BREEDING FOR PRODUCTION...EGGS AND OR MEAT.

[bnjrob]

I agree with all of this...waste and huge, unrealistic expectations abound. And, I like a chicken that lays and lays well and has a meaty carcass but expecting that bird to lay at 4 mo. of age or be big as a CX before it crows is crazy, to say the least. Trying to invent the super bird might be an all absorbing hobby but it's not realistic expectations at all. There's something to be said for average maturity...I do believe studies done indicate that birds maturing at 6 mo. do better all the way around for laying longevity and production, as well as for hardiness.

I also agree that the colossal waste in this country is fueling the cruelty to the animals and long term destruction of the soils by the commercial agriculture system.

Though I can't see myself eating chicken heads or stuffing chicken intestines with some kind of sausage, there are many parts of the chicken that are not being used and being thrown away...some folks won't even feed them back to the chickens or dogs. I'm trying to do better on this myself and intend to start saving the underfeathers of these WRs for stuffing pillows and comforters and trying to do more towards storing eggs when production is good so we have them when egg production falls off. What we don't put in the jar or stock, the dogs consume and that saves me on commercially derived nutrition for them. I'm hoping to score some free or really cheap rabbits out of the locals for supplementing/growing my own dog food this year as well.

I'm also going to start treating my garden as an all year round salad bar and finally start cultivating fall/winter crops so we can eat fresh all year. Why am I wasting that space all winter long when I could be growing fresh food for my family and for the chickens? Why in the world am I buying that nutritional deficient lettuce in the store? I've got to get back to producing more of my own food, storing more, growing more all year round.

The turkeys pluck easier than the chickens, except for tails and wings, so we dry plucked and I saved all the feathers this time. Lots of soft downy feathers that I was thinking about pillows or comforters with them. I just couldn't throw away feathers from 4 turkeys.

I've gardened in winter here in North TX under plastic with good results for cold weather crops by planting them in November. A couple of winters it was too cold so the crops didn't have much growth, but they stayed alive and once the temps got warmer, they were taking off and growing like weeds. One of my future projects will be making tin can solar heat collectors to pump warm air into the garden beds and see if I can actually grow warm weather crops during winter. And I'll need something for a larger thermal mass to keep the temp from dropping too low at night when the sun is down - big rocks or water containers painted black. Some of the videos I've seen, folks were still able to get 80 degree air out of their heat collectors on overcast days. Would love to be able to have tomato harvests in January.

 

[Fire Ant Farm]

I'm not squeemish about eating odd chicken parts, but I am lazy. Picking meat off a chicken foot or stuffing tiny little intestines to make tiny little sausages is more work than I can manage. The pigs eat all that stuff for me, and I call it recycling. Has anyone tried crushing or composting the bones for the garden?

Oh goodness, did you think we were picking meat off of the feet? Can't speak for anyone else, but I just throw them into the pot for stock/soup (because of all the collagen), and then fish them out and toss them (as spent) once stock is done. I don't pick the meat off of them or anything....

(Or did I misunderstand you?)

- Ant Farm

 

[Beekissed]

Everything I'm reading about winter crops of greens and such say you need to have them in the ground no later than Sept. 1 but more desirable to have them planted in August...said they have to have some good growth going on them long before the cold sets in or they will just go dormant like you describe and go no further until spring. That presents a logistical problem for me when I still have a garden in full force in August and September, but I'm going to try and plant greens anyway here and there and try not to walk on them as I harvest everything else.

I'm reading a book called The Four Season Harvest and they use all sorts of inventive ways to keep those winter crops from freezing...simple wind blocks of evergreen boughs stuck in the ground, etc. It says it's not so much as the cold that hurts in the winter months as it is the wind with the cold. The fella that wrote it lives in Maine and uses no heat in his winter growing except insulating mulches, plastic row covers, cold frames, wind blocks, etc.

How about using black trash bags filled with leaves as insulators and wind blocks around greens beds? I'll have plenty of those and they are free, as many as I can collect at the local town. The black plastic absorb some heat from the sun.

 

[Beekissed]

Oh goodness, did you think we were picking meat off of the feet? Can't speak for anyone else, but I just throw them into the pot for stock/soup (because of all the collagen), and then fish them out and toss them (as spent) once stock is done. I don't pick the meat off of them or anything....

(Or did I misunderstand you?)

- Ant Farm

My granny used to gnaw on those legs like crazy...she LOVED chicken feet! I use them for stock also, then hand them off to the dogs...they love them as much as my granny did.

 

[napdognewfie]

Dried feet for dog chewies sell for .79 each at Pet Smart.

Love Four Season Harvest, no pesticides, open polinated seeds and sharing them.

 

[bnjrob]

Everything I'm reading about winter crops of greens and such say you need to have them in the ground no later than Sept. 1 but more desirable to have them planted in August...said they have to have some good growth going on them long before the cold sets in or they will just go dormant like you describe and go no further until spring. That presents a logistical problem for me when I still have a garden in full force in August and September, but I'm going to try and plant greens anyway here and there and try not to walk on them as I harvest everything else.

I'm reading a book called The Four Season Harvest and they use all sorts of inventive ways to keep those winter crops from freezing...simple wind blocks of evergreen boughs stuck in the ground, etc. It says it's not so much as the cold that hurts in the winter months as it is the wind with the cold. The fella that wrote it lives in Maine and uses no heat in his winter growing except insulating mulches, plastic row covers, cold frames, wind blocks, etc.

How about using black trash bags filled with leaves as insulators and wind blocks around greens beds? I'll have plenty of those and they are free, as many as I can collect at the local town. The black plastic absorb some heat from the sun.

Yeah, they always say that you should have your cool weather winter garden crops started in Aug & Sept. If I did that, my stuff would be dead. It's just too hot and dry here to plant them that early. I can start warm weather crops that time of year, as long as I water them a lot, but cold weather crops won't do for me until October at the earliest. And that is if it's an unusually cool October. And then there is that same problem like you - where do you put the stuff when you still have your warm weather crops in the ground and producing?

I've read articles from folks that winter garden up in Maine and New England and they seem to do well so I know it can be done. I can use some of their hints here but not all. The biggest problem with living here in Texas is that it is normal to have extreme vascillations in temperatures. If the temps are only in the 40s, but the sun is out, I have to open up the plastic on my hoop houses or it gets too hot inside for the crops. On a day like today when it was 75 degrees and sunny - I'd have to retract the hoops completely or the plants would fry. But then the temp can drop down into the 30s by the morning after an afternoon in the 70s and 80s. Our winter temps are so crazy. We can't winterize like Northerners do because we don't get consistency with our temperatures for very long during winter. One day we care for everything to keep them cool and the next we are taking freeze precautions. LOL.

 

[Beekissed]

Yeah, they always say that you should have your cool weather winter garden crops started in Aug & Sept. If I did that, my stuff would be dead. It's just too hot and dry here to plant them that early. I can start warm weather crops that time of year, as long as I water them a lot, but cold weather crops won't do for me until October at the earliest. And that is if it's an unusually cool October. And then there is that same problem like you - where do you put the stuff when you still have your warm weather crops in the ground and producing?

I've read articles from folks that winter garden up in Maine and New England and they seem to do well so I know it can be done. I can use some of their hints here but not all. The biggest problem with living here in Texas is that it is normal to have extreme vascillations in temperatures. If the temps are only in the 40s, but the sun is out, I have to open up the plastic on my hoop houses or it gets too hot inside for the crops. On a day like today when it was 75 degrees and sunny - I'd have to retract the hoops completely or the plants would fry. But then the temp can drop down into the 30s by the morning after an afternoon in the 70s and 80s. Our winter temps are so crazy. We can't winterize like Northerners do because we don't get consistency with our temperatures for very long during winter. One day we care for everything to keep them cool and the next we are taking freeze precautions. LOL.

You need BTE~Back to Eden method of gardening!!! Here's a guy from your state on YT you might want to follow if you want to utilize the BTE method, it can keep your moisture levels and insulation of the soil at a more even rate. He's using it on pastures, garden and orchards...even has a vid where it's improving the grass in his chicken run just by it being located next to the orchard with the BTE covering in place.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEHPs560RHUcsD0modg-lSA

 

[Mini Meat]

I agree with @bnjrob . I feel like our calories come too cheaply and that leads to waste. Not only on the consumer side but on the production side. Resources , most of which boil down to fossil fuels, are thrown at producing and over abundance of cheap food. Much of which is wasted.

For my part I am very interested in developing systems on my place that utilize "waste" in order to minimize input. This is still mostly theory for me but slowly coming in to practice.

One Idea that just recently came to me is to see if my growing meal worm colony will eat chicken feathers. Heck if they can eat plastic... who knows?

 

[stryker]

You need BTE~Back to Eden method of gardening!!! Here's a guy from your state on YT you might want to follow if you want to utilize the BTE method, it can keep your moisture levels and insulation of the soil at a more even rate. He's using it on pastures, garden and orchards...even has a vid where it's improving the grass in his chicken run just by it being located next to the orchard with the BTE covering in place.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEHPs560RHUcsD0modg-lSA

I started to put chicken manure in my garden last year. In the spring and fall. Now, I till it in April and cannot plant most crops until the first of June.

 

[Mini Meat]

Quote: I have a HUGE (about 5 truck loads) pile of wood chips rotting away in my chicken yard. I like to let it break down a bit and get manured by the chickens before use it. I toss all their scraps on the pile to encourage them to spend time there scratching. I just spread it as I need it.

But the interesting thing I am observing is, that after a week of sunny weather, a small but steady stream of water is still flowing out from under the pile. It has absorbed and is slowly releasing great amount of water. Good stuff.