Farming and Homesteading Heritage Poultry

[punky rooster]

Quote:
Sparty, thank you. You've done a much more eloquent job of stating my basic point than I.

Mervin,
Why don't you start a thread on your style?
Yellow house farm, forgive me If i am wrong but i think this thread was created for standard bred heritage birds and how to get them to be the ideal homestead bird and also being a nice representative of the breed. This is very possible to do, the ALBC has some articles on their site for selection for meat, eggs ect. I mean why not try to help the breed by breeding them for production and to the standard after all that was their purpose. be back later
punky

 

[buffalogal]

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No, the real point is that you had the birds confined in inadequate housing and when faced with unusually cold weather they ended up being damaged not because they are genetically inferior, but because you didn't do your job. If you have three or four birds in one pen and one doesn't get severe frostbite, that doesn't automatically mean it's Super Chicken. It could mean that was the lucky one that got to sleep in the middle and relied on the others to block the wind.

Read again the posts in this thread about LOCATION and it's effects on frostbite. If you'd said your birds were roosting in a tree and ended up frostbit, that's one thing, but you put them in a cage, eliminating any chance they had to move to a better place when the weather got bad. You are responsible for the damage they suffered from your poor choice of location. To be honest, given your description of the type of shelter they had during extreme weather, it sounds like this is a poor choice of breeds for your set up in the first place. This is why people keep rose comb and pea comb birds; instead of torturing an animal by trying to force it to "survive" conditions it is not suited for, they pick a breed that was developed to thrive under the conditions that exist on their farm.

 

[cybercat]

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Punky this is first post. Yellowhouse Farm started this thread. Just refreshing everyone on topic.

Which reminds me of a question. Does anyone harvest feathers to sell? Where I live we have alot of craft stores as well as fly fishermen. I have seen feathers for sell for both here. Personally I am planning on doing it for a couple of local craft stores when I get my numbers back up.

 

[X2Farm]

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I had thought about the selling feathers. Lots of fly fishers here in GA. Just hadn't had a chance to look into it much. Guess this would be my kick in the rear to do some asking around about it!

How are your PR's doin? Any chance you'd grace us with some pictures? I've got some eggs coming in a month or so. Hoping I can get at least a trio from em

 

[WallTenters]

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You do know that it is possible to have both in one bird right?

My point exactly

 

[WallTenters]

My friend had started to raise some pheonix for a fly-fisherman, but he needed hackle feathers she could only get (without damaging) when the bird was X.X and she couldn't do it by cutting heads off. She's like me - I'm fine harvesting my birds, but I hate bleeding them out without cutting off the heads, so she returned the trio to the guy and said she just couldn't do it. I'm not sure if there is another way to save the hackles other than throat bleeding, but for her it just wasn't worth the time and effort - but she had many other projects as well. It would certainly be something to look into!

As far as craft stores, that would certainly be a good idea. Why not? I've thought about making some old-style feather pens (with metal nub inserts though) for friends as christmas presents should I get any good Sickles off my dominique roosters. I think their feathers are so beautiful, and I think an old-style pen with a hand bound book would be a wonderful gift as a journal.

Let us know if you talk to them what they would pay for feathers. We have tons and I'd be interested if it was worth the gas money to go into Bend

 

[Mervin]

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I think I will forgo participating in this thread any further. I think your implication that I should leave is a bit juvenile though.

The OP's opening sentiments indicated they'd like to start a dialogue, which usually involves discourse and dissent.

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Perhaps if the ins and OUTS aren't really to be discussed there should be a disclaimer that heresy will NOT be tolerated in this open discussion.

The Joy of Heritage Poultry Within the Context of Agricultural Antiquity Preservation -- That would be my suggestion for a new title. Hopefully nobody will suggest that there might be cons when discussing the pro and cons then.

 

[WallTenters]

I guess punky rooster may have felt that this got away from the original post, but we all read it in different light.

Spartacus and Mervin, what breed of heritage birds are you focusing on? From Spartacus's post it sounds like an Orpington would be an excellent choice for the qualities you're looking for - but your BYC page says you have several breeds, so I'm a bit confused - do you have a seperate breeding pen?

I guess my impression of the initial post was that we were talking about quality bred heritage breeds that serve a homesteader (aka fridge filler) position for meat, eggs or both. Is this instead a thread focused on just keeping mixed birds that are homestead birds - I would love to see a thread on that as well, but it certainly doesn't fit in with heritage breeds and should probably go in either the egg laying forum or the meat birds forum.

 

[punky rooster]

Quote:
Thank you.
Mervin: I never said anything about you leaving I think you exaggerated on that part of my post, I just suggested you to start a educational thread with your type mindset (might be the wrong term, best I could think of) I don't find anything juvenile about that. I think it may be juvenile that you think of it in a offensive way. I also find it funny that you only quoted part of my post the most important part you left out.

Cybercat: thanks, and I never thought of that idea, that would be a cool thing to do! I'd love to see some more pictures of you partridge rocks, You are doing a great job with them!

These are th•Chapter ALBC links:
•Chapter 1. Selecting for Meat Qualities and Rate of Growth
•Chapter 2. Selecting for Egg Production
•Chapter 3. Ongoing Selection of Breeding Stock
punky

 

[aonlineshop]

I am finding it really interesting