Farming and Homesteading Heritage Poultry

[Arielle]

I wonder how you choose a line of birds for meat quality and taste without actually having tasted them? Not trying to get in your face but your post brought the question up. I've wondered it before and never said anything. Somebody breeds their birds for flavor. How do you know? Is there a way to tell whether a bird will taste good without eating him cuz after you do, you've shot yourself in the foot if he's the best you've ever had.

Which post are you referring to?

 

[neopolitancrazy]

[quote name="lcahill" url="/t/447684/farming-and-homesteading-heritage-poultry/1440#

Im also trying to decide between 8 breeds for my next flock.  With the time and effort needed for breeding, I will limit that to one specific breed, possibly two.

Black Jersey Giant
Light Brahma
Orpington
Non-Industrial Leghorns
Dorking
Ancona
Australorp
Non-Industrial RIR

In the 2010-2011 winter ("worst in 30 years") all my single combed birds got frost bitten tips on their combs while the pea combed ones did fine. This was near Hannibal, MO, so probably more humid than your part of the show-me state, with temps in the minus-single-digits range. If you are worried about tht, I would recommend pea or rose combed varieties.

 

[Yellow House Farm]

One doesn't select fowl for "taste" per se. One selects fowl for fleshing and then a tendency towards fattening, which leads to palatability. Having said that, various types of graining and fleshing qualities have developed in strains over the centuries, but, frankly, they have not been cared for, and obsolescence threatens to eliminate them. For example, the French breeds: Crevcoeur, Houdan, La Fleche are DELICIOUS. Those that I've slaughtered continue to possess the famed "white flesh" for which they were noted, and it was very juicy and very fine grained. The portions on the carcass were slight, because the birds have been allowed to deteriorate markedly in size, but the meat present was of rudely good quality.

 

[flowerchild59]

Neopolitan, I chose the RC RIR's for the reasons you stated about frozen combs. Here in southern Illinois, we get weeks of single digits during the winter too.

 

[Extra Java]

Hmm, haven't heard of the bleach soak but could try it. Sad that it takes so long to sprout though. I didn't have any problems with the expensive stuff. Of course.

I've seen people use a salt soak in place of the bleach.
I use neither - haven't had any problems in all the years I've been sprouting organic grains.

 

[Yellow House Farm]

Neopolitan, I chose the RC RIR's for the reasons you stated about frozen combs. Here in southern Illinois, we get weeks of single digits during the winter too.

Awesome choice!!

 

[bnjrob]

I've seen people use a salt soak in place of the bleach.
I use neither - haven't had any problems in all the years I've been sprouting organic grains.

I'm sure it's the "organic" part that makes a difference, considering the "organic" stuff I've sprouted did fine, it was the less expensive stuff from the feed store that did not sprout as well.

 

[AletaG]

I've seen people use a salt soak in place of the bleach.
I use neither - haven't had any problems in all the years I've been sprouting organic grains.

I'm sure it's the "organic" part that makes a difference, considering the "organic" stuff I've sprouted did fine, it was the less expensive stuff from the feed store that did not sprout as well.

Mine was feed store stuff, too. I tried it once with just soaking, and mold everywhere. Thus the bleach soak. It took FOREVER to sprout, but it did, and no mold... Could also be a 'part of the country' thing? Where I live, you sneeze, and it gets moldy. LOL. Had a boss that would drink lots of coffee, but would always leave a pot on the counter over the weekend. Never failed, by Mon AM, whole thing would have Penicillium colonies over an inch across floating on the surface. Even though I didn't drink coffee, was my job to clean. Started pouring it out on Friday afternoon. Can't keep breads, etc. at room temp here either. 2days, tops before it molds. No more than a week or so in the refridgerator even.
I don't bleach treat our seeds for people sprouting, hasn't ever been a need. Never eaten oat sprouts, though.

 

[NanaKat]

You really can hatch a bunch of chicks out of just a few birds.  This was our first year to breed and we are growing out more than 30 juveniles from only 2 breeding pens of 1 cock and 3 hens in each pen.  We could have hatched more if we had wanted to and still had eggs to eat since we do have a small food-egg flock of birds that didn't make the breeding cut.

No matter how close to the Standard of Perfection the breeder birds are, chicken genetics are very complicated and they don't always mesh together in the way that you think they will (it isn't like the simple Mendelian pea plant genetics you probably learned in middle school).  There are genes in chickens that only show up under certain conditions.  You will still get birds that are not up to the SOP when you breed good birds.  So if you allow flock breeding, there are infinitely more chances of genes coming together in the wrong way so that you get even more birds that are not up to standard.

It may be hard to understand right now, but after you get to know your birds and do your first hatches, you will see the difference that it makes when you make particular pairings of birds.  And even then, sometimes things crop up out of the blue.

Example: From one of our breeding pens, we hatched a cockerel with droopy wings (wings look almost vertical instead of horizontal) and he has a side sprig sticking out of his comb.  Neither the breeding cock or the hens he is with, have these issues, yet the dna mixed up together to make these defects in this particular offspring.  In some  of the other offspring from this particular breeding pen, we have some pullets that have tails that are looking ok, and others that have pinched tails.  Some of them have the wrong tail angle for a Java, others have an ok tail angle.  Some have good thick legs and some others have legs that aren't as big.  Some of them are pretty heavy while others are not as heavy as they should be for their age and breed.

You just don't know how those ova and sperm are going to interact with each other.  But believe me, once you do a hatch or two and see how they grow out, it will make more sense to you about how your choices affect the outcome of the offspring.

Sounds like you need to pull that breeding pen and single mate the rooster to each hen and toe punch the chicks from each hen to see which genetic combination is throwing the faults. If the faults show up with each hen's offspring, then the problem may be the rooster.

 

[Lacy Blues]

Which post are you referring to?

One doesn't select fowl for "taste" per se. One selects fowl for fleshing and then a tendency towards fattening, which leads to palatability. Having said that, various types of graining and fleshing qualities have developed in strains over the centuries, but, frankly, they have not been cared for, and obsolescence threatens to eliminate them. For example, the French breeds: Crevcoeur, Houdan, La Fleche are DELICIOUS. Those that I've slaughtered continue to possess the famed "white flesh" for which they were noted, and it was very juicy and very fine grained. The portions on the carcass were slight, because the birds have been allowed to deteriorate markedly in size, but the meat present was of rudely good quality.

I was referring to comments made by some one on here about a man (Frank Reese?) who raises some breed of chicken for flavor. Always left a question in my mind.