BREEDING FOR PRODUCTION...EGGS AND OR MEAT.

[Turk Raphael]

TR-- keep us posted how the Brinsea 40 EX works for you.

Gladly but we won't be using it 'til Spring 15. The Buckeye cockerels naturally mature quite slowly so the first cross over the NNs will be a shot in the dark. I suspect the NN part will give a finer flavor to the meat and of course, all F-1 cockerels will be caponized. Though the cockerels are still immature, they are still trying to get the attention of the NN hens so I doubt it will be too much longer before the hens succumb to the boys' charms,

and stop beating hell out of the poor fellas.

Also, I strongly suspect the cross will produce birds that will mature a bit quicker but either way, I'm not interested in butchering them until they are over a year old, perhaps well over.

Turk

 

[gjensen]

Dress weights for dual purpose birds.
As far as production... We just finished our annual cockerel butchering. All cockerels were either standard bred RIR or my improved Rhodebar genetics. We had a LOT due to the genetic improvement program I am working on right now. All cockerels were 6-8 months, with the majority being right at 7 months. Dress weights ranged from 5 lb 11 oz to 7 lb 4 oz. I haven't calculated the average yet, but will have that figure once they are all entered in the computer.

I appreciate that you shared that. It is helpful to see numbers.

I had a batch of NHs get to 5 1/4 - 5 1/2 pounds live weight @ 14wks last year. Free fed 20% chick starter on grass. Carcass quality was medium, but good compared to others in their class.

I like them as young fryers. We harvest culls much later, but they are not grown specifically for meat.

 

[ronott1]

Brinsea 40 EX looks like what we're going to get.

I have the Brinsea 40 EX advance with the humidity pump. If you look for a sale and use the coupon keyword from the Brinsea face book page you can get quite a deal on them.

The have amazing hatch rates too!

 

[Turk Raphael]

I have the Brinsea 40 EX advance with the humidity pump. If you look for a sale and use the coupon keyword from the Brinsea face book page you can get quite a deal on them.

The have amazing hatch rates too!

Thanks Ron! That's exactly what we're doing.
I've seen a bunch that were much cheaper but this one seems to be the best to fit our needs. Not the cheapest, even with the 'perks' but I feel certain it will save by preventing headaches in the future.

In fact, I think we'll go ahead and order it before we leave for vacation. Who knows what price hikes can come in the new year.

Thanks again for the information/review.



Turk

 

[LindaB220]

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone.
Hope your day is going well and plenty of good food. I have some really good Cobb 500 that I rescued from a egg hatchery. One rooster and eight hens about 14 months old. I want to breed some babies but the rooster is intimidated by the hens. Their eggs are NOT fertilized. I have a Blosl White Rock that I'm picking up this next week. He is all MAN. I'll bet that would perk them up.

 

[hellbender]

Greetings all and Happy Thanksgiving. Hopefully we can rejuvinate this thread and keep it within reasonable parameters. My son meant well, but went about things the wrong way.

RON

 

[hellbender]

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone.
Hope your day is going well and plenty of good food. I have some really good Cobb 500 that I rescued from a egg hatchery. One rooster and eight hens about 14 months old. I want to breed some babies but the rooster is intimidated by the hens. Their eggs are NOT fertilized. I have a Blosl White Rock that I'm picking up this next week. He is all MAN. I'll bet that would perk them up.

Good luck with the new cock. I would eliminate the other one before he gets there.

 

[bmvf]

Hellbender's right, it would be good to get this thread going again.

It's been busy here on the farm. As always the cows kept me busy especially around corn silage harvest in late August. While we did 1200 tons in one day in 10 hours, it's what comes after that busy, hectic day that keeps us working hard. We hauled manure soon after harvest and planted 100 acres of cover crops, perennial pasture and interseeded some spotty pasture paddocks. Around mid October it started to slow down but then my dad started helping his brother and nephew with shelling corn and beans. So he wasn't around and I had a little more work to do in his absence. Meanwhile, the chicken flock was growing and detracting as I tried to keep the work simple. In August I started culling my male New Hampshire birds and left two for breeding purposes. My 5lb scale couldn't weigh them live at 14 weeks. Here my 2 year old son helps me round them up (click to enlarge).

We had moved the males daily in a chicken tractor and moved the females in another tractor after we added male #1 (Gustof). Male # 2 (Black Licorice, because of his black band) ended up with the rainbow layers in their stationary shed pictured at the end. The NH pullets and Gustof did awesome in the garden (late October) and I had very little to clean up. They started laying in October but the changing season slowed down progress.


Meanwhile in September I was incubating some eggs out of my rainbow layer assortment that were fertilized by two male sex-links I got as packing peanuts. As I posted on this thread, my son had turned up the incubator to 143. No eggs hatched but most were fertilized. I started another batch promptly and made sure the temp stayed put. The result was a bunch of mutt chicks!


As all this is going on I'm sending PM's to cpartist (Luanne) about some Delaware chicks. She tells me in early October that she started a hatch for the first Sunday of November. The kicker is that she doesn't want to ship below 45 degrees. Sometimes in southeast PA the high never hits 45 degrees in early November. But I'm hoping we get lucky so I give the mutt chicks to my brother in law and sell a few of my rainbow layers to him as well. When the Delaware chicks hatch we get very lucky when the only day all week the low doesn't go below 45 is the day Luanne wants to ship the chicks! They arrive in good shape and start growing very rapidly. This pic was taken today, almost 4 weeks after hatching. There are a few black chicks because of barred rock in the pedigree.


The next pics are my two winter houses for the layers. The blue shed used for the rainbows was given free if I could haul it 200 yards from my uncles place. (It was very heavy!) You notice in the middle pic that there are two white birds. The fat one is a female that got mixed in with an order of male jumbo cornish x's this summer. The little white bird is a leghorn that my brother found while working a field one day. A few days after arrival we suddenly are getting a large white egg each day! In back of the blue shed is a lean two which holds the NH's. You'll notice Gustof in the middle!




Then on Thursday at the Thanksgiving meal I talk to my cousin who says they have 4 ducks laying 3-4 eggs a day. They have a few males with them and would give me fertilized eggs! I want them so bad but I think my wife will kill me!

 

[LindaB220]

Good luck with the new cock. I would eliminate the other one before he gets there.

You are so right. I'm planning on trading him for labor on putting up my hardware cloth. My handyman has 600 chickens and wanting to start breeding really good ones. He already has a XW pullet that I traded last month. And being so close we can do some swapping every few years to keep the breeds going. BeeKissed said that mixing the Blosl and XW together gets better birds than separately, so I going to have both. I just found a lady in South La that is going great guns on quality birds. She is going to swap some of my Blosl eggs for some of her Lavender Australorps. She also has a bunch of different birds that I may get a few of. Especially Bantam Cochins. I'm gonna need broody's.

 

[LindaB220]

Hellbender's right, it would be good to get this thread going again.

It's been busy here on the farm. As always the cows kept me busy especially around corn silage harvest in late August. While we did 1200 tons in one day in 10 hours, it's what comes after that busy, hectic day that keeps us working hard. We hauled manure soon after harvest and planted 100 acres of cover crops, perennial pasture and interseeded some spotty pasture paddocks. Around mid October it started to slow down but then my dad started helping his brother and nephew with shelling corn and beans. So he wasn't around and I had a little more work to do in his absence. Meanwhile, the chicken flock was growing and detracting as I tried to keep the work simple. In August I started culling my male New Hampshire birds and left two for breeding purposes. My 5lb scale couldn't weigh them live at 14 weeks. Here my 2 year old son helps me round them up (click to enlarge).

We had moved the males daily in a chicken tractor and moved the females in another tractor after we added male #1 (Gustof). Male # 2 (Black Licorice, because of his black band) ended up with the rainbow layers in their stationary shed pictured at the end. The NH pullets and Gustof did awesome in the garden (late October) and I had very little to clean up. They started laying in October but the changing season slowed down progress.


Meanwhile in September I was incubating some eggs out of my rainbow layer assortment that were fertilized by two male sex-links I got as packing peanuts. As I posted on this thread, my son had turned up the incubator to 143. No eggs hatched but most were fertilized. I started another batch promptly and made sure the temp stayed put. The result was a bunch of mutt chicks!


As all this is going on I'm sending PM's to cpartist (Luanne) about some Delaware chicks. She tells me in early October that she started a hatch for the first Sunday of November. The kicker is that she doesn't want to ship below 45 degrees. Sometimes in southeast PA the high never hits 45 degrees in early November. But I'm hoping we get lucky so I give the mutt chicks to my brother in law and sell a few of my rainbow layers to him as well. When the Delaware chicks hatch we get very lucky when the only day all week the low doesn't go below 45 is the day Luanne wants to ship the chicks! They arrive in good shape and start growing very rapidly. This pic was taken today, almost 4 weeks after hatching. There are a few black chicks because of barred rock in the pedigree.


The next pics are my two winter houses for the layers. The blue shed used for the rainbows was given free if I could haul it 200 yards from my uncles place. (It was very heavy!) You notice in the middle pic that there are two white birds. The fat one is a female that got mixed in with an order of male jumbo cornish x's this summer. The little white bird is a leghorn that my brother found while working a field one day. A few days after arrival we suddenly are getting a large white egg each day! In back of the blue shed is a lean two which holds the NH's. You'll notice Gustof in the middle!




Then on Thursday at the Thanksgiving meal I talk to my cousin who says they have 4 ducks laying 3-4 eggs a day. They have a few males with them and would give me fertilized eggs! I want them so bad but I think my wife will kill me!

What a wonderful set up you have. Totally jealous of the blue coop. Fantastic. I wish I was closer and could have relieved you of a NH rooster.