BREEDING FOR PRODUCTION...EGGS AND OR MEAT.

[DesertChic]

Production is the overarching theme of this thread and that is important to be reminded of. We do digress a lot but then this is a very active and interesting thread whereas many threads are... pardon me saying so... total duds. I even like it when people get preachy and sometimes overbearing

Guess I'm just a little twisted that way. But since we are on the topic, what does "production" mean to everyone? In my situation I'm looking for historic birds that set dependably, make a good stewing hen and a magnificent capon. Carcass quality and flavor are of utmost importance. They should also produce a reasonable number of largish eggs. I want to keep the SOP in mind but will completely ignore an off color or incorrect comb in lieu of a good looking and delicious bird on the table. But what does "production" mean to you?

Ha, ha! My idea of "production" is still evolving. I have my "production layers" to keep me and my family/friends/customers stocked with eggs. These birds still have to maintain an acceptable temperament because I really don't like flighty breeds, consistently lay large quality eggs, and having more than one color has proven to be a huge plus with my growing customer base.

My "production meat birds" will ultimately ALL be Naked Necks since fewer feathers = less plucking. They need to have meaty carcasses, be well shaped and have strong bones to support their weight. I'd like them to reach my ideal processing weight by around 18 weeks, which so far hasn't been much of a problem.

And then my "production breeds" are my dual purpose birds of "pure" blood. I'm maintaining a line of pure NNs, trying to reach the SOP standards, so I can always cross them into my meat or layer flock to help correct any problems I see arise.

But all of this is work in progress...and I still have other breeds I'm enjoying and not quite ready to give up.

Chicken math!

 

[CanadianBuckeye]

I agree with all those things- but they have to mature reasonably quickly, too. I like the gjensen rule of thumb- eggs at 20 weeks, and an edible cockerel before he (the chicken) crows.

 

[bnjrob]

I agree with all those things- but they have to mature reasonably quickly, too. I like the gjensen rule of thumb- eggs at 20 weeks, and an edible cockerel before he (the chicken) crows.

I was thinking on this issue while I was outside doing chores.

We have a very wasteful society. We can't seem to be happy unless we have not only enough to satisfy us, but enough to throw away too. And I'm guilty of it too. We slaughtered some turkeys this week and I threw away the heads, feet, heart, gizzard, and lungs - because those parts still gross me out. The free range chickens ate the livers and testicles but they won't eat the rest. I understand the enormity of the need to feed the masses who live in the cities, but reality is that we throw away a ton of food. And people expect to have an enormous variety of the same type of product to choose from - they want to be able to choose which brand, which color. That alone causes the commercial industries to produce far more than is actually needed. North America could feed a good portion of the rest of the world just with what we throw away in our homes, our restaurants - not to mention what goes bad on cargo ships and in warehouses when there are fights over money. I heard on the news about tons and tons of apples rotting in the Pacific Northwest in the last couple of years after they were harvested. We actually produce far more than necessary.

I was at Walmart yesterday and looked at egg prices. They have come down some. But the sheer amount of eggs, not to mention the variety of brands available, was huge. How many of those eggs actually get eaten? How many people actually eat 200-300 eggs in a year - which is what folks want their modern hen to lay? I'm talking the average city/town dwelling person.

People generally eat eggs for breakfast and use an occasional egg when making a cake. Now I can use a lot of eggs, but I also make things like pasta, biscuits/breads, pie crusts and other ready-made items that most people buy premade at the store in boxes and cans. And we eat a lot of quiche to use up eggs. I purposely use more eggs than other people because I have them and want to decrease waste. Yet even with feeding eggs back to our birds, I still end up throwing away a lot of eggs that wind up so old that it's too hard to get the sticky dry yolks out of the shells so I can use the shells. And my old fashioned birds molt for about 4 months, they go broody all the time, and even when they are laying consistently, they lay every other to every few days unlike modern birds. Yet I still was throwing away eggs when we only had a handful of hens. If our society were more temperate in their habits and did not demand to have more than enough eggs to feed themselves and still have eggs to throw away, the commercial poultry industry would not need to operate in the manner that they do.

Meat is the same way. How much of it gets thrown away or goes bad before it is eaten? How many people turn up their noses at meat that have the *sell quick* tags on them? People now believe that the government mandated/encouraged *sell by* dates means that a product is suddenly rotten and they have to throw it away. I have a sneaky suspicion that much of those sell by dates and friends that way.

Most people don't have any idea how much they eat of different items because they no longer have to produce it themselves. They believe what the commercial industry tells them because they don't know any better. And these large corporations are making a killing on the ignorance of the buying public. There's a guy out in California that I read about who was changing his commercial laying operation over to free ranging, heritage birds. Last I saw, things were going ok for him. He had to change his business model some but it was worth it to him to have a more sustainable flock. Should be interesting to see how he does as time goes on. I believe that if there were not huge monopolistic corporations that were paying outrageous executive salaries and dividends to stockholders - to people not even actively involved in the growing of poultry products - small family farms could produce enough food for everyone and not have to rely on the genetically patented birds that commercial growers are required to use by contract.

When I look at people complaining that the old breeds don't do it for them production wise, I think their expectations have been tainted by the commercial industry's propaganda. But I also think part of it may be that even the old bloodlines aren't producing like they did 100 years ago because of people's mistakes. These old breeds were barely kept alive after commercial poultry took over. And the folks keeping the birds alive were show people that were more interested in pretty feathers than continuing their ancestor's tradition of making sure the birds were thrifty and lived up to their utility purpose because they no longer had to worry about growing their own meat and eggs anymore. So we're having to improve the old breeds to get them back to where they used to be at. The research I've done and learning from Bee and some others how they feed them and their families with their old fashioned birds - I think we're the problem, not the birds.

In regards to an edible cockerel before he crows - for my breed that is not possible - for the fact that my cockerels often start crowing at 1 month old. Now that I've spent a few years selectively breeding for production and not just SOP, I'm getting more meat at 5 months old. Enough for a meal for two people and depending on how we use it, sometimes leftovers too. My Javas also generally start laying at 5 months.

 

[AnthNDacula]

About production, I don't remember if it was here, another thread or Facebook but one guy is breeding specialty feathers for fishing lures. That's a different take on production.

 

[Beer can]

About production, I don't remember if it was here, another thread or Facebook but one guy is breeding specialty feathers for fishing lures. That's a different take on production.

I believe there is actually a fly tie chicken breed, Ohiki?. If I remember right they are hard to come by, the people that have them don't let go of them. Someone on another thread acquired some.

 

[ronott1]

About production, I don't remember if it was here, another thread or Facebook but one guy is breeding specialty feathers for fishing lures. That's a different take on production.

http://www.whitingfarms.com/index.html

I started a thread about it--no one posts on it though.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/757121/whiting-farms-in-co-what-do-you-know-about-them

 

[Beer can]

This was a pretty good thread on using chicken parts https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/936287/how-to-use-the-whole-animal-waste-not-want-not
compost, pillows, intestines for stuffing sausage I think someone even said they did... I probably ought to make use of more of them, I haven't tried the feet yet, or combs. I've seen both as mystery ingredients in the food network show 'Chopped'. I thought about trying the comb from a white leghorn cockerel I butchered a couple yrs ago, dang that thing was huge.

 

[Beer can]

http://www.whitingfarms.com/index.html

I started a thread about it--no one posts on it though.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/757121/whiting-farms-in-co-what-do-you-know-about-them

Forgot about them, Murray McMurray just started selling his Whiting True Blues.

 

[bnjrob]

This was a pretty good thread on using chicken parts https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/936287/how-to-use-the-whole-animal-waste-not-want-not
compost, pillows, intestines for stuffing sausage I think someone even said they did... I probably ought to make use of more of them, I haven't tried the feet yet, or combs. I've seen both as mystery ingredients in the food network show 'Chopped'. I thought about trying the comb from a white leghorn cockerel I butchered a couple yrs ago, dang that thing was huge.

LOL - it does make you wonder what you could do with a big comb, some of the roosters we cull are culled for big funky shaped combs.

Hellbender is an expert on using all the parts with his operation.

Some of the antique cookbooks that I have are the ones for the poorer people, and there are tips and such in there for using more of the parts even for human consumption. One book, I think it was an 1890s cookbook written by a city-dweller, mentioned that with the wealth of the modern times, people no longer had to eat those more objectionable parts of meat so she wasn't putting recipes in her book for those kinds of things. They didn't eat as much meat, in such large proportions - some the recipes are pretty different from how we eat now.

I'm just not quite there yet with using everything. I went from not even being able to touch store-bought meat with my bare hands, only with gloves or forks and tongs, to having slaughtered one hen myself because she had a bad vent prolapse and couldn't wait to be put out of her suffering until my husband could get home. Mostly I let my husband kill them and then I can do the plucking and the rest of the processing - which I couldn't do the very first time, I just watched my hubby do it. I am working towards being able to do more slaughtering without my husband. Although with the turkeys it will be a challenge, even though they missed their weight mark this time around, they were still so heavy and very strong, fighting to get them taken from the pen to the slaughter scaffold and into a cone. One of them had ME bleeding. LOL. It's a process though, to go from the way most of us have grown up, to going back to how our great-grandmothers did things. My city dwelling grandmother who is nearly 90 told me that she remembers her grandmother killing chickens to eat in the basement, but neither she nor her mother had to do that.

 

[CanadianBuckeye]

You haven't had proper chicken soup unless the feet and head are in it.