BREEDING FOR PRODUCTION...EGGS AND OR MEAT.

[Beer can]

Plan next yr if they lay enough is to hopefully hatch fifty each of the sussex and giants. Keeping some of the best pullets to add to the flock, all other pullets will be sold or eaten. All cockerels will be caponized and grown out for the freezer Hopefully I can handle caponizing..... I don't think that will be to big of a endeavour. I'll find out I guess Lol!

 

[bnjrob]

Must be something in the air. We closed down all egg production for market sales several month ago and even put a small ad in the local rag attesting to that fact but starting a couple weeks ago, folks have begun calling us about eggs...now getting 3 to 5 calls per day. I can't see us ever becoming enslaved to that lifestyle again.

I guess we might have to place another ad and have Ariel make a call to a local radio stations that is on for 45 minutes, 5 days a week where locals sell or search for things and there is no charge. I suppose having her nicely say that we no longer sell eggs to the public might help stem the calls but I don't want to have her to say 'WE will NEVER sell eggs again!!!'. One never knows but it would take something apocalyptic to force us back into hawking eggs again.

You could say "We are not selling eggs anymore for the foreseeable future." or "Currently we are not selling any more eggs." Then you're still left with the option to sell eggs later on.

 

[gjensen]

Getting back to the hard core facts with numbers, lets keep in mind the available space some people just don't have. Not everyone has the appropriate property or space to even be talking about this concept. Flock size and manageability begins to become a serious issue when someone thinks about breeding what I call a backyard of a few chickens. Although I don't discourage any ones ambitions, its only fair to let them know what they can expect from the result of small numbers. I myself could definitely hatch out more birds, but I could not manage that amount. At one time a mentor told me to either go big or go home! In a good way, I completely understand what was meant by that.

What someone has available to them, or the resources they are willing to commit, have nothing to do with the realities that accompany breeding.

There are options for those unwilling to commit to more. They can go with bantams, or they can secure a new bird from outside more often. The problem with doing that is that it is hard to maintain steady progress when we are getting a new bird every five or six generations. This is less of a problem if they have a reliable source of good birds that will help more than hurt.

There is a breeder on the other coast that breeds the breed that I breed. She has gifted me a couple birds. If my project birds produce reasonably reliable birds breeding back to the originals this year . . . I intend to send her a pair. We are in agreement on what they need, but our birds are in different places. I have a breeder started on this coast, but I have not seen the latest birds. He is committed, but I do not know if we are on the same page or not. I intend to find out this year. If what he has is an improvement over what he had, then I will share with him once again. Then there are others that I am talking to. I do not know who I might share with or not. Not yet. The options are growing in this breed.

I say all of this to say that there are options for anyone. It is that once we go so far, and make real progress, we become reluctant to expose that progress to risk. Frankly, right now in my breed, I do not want anyone else's birds. I hope to help a few so that will change.

 

[hellbender]

Plan next yr if they lay enough is to hopefully hatch fifty each of the sussex and giants. Keeping some of the best pullets to add to the flock, all other pullets will be sold or eaten. All cockerels will be caponized and grown out for the freezer Hopefully I can handle caponizing..... I don't think that will be to big of a endeavour. I'll find out I guess Lol!

Caponizing is NOT brain surgery but it does require a stiff upper lip and determination to get it right. You will kill a few birds and if you do some practice on some 'special cockerels', getting into your primary birds will be much easier. If I'm helping someone to learn, I like to buy 15 or 25 Austra-white cockerels from Cackle hatchery...they are dirt-cheap, and are pretty muck all alike. In your place, I'd get 25 of them and over a period of about 2 weeks or so, caponize them all, starting at the day they turn 6 weeks of age and not worry if you DO kill some of them because even at that age, they have enough meat on them and their carcasses are fine for soup and the meat is great for chicken salad!!!

The Austra-Whites are the easiest birds I ever worked with (on caponization/poulardizing).

 

[DesertChic]

Plan next yr if they lay enough is to hopefully hatch fifty each of the sussex and giants. Keeping some of the best pullets to add to the flock, all other pullets will be sold or eaten. All cockerels will be caponized and grown out for the freezer Hopefully I can handle caponizing..... I don't think that will be to big of a endeavour. I'll find out I guess Lol!

My husband recently said, "No more than 70 birds", but he also once said, "I really don't think we should go past 12 birds".

After this weekend I'll be down to 67. It's a start.

 

[dfr1973]

My husband recently said, "No more than 70 birds"

I interpret that as 70 breeders + backups. Birds destined for the table don't count towards spouse-imposed maximums!

(that's my story, and I'm stickin' to it.)

 

[dfr1973]

Caponizing is NOT brain surgery but it does require a stiff upper lip and determination to get it right. You will kill a few birds

It will also take quite a bit of practice to get it right, because if you leave behind tissue, it will regrow enough to bring the hormones back ... resulting in "slips." I have several of those.

 

[Beekissed]

I know next to nothing about seriously breeding birds, or any animal, for that matter...just from reading, watching, being around such things on the farms and farming community. I'm curious as to why one must hatch hundreds of birds a year to improve a flock when other animals/herds can see improvement with just one offspring/litter per year and see improvement year after year? Why the huge numbers each year to make flock improvements?

 

[Our Roost]

I think my point is that it can be harder and take longer to do more with less than more. I hope I have 5 or 6 more generations left in me.

 

[gjensen]

No one said anything about hundreds of birds. That was not mentioned anywhere.