Crossbreeding dual purpose breeds for sustainable flock

[HomesteadNowhere]

In order of hatching. Kind of blown out from the heat lamp but there is membrane dried to the back of 2. You can really see in person that 1 and 2 are like bright blonde then 3 and 4 are the more buff yellow color.
1 has chipmunk stripe, 2 doesn't seem to.
No pips currently. Waiting for them to all go at once lol.

 

[HomesteadNowhere]

Well.. sadly this hatch was a big flop and I did indeed end up with just the four chicks. I'm thinking multiple things went into it...
-roo has favorite hens so some hens eggs were probably blanks. Solution, when hatching I need to have a pen for breeding group.
-incubator. I think the farmers innovator is just cheap and not up to consistency to hatch. Even with it plugged into the thermostat.
-minerals. I think the feed is not up to snuff. But it's affordable and with feed costs going up I don't have a ton of options. I've been wanting to get the mineral from fertrell and this is just the match under me that I needed I guess. I'll be ordering it as soon as I can.

The very light down chick certainly looks to be white feathers coming in. The chipmunk stripe chick looks to have Columbian/penciled feathers coming in, buff or a shade of red.
The two FR chicks are buff down. One looks to be coming in buff feathers. The other looks to be buff with maybe some dark spots of Columbian. As long as I'm able to tell them apart still I'd like to wait to wing band them til a week or two old. The wings are so tiny and soft I hate to do it now.
With the lambs ears to tag them sometimes they have really tender fine ears and I'll put off tagging them a few days, otherwise they are super likely to accidents rip them out. Not a fun time. I know the wing bands aren't exactly the same but it seems close enough.

I'm really thinking the two barred chicks are turning out cockerels. Darn. I'd thought they were based on the tails but they have bigger combs now too so not much hope of me being wrong about it.

I'm trying to plan a butcher day for the FR hens. Hoping to wrangle some help to make it easier. We'll see. I was considering keeping just one to try breeding from again but at this point I don't know it'll be worth it. They have so much internal fat and they are so bad about egg eating. I don't think I will. The white hen has also become one of the consistent egg eaters and may be a stew bird also.

That leaves me with just the 7 brahmas and 1 NH for hens.

 

[HomesteadNowhere]

Forgot to post weights on Tuesday. I'm doing the second hatch chicks the same time because it's easier to do it all at once.

Chick/ wk2/ wk3/ wk4/ wk5/ wk6
1- 225, 352, 470, 589, 871
2- 205, 322, 421, 520, 797
3- 198, 311, 411, 510, 776
4- 219, 346, 473, 600, 858
5- 190, 303, 415, 528, 778
6- 200, 314, 402, 490, 715
7- 195, 295, 395, 495, 748
8- xxx, xxx, xxx, xxx, xxx, 777
9- xxx, xxx, xxx, xxx, xxx, 756
10- xxx, xxx, xxx, xxx, xxx, 629
11- xxx, xxx, xxx, xxx, xxx, 685
12- xxx, xxx, xxx, xxx, xxx, 551
13- xxx, xxx, xxx, xxx, xxx, 531
14- xxx, xxx, xxx, xxx, xxx, 546
15- xxx, xxx, xxx, xxx, xxx, 512
16- xxx, xxx, xxx, xxx, 438, 668 (barred)
17- xxx, xxx, xxx, xxx, 485, 697 (barred)
18- xxx, xxx, xxx, xxx, xxx, 316

19- (white, f?) 57
20- (stripe, m?) 64
21- (FR m?) 72
22- (FR f?) 58

 

[HomesteadNowhere]

Chick/ wk2/ wk3/ wk4/ wk5/ wk6/ wk7
1- 225, 352, 470, 589, 871, 1111
2- 205, 322, 421, 520, 797, 1038
3- 198, 311, 411, 510, 776, 983
4- 219, 346, 473, 600, 858, 1099
5- 190, 303, 415, 528, 778, 1033
6- 200, 314, 402, 490, 715, 1002
7- 195, 295, 395, 495, 748, 928
8- xxx, xxx, xxx, xxx, xxx, 777, 954
9- xxx, xxx, xxx, xxx, xxx, 756, 946
10- xxx, xxx, xxx, xxx, xxx, 629, 731
11- xxx, xxx, xxx, xxx, xxx, 685, 945
12- xxx, xxx, xxx, xxx, xxx, 551, 690
13- xxx, xxx, xxx, xxx, xxx, 531, 652
14- xxx, xxx, xxx, xxx, xxx, 546, 717
15- xxx, xxx, xxx, xxx, xxx, 512, 622
16- xxx, xxx, xxx, xxx, 438, 668, 890
17- xxx, xxx, xxx, xxx, 485, 697, 888
18- xxx, xxx, xxx, xxx, xxx, 316, 386

19- (white, f?) 57, 99
20- (stripe, m?) 64, 117
21- (FR m?) 72, 143
22- (FR f?) 58, 104

 

[HomesteadNowhere]

Last night I closed up the chickens and hauled the older chicks out. They settled in fine. Moved the chickshaw in the dark and finished setting up the fence this morning. They were quite excited to have a nice big area and lots of forage! I spread out the feeders and the little ones seemed to get plenty.

The one brahma cross is way behind so I left it in the brooder. Transferred the 4 younger chicks to the brooder from the little tote starter. They're doing good. Not really any fighting for food with just the 5 of them in there.

FR hen found the other feeder with the littles. For scale lol. And a close up of the NH roo, not the best pic but he never stands still for a pic.

 

[HomesteadNowhere]

It's been a busy summer. Last week I butchered all but one cockerel. The young ones (spring hatched) were not staying in the netting at all. I had to keep them in cages, which wasn't the plan at all. Ended up with only 2 cockerels with the flock and I picked the better looking one.
Also butchered the FR hens. I some were more fatty than others but I was surprised none were really full of fat. So the regular once a day feeding was working fine. Then I decided to do the 4 smaller birds from the second hatch.

Leaving the 8 pullets back in the salatin style tractor. I'm not happy with how they look but part of that is being in cage/tractor and not in with the flock. They are not meaty and they don't look anything special to keep. I don't really want to bother with butchering them, going to list them as pullets and see if I can sell them. Feed money would be nice.

The cockerels did look good. They weren't as full meaty as the FR were but they were decent. They likely could have done a bit better if I hadn't been so busy and they'd have stayed in the pen with the flock. Better than the mix of cockerels last year were.

This leaves me with 1 cockerel, 1 white hen, 6 buff brahma hens. And I got four muscovy young ducks the other day from a friend of a friend whose ducks were broody maniacs all year and was overrun. Fingers crossed we tried to get a male and three females but two are still mostly fluffy and starting feathers, two are about half feathered. Time will tell.

The Bielefelder roo was gone bc he wouldn't stop coming at me. And the NH roo mysteriously disappeared from the pen with the flock. I did lose two hens back in probably June.. I think to black buzzards which are being spotted here now. They look just like buzzards that eat roadkill except instead of red skin heads they are completely black. They will hunt and take animals live. Some people have had them go at lambs. I did spot a few that I'm pretty sure were them the day the second one was gotten. Haven't seen them since so dunno. It was I think August that the NH roo disappeared. No feathers, no blood, nada.

 

[Molpet]

It's been a busy summer. Last week I butchered all but one cockerel. The young ones (spring hatched) were not staying in the netting at all. I had to keep them in cages, which wasn't the plan at all. Ended up with only 2 cockerels with the flock and I picked the better looking one.
Also butchered the FR hens. I some were more fatty than others but I was surprised none were really full of fat. So the regular once a day feeding was working fine. Then I decided to do the 4 smaller birds from the second hatch.

Leaving the 8 pullets back in the salatin style tractor. I'm not happy with how they look but part of that is being in cage/tractor and not in with the flock. They are not meaty and they don't look anything special to keep. I don't really want to bother with butchering them, going to list them as pullets and see if I can sell them. Feed money would be nice.

The cockerels did look good. They weren't as full meaty as the FR were but they were decent. They likely could have done a bit better if I hadn't been so busy and they'd have stayed in the pen with the flock. Better than the mix of cockerels last year were.

This leaves me with 1 cockerel, 1 white hen, 6 buff brahma hens. And I got four muscovy young ducks the other day from a friend of a friend whose ducks were broody maniacs all year and was overrun. Fingers crossed we tried to get a male and three females but two are still mostly fluffy and starting feathers, two are about half feathered. Time will tell.

The Bielefelder roo was gone bc he wouldn't stop coming at me. And the NH roo mysteriously disappeared from the pen with the flock. I did lose two hens back in probably June.. I think to black buzzards which are being spotted here now. They look just like buzzards that eat roadkill except instead of red skin heads they are completely black. They will hunt and take animals live. Some people have had them go at lambs. I did spot a few that I'm pretty sure were them the day the second one was gotten. Haven't seen them since so dunno. It was I think August that the NH roo disappeared. No feathers, no blood, nada.

They are becoming a problem
The southern part of my state, Illinois, is issuing permits to eliminate the ones getting livestock.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

It's been a busy summer. Last week I butchered all but one cockerel. The young ones (spring hatched) were not staying in the netting at all. I had to keep them in cages, which wasn't the plan at all. Ended up with only 2 cockerels with the flock and I picked the better looking one.
Also butchered the FR hens. I some were more fatty than others but I was surprised none were really full of fat. So the regular once a day feeding was working fine. Then I decided to do the 4 smaller birds from the second hatch.

Leaving the 8 pullets back in the salatin style tractor. I'm not happy with how they look but part of that is being in cage/tractor and not in with the flock. They are not meaty and they don't look anything special to keep. I don't really want to bother with butchering them, going to list them as pullets and see if I can sell them. Feed money would be nice.

The cockerels did look good. They weren't as full meaty as the FR were but they were decent. They likely could have done a bit better if I hadn't been so busy and they'd have stayed in the pen with the flock. Better than the mix of cockerels last year were.

This leaves me with 1 cockerel, 1 white hen, 6 buff brahma hens. And I got four muscovy young ducks the other day from a friend of a friend whose ducks were broody maniacs all year and was overrun. Fingers crossed we tried to get a male and three females but two are still mostly fluffy and starting feathers, two are about half feathered. Time will tell.

The Bielefelder roo was gone bc he wouldn't stop coming at me. And the NH roo mysteriously disappeared from the pen with the flock. I did lose two hens back in probably June.. I think to black buzzards which are being spotted here now. They look just like buzzards that eat roadkill except instead of red skin heads they are completely black. They will hunt and take animals live. Some people have had them go at lambs. I did spot a few that I'm pretty sure were them the day the second one was gotten. Haven't seen them since so dunno. It was I think August that the NH roo disappeared. No feathers, no blood, nada.

TY for the update!

 

[HomesteadNowhere]

Pic from when I moved them last week to a different field. They had been in the to-be-garden area. Now they will be rotated on this ~half acre I've been working on improving with the sheep. It was a weedy mess of maybe 10% grass and 90% goldenrod, iron weed, poison ivy, multi flora rose, stinging nettle, and some ivy that I haven't identified yet. This is the third year hacking at it.
The sheep were on it in May. 4th of July dad brush hogged it for me to chop down the stems the sheep had stripped of leaves. I broadcast cover crop mix but nothing really came through. I estimate it's around half grass now. Hopefully chicken poop will help it.