BREEDING FOR PRODUCTION...EGGS AND OR MEAT.

[DesertChic]

I have noted many times that keeping chickens is a hobby for me and I generally emphasize HOBBY. I don't pay much attention to the costs of our endevours because if I did, I wouldn't enjoy the birds nor would my family. If things work out, fine. If not...it's equally fine. We can change course on a dime and not really give a flip where the chips fall.

Hobby....source of "clean" non-industrialized food....survival rations....and most definitely, therapy. And given the calls I've been receiving from total strangers requesting eggs from me, I'm thinking it may become a secondary source of income in the very near future. Initially I sold extra eggs to just friends and family to help offset the feed costs, but now I'm getting requests from restaurant owners/managers for at least 6 dozen per week on top of the now 8 dozen I'm selling each week. And I've had two people ask me if I'll sell them butchered birds on a regular basis. My husband has now even stopped asking me what I'm going to do with all of these chickens.

 

[Beer can]

I managed to get away from work a little early today (cancelled meeting), so that I could finally drive across town to visit the local pasture seed provider, Douglas King Seeds (hours 8-5, Monday through Friday, so hard to get to them since I usually work those hours). Got myself a big 50# bag of forage blend to sow on my property for winter forage for the birds: Oats, winter wheat, triticale, cereal rye, hubam clover, crimson clover, yuchi arrow leaf clover, purple top turnips, daikon radish, and chicory. I'll broadcast it over my back acre and ask my big birds to be a little patient while it fills in, possibly staging with some moving paddocks to let them stretch their legs. The tractor birds I'll just have to work around.

Whenever things settle down enough for me to start my meat rabbits, this would be a pretty good fall/winter mix to grow for harvesting for them as well...

- Ant Farm

Mmm, sounds like you might have deer visiting that 'food plot'...
What meat rabbits are you considering, planning to get? That's my next move, dad always had them when I was growing up, mostly 'mutts', up to a hundred of them sometimes.
Are you going for the fastest best ones, or going for something different?
I personally like to be 'different', didn't think any were available in my state and I haven't found anyone that ships, checked breeder websites, nothing. Saw some at our county fair 4H show, American chinchillas! I was looking for the giant ones, but the American ones are rarer and faster growing, got their name and number. Just have to convince the wife, she doesn't think the kids will approve....(just don't tell them we are eating Mr. bunny) I'm sure they will love the meat, my kids ARE carnivores Lol!

Hobby....source of "clean" non-industrialized food....survival rations....and most definitely, therapy. And given the calls I've been receiving from total strangers requesting eggs from me, I'm thinking it may become a secondary source of income in the very near future. Initially I sold extra eggs to just friends and family to help offset the feed costs, but now I'm getting requests from restaurant owners/managers for at least 6 dozen per week on top of the now 8 dozen I'm selling each week. And I've had two people ask me if I'll sell them butchered birds on a regular basis. My husband has now even stopped asking me what I'm going to do with all of these chickens.

Hmm, I haven't wanted to sell eggs, don't want to be bothered by it. Kinda thinking I might eventually sell meat birds, capons and the 'black meat' thingies.
Maybe I should try to turn this into a somewhat $ hobby.
Maybe I can get the wife to stop asking your last sentence...Lol!

 

[Beekissed]

I understand and concede to this being a very good and useful regimen for some but before I get pinned down with something like this, I will simply get out of chickens.

I see the enormous value in the chicken growth/weight charting but not enough for me to shackle myself to it. I'll continue to heft and feel the live birds for all the information I WANT!!!

lololol

Same here. After you handle that many birds over a lifetime you can pretty much tell if they've reached a size you prefer for their age by hefting and looking at them....I don't know I'll ever be so serious about breeding that I keep detailed records as my flock will never be so large I can't remember my best breeders/producers as I go along. Anything more than that and it ceases to be pleasurable to me. If that keeps me from being a "serious breeder", so be it...I will be more than happy with that. I'll just be someone with a really nice looking, great producing flock of a particular breed at that point.

Also for how much spent on feed....a rough running total of bags of feed for the year and eggs, meat and replacement layers/breeders produced lets me know if I'm running in the red or black. The day it's in the red, I'm out of chickens also.

This is not a hobby to me, no more than gardening is a hobby, but rather a way of life passed down through generations of women in my family and I'm the last of a long line of such. I can't imagine having a piece of land and not having a flock of chickens or a garden on it. Why ever would anyone even want a large piece of land if they weren't going to grow food on it?

 

[Fire Ant Farm]

Mmm, sounds like you might have deer visiting that 'food plot'...
What meat rabbits are you considering, planning to get? That's my next move, dad always had them when I was growing up, mostly 'mutts', up to a hundred of them sometimes.
Are you going for the fastest best ones, or going for something different?
I personally like to be 'different', didn't think any were available in my state and I haven't found anyone that ships, checked breeder websites, nothing. Saw some at our county fair 4H show, American chinchillas! I was looking for the giant ones, but the American ones are rarer and faster growing, got their name and number. Just have to convince the wife, she doesn't think the kids will approve....(just don't tell them we are eating Mr. bunny) I'm sure they will love the meat, my kids ARE carnivores Lol!

Hmm, I haven't wanted to sell eggs, don't want to be bothered by it. Kinda thinking I might eventually sell meat birds, capons and the 'black meat' thingies.
Maybe I should try to turn this into a somewhat $ hobby.
Maybe I can get the wife to stop asking your last sentence...Lol!

Ah, but I have just had an 8 foot ranch fence put all around my property to keep out the deer - something I've wanted to do for a long, long time. They are real pests in my neighborhood.

I'm getting a quad of New Zealand Whites from TAMUK - I was going to this January, and had my name on the list, but I've come to the conclusion that even if I didn't really have my hands full with bird projects right now, I don't really have a good solution for their housing yet (the storage room I was going to convert is needed for something else). So it's on hold until I can wrap my head around a solution for that...

Same here. After you handle that many birds over a lifetime you can pretty much tell if they've reached a size you prefer for their age by hefting and looking at them....I don't know I'll ever be so serious about breeding that I keep detailed records as my flock will never be so large I can't remember my best breeders/producers as I go along. Anything more than that and it ceases to be pleasurable to me. If that keeps me from being a "serious breeder", so be it...I will be more than happy with that. I'll just be someone with a really nice looking, great producing flock of a particular breed at that point.

Also for how much spent on feed....a rough running total of bags of feed for the year and eggs, meat and replacement layers/breeders produced lets me know if I'm running in the red or black. The day it's in the red, I'm out of chickens also.

This is not a hobby to me, no more than gardening is a hobby, but rather a way of life passed down through generations of women in my family and I'm the last of a long line of such. I can't imagine having a piece of land and not having a flock of chickens or a garden on it. Why ever would anyone even want a large piece of land if they weren't going to grow food on it?

Alas, I have not handled birds over a lifetime... So this really helps me manage them and learn.

And I have a general rule with most of my plants - if it's not food for me or chickens, I don't grow it. I've made exceptions for a few things, including some roses (that are indestructible in this climate) - hey rose leaves are also a great rabbit food, so that's my excuse...

- Ant Farm

 

[DesertChic]

Hmm, I haven't wanted to sell eggs, don't want to be bothered by it. Kinda thinking I might eventually sell meat birds, capons and the 'black meat' thingies.
Maybe I should try to turn this into a somewhat $ hobby.
Maybe I can get the wife to stop asking your last sentence...Lol!

All of this egg selling came as a bit of a surprise to me. It started with our employees and spread like wild fire. I admit that I have a tendency to talk a lot about my chickens....and I have tons of photos of them on my phone. Nearly every conversation I have with someone leads to one of two questions, "What do you do with all the extra eggs?" or "Do you sell eggs?" Since we own a business, my husband usually takes the eggs to our shop and people come there to pick them up. It keeps me from having to make deliveries or deal with people at my house all the time. I'm a really private person when it comes to my home activities and when someone shows up, it really throws off my groove.

 

[DesertChic]

And I have a general rule with most of my plants - if it's not food for me or chickens, I don't grow it. I've made exceptions for a few things, including some roses (that are indestructible in this climate) - hey rose leaves are also a great rabbit food, so that's my excuse...

- Ant Farm

I've gotten this way with my plants too. We recently had a landscaper put in a few retaining walls for us and he wanted to plant all kinds of foliage to make everything look nice. He was rather exasperated with me when I kept asking, "Can my chickens eat it? Will it be poisonous to them? Can WE eat it?" He finally talked me into a few myoporium for erosion control, but I've seriously considered pulling them up and transplanting something more useful for forage. My biggest problem though is that keeping plants alive does not come naturally to me. My mother had a fantastically green thumb, and so does my son, who has almost zero interest in helping me garden (darn teenager). My thumb started out black, progressed to dirt brown and has slowly been showing signs of greening up, but it's taken years for me to come this far. In the next few months We live on 5 acres of sterile rock and earth, mostly rock, so all of my garden beds have to be raised and enclosed beds loaded with compost. Otherwise everything I plant dies. I hope to improve my proficiency with gardening by setting up an aquaponics system in a greenhouse. That way I'll have one more protein source, and plenty of fresh produce year round for both my people family and my animal family.

 

[Kassaundra]

I am so that way, everything I plant is food for me, the chickens, the buns, or habitat for good insects (bees, butterflies, hummers, I know they aren't insects but you get the idea beneficials)

 

[hellbender]

I've gotten this way with my plants too. We recently had a landscaper put in a few retaining walls for us and he wanted to plant all kinds of foliage to make everything look nice. He was rather exasperated with me when I kept asking, "Can my chickens eat it? Will it be poisonous to them? Can WE eat it?" He finally talked me into a few myoporium for erosion control, but I've seriously considered pulling them up and transplanting something more useful for forage. My biggest problem though is that keeping plants alive does not come naturally to me. My mother had a fantastically green thumb, and so does my son, who has almost zero interest in helping me garden (darn teenager). My thumb started out black, progressed to dirt brown and has slowly been showing signs of greening up, but it's taken years for me to come this far. In the next few months We live on 5 acres of sterile rock and earth, mostly rock, so all of my garden beds have to be raised and enclosed beds loaded with compost. Otherwise everything I plant dies. I hope to improve my proficiency with gardening by setting up an aquaponics system in a greenhouse. That way I'll have one more protein source, and plenty of fresh produce year round for both my people family and my animal family.

Perhaps early next summer ( Ariel's idea)...she and I might pay you a visit. ( we love motels)...We would really enjoy looking around that area and provided you are interested, we could have a Caponizing 'Clinic', just to get you up and running. If you have room, we could order 15 or 25 Austra-White Cockerels. They make excellent birds to begin with.

Something to consider!

 

[draye]

Perhaps early next summer ( Ariel's idea)...she and I might pay you a visit.  ( we love motels)...We would really enjoy looking around that area and provided you are interested, we could have a Caponizing 'Clinic', just to get you up and running.  If you have room, we could order 15 or 25 Austra-White Cockerels.  They make excellent birds to begin with.

Something to consider!

Speaking of Austra-Whites, on average how big do they get? As big as an Australorp rooster or just a bit bigger than a Leghorn?

 

[hellbender]

Speaking of Austra-Whites, on average how big do they get? As big as an Australorp rooster or just a bit bigger than a Leghorn?

Some get as large as Australorps but most are just a bit smaller.