Consolidated Kansas

Any other favorite dishes to go with it? Personally I like Green Bean Casserole so I'm making it even if I'm the only one who eats it. So there. (In past years it was vetoed from the menu because most people in the family say they don't like it but since I'm hosting this year, I'm over-riding them all. I'll also serve steamed beans for the weenies who don't like casserole.)
Are you going to do all the desserts, or are your guests going to bring their favorite sweet? We like to do that, cause it usually brings a wide variety of desserts. So, here are a few things, and make you a list, and work from that. Once you know when your oven will be free of the bird, then you can plan the rest of your meal, and have everything come out at just about the same time.
My daughter and son have another thanksgiving dinner at the respective other parent's house that evening, so i'm not going to make pumpkin pie. DH doesn't like it and I'm sure the others will have it at the other dinners, so i wanted something different for dessert.
 
Cherwill, you sounds like a very careful detailed cook. I want to come to your house. Coffee toffee pecan pie???? Wow, that sounds amazing. Pecan pie is my favorite, and I always make an extra to freeze for Christmas. I bake the turkey at 325 and I use the oven bags, I usually don't take it out until 6am (ish). I always buy the biggest turkey I can find. I do always cook things longer than most but it's not dry so hey, I guess it's okay. I always cook everything myself, it started with all of the pressure to be here and there and we just basically pitched a fit and said we're making our own traditions. I'm a bit worried about how I'm going to get it all done, my 3 big girls used to help so much, I think it's time to pass the torch to the 3 little girls. I'm already feeling behind schedule, I went to make the french bread dough tonight, I use that to make bread crumbs for the stuffing but my starter didn't smell ready to go. I think I forgot to feed it this morning. I know better than to waste my time and flour when it doesn't smell ready.

Speaking of bread starter, and all this talk about fermenting feed. I am trying to ferment it with bread starter instead of ACV because I can't get any. I started it yesterday and it smells slightly fermented, and the chickens love it. I read some studies that were on the page that chickies-duckies posted, although they were hard to read but they weren't feeding only fermented feed and there is a range where it gives the best result. It looked like it was best given as something in addition to their feed but not their exclusive feed. Did anyone else catch that?

Danz, can you give a rough percentage of savings by buying feed in bulk vs. bagged feed? I am wondering what's in the feed I'm giving them anyway. When I put water on it to ferment some it looks like sand, it certainly doesn't look like food even though they eat it.

Can anyone give me details on how to tell if a hen is no longer laying or too old to lay? How can I be sure she's done?

I think I got my dh settled on processing one of the turkeys at Christmas. He thinks maybe I'll be ready then. I know realistically the animals we have here have to be useful in some way. How can I make them useful, other than to eat them? If I get one a girl and eat one then maybe I could sell baby turkeys? How's the market for that? I don't understand why I am feeling like we just can't do it, we've only had them for a few days. Maybe it's just that I'm not done learning about them, they are still so fun to watch and I'm actually looking foward to their 'good morning gobbles' from the barn roof in the morning. I was hanging out laundry earlier and talking with the boys and we were laughing loudly and they started to join in. They interact so much with people. So, I need to find a way to make them useful so I can keep them. Ideas????
 
Sharol, what would happen if you started the turkey on a higher temp to get it heated through faster and then dropped the temp for a slow cooking?
 
I was posting about this the same time you were.  I also plan to get a 14 pound bird and will get it tomorrow morning to put straight in the fridge.  That will give it 3 days to defrost which according to the 4-5 pound per day rule should be just about right.

Does anyone cook their turkey the night before Thanksgiving?  It seems like I heard someone say that once and then they just heat it up for Thanksgiving dinner.  It takes off some of the pressure of planning a bird to be done by a certain time and then having it take more or less time than you thought, but now I can't remember who told me they do that and how that works for them.

I always roast the turkey they day before take the meat off the bones and cover it in either turkey or chicken stock and then reheat it on Thanksgiving day. It always makes for super juicy meat. World Market had a great brine mix a couple of years ago. I have not checked to see if they have it this year yet. My wife did save the label so I could have the ingredients though.
 
i have tried to put in on a plate, on the ground, and in their reg feeder, and most of the time they look at it and ask scared of it
maybe i'll keep trying maybe it come with time. i just have 14 ducks currently no chickens
Reminds me of "Sam I am", I will not eat it on a train, I will not eat it on a plane! hehehe Welcome to the thread!! You must have jumped on about the time I was getting ready and gone for our poultry show! :)




Good News!! We caught the possum! I walked into the coop tonight to lock them up and there was the possum at the feeder eating the chicken feed. It froze and I froze. I screamed at hubby and he grabbed the cat carrier. I picked it up by the tail as it "played possum" and just dumped it in the carrier. We took it out to the lake and let it go in the woods, about 10 miles from the house. I don't have the heart to kill it, but didn't want it near my birds. I'm so happy we finally got it!

And in other good news, the botox injection is still working! I've not felt this good in months. :)

I've got my mamma silkie sitting on 4 eggs, so I'm just counting down the days till they hatch! I'll be sure to take pics. She said that the father is a buff rooster, but the mommas are all blues and blacks. I'm pretty sure the buff is a recessive gene, so i'll most likely get blues or black. That's okay. I'm just happy to have mamma get to raise her own. We created a door and have her locked in the duckhouse now because the other birds kept going in there and laying eggs for her to also sit on. LOL.. either that or she was stealing their eggs. LOL

Hope this finds everyone well!
So funny you just picked him up. We used to do that as kids-- go run down possum and pick them up by their tails and try to get them to hiss. We never hurt them, we'd just carry them back home and listen to my mom FREAK out. LOL!! But I would too... now that I'm not a kid and don't want possums running around eating/killing chickens. I'm so glad you are feeling better! YAY! Good luck with the silkie eggs. As far as some genes being recessive, that doesn't mean that you will get blues or black, BTW. That just means that Buff (recessive) has "holes" and will allow any and all background colors that might be in his history to pop through. You could very well wind up with some interesting colors that are not technically any color at all (as far as standard goes). But they'd still be cute! And because this is a mixed mating--- if you did wind up with a solid "known" color, the interesting thing is that even if you did breed that bird to a correct mating -- say Blue X blue, you might get a percentage in the offspring that would still pop up with some unusual colors because of the unclean background. But eventually, if you kept breeding true, it would come out, but might take a few generations to do so. Genetics are tricky, and not too clean cut. But this is how they do it to get type into a color they want, but is lacking type or has faults. So it can be done, just takes a while to get back to a color that will then breed true.


HEChicken, it was just the opposite. The first 10 hatched fine and quite easily at 40%. I liked how the inside of their shells looked actually, they looked cleaner and the membrane was stuck to the shell and not them at all. When I increased the humidity that inner membrane was attached to them. I don't understand why, but I felt like I messed it up when I increased the humidity. They were doing just fine and NO ONE opened the incubator, we actually taped it shut so no one would even do it accidentally. So I would have had 7 shrink wrapped chicks, including the 2 that died. There is no way of knowing at what point they became shrink wrapped. One was completely zipped when it died, one died and when I opened it to see the inner membrane was against it but it tore it a little, there was no way he could have even pipped because he couldn't move. The 5 that made it pipped and that's it. All 5 are fine, but 1 is still in a pen by his/herself but clearly gaining strength. I'm just going to do it again and see if I can get a better result. I'm sorry Madge is getting to you, I was just kidding about her feeling jealous but maybe she just knows she doesn't have his attention and that bothers her. Can turkeys smell? I suppose they can. Today we had a hen (chicken) wandering around and when she walked over to the rooster area where the turkeys were I noticed Casper getting that darker red color. I thought, no way! How did he even know she was there? Then we removed her, and watched the color go away, brought her back and both turkey were looking over there like they knew she was coming back. They're so smart.
I hatch at 70-75%. The more wet their inner membrane, the easier it is for them to "slip" out and not get stuck. I've had my own problems with sticky chicks that results in my humidity being in the 60's. It was awful and I'll never, ever do that again. I wonder if you had temp flux with your eggs-- that might explain why some of the inners were clean. Too high of a temp can speed them up a bit and give you troubles (same with too slow/low). It's a balancing act for sure. I've had some that zip and then die. It's nothing to do with humidity usually-- it's just a defect within the chick. Silkies get that a lot-- they will make it to pip and die, or they will actually start to zip and then die!! They are just tough! The higher the humidity, the better the chances of them getting out. But you will still have your "defects" depending on what kind of chicks you are hatching.


Oh, my Danz, that reminded me one time Ivy's DH told her to put 2 pats of butter under the skin on top of the breast meat, said would keep the breast meat moist. Poor Ivy, when she pulled the tin foil off the bird, where the pats of butter had been, under the breast skin, but on top of the meat where these 2 square area's of white skin. Where the butter had been the skin did not brown!!!
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Ivy just about dropped the turkey!!
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Could not figure out what happened, and then it dawned on her! It was so funny, we all had a good laugh, but that turkey looked like it had a bra on, and Boobies! I will have her send me apicture she took. Was a great dinner anyway, lots of laughter and good times with family!!!
Okay-- this is hysterical!!!!! I laughed out loud!! OMG, I would have DIED if that had happened... then again, I'm also thinking how to replicate that, because that would be absolutely hilarious to do on purpose, too. (I'm a little sick like that)




So Checoukan and I had SOOOOOO much fun this weekend!!! It was so great actually meeting you in person! From all of our time chatting on the board, it was neat, just picked up where we left off and it was like we'd been friends forever already! We'll have to do this again soon! I have great pictures of us! I'll post them here in a minute!!
 
OKay-- going to make these so you can click on them and enlarge them if you want to see them up-close.
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Checoukan and I below! She with her Rosecomb and me with my Silkie:




My son won Reserve Grand Champion Featherleg with his Splash pullet:



Showmanship:





Our winning bird!







 
Hawkeye, I'm just hatching mutts from my layer coop. Many of the eggs this time were also tiny eggs, I wonder if that played a part too. I got a new thermometer this time, which may mean that the temp was a little different than the other times. I determined that the other thermometer that came with it was reading way off. I had less temp fluctuations this time than ever, I only found it off one time and it wasn't bad at all and was able to fix it all within a short period of time. That was in the first week of incubation. I think maybe it had more to do with the changing humidity. I'm trying to gather eggs to do it again but it seems the girls aren't laying very much, I only got 3 eggs yesterday. I'm going to give them today and tomorrow and I'm just going to go with what I have. I've got to get it figured out, that way if I want to hatch anything other than mutts I would feel more confident.
 
Hawkeye! Your pictures are amazing, well I'm not surprised, but they're really good. It looks like you all had a blast and your son is so adorable. He looks just like you. He's so cute!
 
Okay-- this is hysterical!!!!! I laughed out loud!! OMG, I would have DIED if that had happened... then again, I'm also thinking how to replicate that, because that would be absolutely hilarious to do on purpose, too. (I'm a little sick like that)

A lemon cut in half and strategically placed would do the trick.
 

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