corn fed

[sjh]

Quote:
I will definitly try this. Thanks. How long will you leave them on the medicated starter?

I would say till the bag is gone. I bet it varies with the amount of chicks they have.

 

[HyLinda]

Why would you give medicine to a bird that is not sick?

 

[Buster52]

I always feel like if my chicken's skin is yellow, I did something wrong.

 

[united]

Quote:
I will definitly try this. Thanks. How long will you leave them on the medicated starter?

I would say till the bag is gone. I bet it varies with the amount of chicks they have.

Thats why i asked him -for how long- , or - between how many chickens the 50 lb bag is fed to?

 

[united]

Quote:
In Europe corn fed chickens are highly rated . I saw the movie "food Inc" patimekiller( on post no 6) suggested and i'm begining to change my mind about the cornfed rating. I'm thinking "all natural" should be rated higher than "cornfed". What you think?

 

[patimekiller]

Food Inc has changed the way I look at what we eat and what we raise. Am I saying I don't feed corn ? No I still feed corn just not 100%. My chickens graze with less corn in there diet. I am going to try an un- geneticly alterd breed next year ( cxrocks where all ready ordered be fore I saw food Inc. As a society it is going to be tough to get back to the days of old. I think they should show documentarys like food Inc more often so people are better educated about what we eat/ grow. Even the veggies we grow are genitcly altered. We as a society are production driven. Just my own thoughts.

 

[Lazy J Farms Feed & Hay]

Quote:
Any time any thing is bred from a selection program you are altering the genetics. Take a look at the myriad breeds of dogs, the only way you can get that from their wolf ancester is by altering the genetics.

The cornish cross that is so villainized on this board is a product of simple selection, no Genetic Modification in the lab, no gene splicing, no insertion of foreign genetics. It is simply breeding.

Jim

 

[dancingbear]

Quote:
There's a lot of confusion about the terms, "genetically altered" and "genetically engineered". Any breeding of any kind, will result in different mixtures of the genes present, and to some, this equals GMO. However, anything that is a result of natural breeding is NOT what is meant by genetic modification.

In GM, genes from other organisms, even ones from different species, can be inserted into the DNA chain. You can get mixtures that could NEVER occur in nature, such as spider genes in a goat, fish genes in a strawberry.

A hybrid is NOT the same thing as a GMO. A hybrid occurs any time two organisms, from EITHER different species, (such as a horse and a donkey) breed, or two different varieties of the same species breed, such as a Barred Rock and a Delaware. The result is a hybrid, but nobody did any laboratory tampering with the genes. It's still a chicken, and though the genetic make-up not the same as either pure-bred parent, the genes themselves were not altered. The offspring has some genes from one parent, some from the other parent, but they weren't altered. Same as you might get the brown eye gene from your dad, and the blond hair gene from your mom. The brown eye gene is the same in the child as in the parent. Pretty much all people are hybrids, at some point in their ancestry, that doesn't make them all GMO's.

A lot of people think that hybrids are GMO, (including, apparently, the asst. ed. of Countryside, per a comment in the last issue, - she really should learn to fact check) but they are not. Natural breeding is NATURAL. Any result of it is natural.

Putting spider genes in a goat, or glowing fungi genes in a rabbit, is NOT natural, and cannot ever happen by natural breeding. Fish do not mate with strawberries.

To the best of my knowledge, CX's are the result of natural breeding. IMO, they've overdone it, but it's natural breeding nonetheless. Even if it's AI, that just means they had help getting sperm-to-egg, it's still sperm-to-egg breeding.

Sorry for the long digression from the topic.

I raise free-ranged dual purpose birds, some pure bred, some mixed breed. Some have white (pink, really) skin, some have yellow, some are darker yellow, some are lighter. They all eat the same feed, and forage over the same ground.

Every single one of them, (that we've butchered) tastes like chicken. You can't taste the color of the skin. Once they've been cooked, you can't tell what color the skin was when it was raw. I've read that Silkies are an exception to that, having a blue or black skin.

If you have to have a chicken with yellow skin, you could choose a breed that has yellow skin. There are broiler strains that have yellow skin, and some that have white. If you check different hatcheries, you can probably fine one that has yellow skinned broilers, if that's your preference.

 

[Buster52]

Quote:
Well, not to be a smart-a or anything, but by definition, Artificial Insemination is not "natural breeding".

But I do understand your point.

 

[dancingbear]

Quote:
Well, not to be a smart-a or anything, but by definition, Artificial Insemination is not "natural breeding".

But I do understand your point.

Yeah, the act of AI ain't natural. But it won't alter the genes.

Mine have to be able to do the doin' all by themselves. I'm not doin' it for 'em. I have no desire whatsoever to supply that kind of intervention.