if they are not pure black through and through, ie 'mulberry comb' , she doesn't use them for breeding. The pics Kassaundra posted awhile back of fibro NN has made me decide not to go with a giant silkie cross. I'll hatch out one batch for he he's and ha ha's, but I think my fibro project is going to take a different route. Besides that I'd like to try some NN to see if they are what the French gastroexperts say, the best tasting chicken in the world.

I was intrigued by the S&G naked neck "broilers", but their minimum chick order is 100, which is too many for me to manage at once. (Even half that would be too much.)

If you do go that route, I would love to see pics and hear how it goes. I had thought about adding that genetics to my NNs, but wasn't sure what exactly it would be...

(I know Kev would be interested, too!)

- Ant Farm

 

[Beer can]

I was intrigued by the S&G naked neck "broilers", but their minimum chick order is 100, which is too many for me to manage at once. (Even half that would be too much.)

If you do go that route, I would love to see pics and hear how it goes. I had thought about adding that genetics to my NNs, but wasn't sure what exactly it would be...

(I know Kev would be interested, too!)

- Ant Farm

No way I could order from them, even their hatching eggs is min 15 dozen. Even though I could make a little $ out of them. Big farm stand near us sells a lot of poultry in the spring. I've seen them have NNs, every time all spoken for reserved, must be some people like them around here.

 

[Fire Ant Farm]

No way I could order from them, even their hatching eggs is min 15 dozen. Even though I could make a little $ out of them. Big farm stand near us sells a lot of poultry in the spring. I've seen them have NNs, every time all spoken for reserved, must be some people like them around here.

Before I got chickens, I bought all my eggs and eating chickens from a local small family farm - they raised NNs and Cornish X for meat. The NNs were always asked for by name, and always sold out. Our local big hatchery (Ideal) sells out of the NN chicks pretty fast as well - one year the farm couldn't get the chicks to raise, and only had Cornish X for meat that season.

I have had/tasted both from them, raised in identical pastured conditions. NO QUESTION that the NNs were more delicious (at least to me) - and I wasn't primed to think so, I just noticed it myself and then found out about this "reputation" about their taste a couple years later.

That's why my NNs are my meat flock. (That and the fact that it gets so dang hot here.) I have incubators now, and I'll be hatching and culling and improving my flock over time, of course, along with looking harder at feed efficiency (once I get through the clumsy start up phase).

- Ant Farm

 

[Beekissed]

I find the PWRs to be amazingly feed efficient, with such fine meat fibers and fat marbled throughout, that I can't imagine using any other breed for meat. I had a group of cockerels this year that had more fat on them than I had ever seen on any male bird of any breed I've ever butchered and they got that almost entirely on foraged feed..the older flock wouldn't allow them in the coop at feeding time. Out of all the breeds I've raised, the WRs get the most meaty carcass, the most fat, and on the least amount of feed than all the others. They have a very slow metabolism which allows them to gain weight and keep a large body on very little fuel, which also serves them very well in the winter months.

Until I ate some of these WR, I never really was convinced that one breed of chicken could taste better than another...I've had a tooth on many, many breeds of chicken down through the years and they all tasted pretty much like chicken. It wasn't until I had WR that I realized that, indeed, some chicken is superior to others, both in texture, tenderness, flavor and even appearance of the meat. They even can up differently than other breeds and I'm amazed at the huge difference of the end product, as canning tends to render all chicken into tender, broken down meat fibers. The WRs meat fibers don't break down into strings like the others but still retains extreme tenderness and a juicy quality in every bite.

I don't think it's any mistake the current broiler genetics has drawn heavily from the PWR breed for meat density and quality, though their end product is far from the high quality of the PWR breed/meat.

 

[Kev]

I was intrigued by the S&G naked neck "broilers", but their minimum chick order is 100, which is too many for me to manage at once. (Even half that would be too much.)

If you do go that route, I would love to see pics and hear how it goes. I had thought about adding that genetics to my NNs, but wasn't sure what exactly it would be...

(I know Kev would be interested, too!)

- Ant Farm

Yes extremely interested! Agreed 100 chicks/15 doz eggs is just too much...

So close, yet just right out of reach.... sigh!

 

[Fire Ant Farm]

Update on Dumbledore the hero rooster. We're 5 days out form the attack and he's doing very well, bounced back quickly. Please don't laugh, but per the vets' suggestion, he has now had "hydrotherapy" (warm water spray over his wounds) two days in a row, followed by being blown dry - and he LOVES it - it's like he's having a day at the spa. (And yes, it is helping the wounds - he got scraped up pretty badly.)

Anyhow, the reason I bring it up is because through the bath and blow drying, it has become clear exactly how many feathers he lost - he lost a LOT, even more than I thought, along outer surface of both legs and thighs, much of both wings, back of neck and part of upper back, ENTIRE right chest/side, and entire back half of body. (My neighbor had thought multiple chickens had been killed from the number of feathers, so that fits, I suppose). He is starting to grow little fuzz feathers back on his tail nub and back body (looks like a bunny rabbit), but meanwhile, given that this is January, I need to support him the very best I can to not only heal but grow back those feathers as soon as is possible - so, like an extreme winter molt.

He's on Flock Raiser, plus he gets his abx in a scrambled egg every day (divided into two doses). I put some mealworms in his food bowl as a treat, and he has one of those "treat" blocks hanging in his crate to keep him occupied - it consists of mealworms and hulled sunflower seeds.

Any other ideas on added nutrition for feather reconstitution for him? (I guess this could all be rephrased as "What do you do nutrition wise with an extreme molt in the winter time?")

- Ant Farm

 

[CanadianBuckeye]

Fire ant farm it's great that Dumbledore is recovering so quickly. I'd say, carry on, but don't overdo the extra feed etc. or you might give him fatty liver disease! He'll benefit from extra complete protein and extra energy but if he's not working any of that off and if it's in excess that could be harmful.

I'm curious about these industrial naked necks. I would guess that they are as close to the SOP naked necks as the cornish x are to cornish and rocks.