Farming and Homesteading Heritage Poultry

[cbnovick]

Why Rocks? Why Barred over White? Or is it this particular strain of Rock blood you'd be after?

Is there a difference in growth rates of one breed of rock over another? Egg laying capabilities?

Curiously,
Coley

I have found that solid colored rocks do mature faster than than the barred variety...perhaps the slow feathering gene associated with the barred pattern is responsible...unsure.

My personal choice for the ultimate homesteading chicken would be the New Hampshire....fast to feather, mature, dress out and lay plenty of eggs. I am not speaking of the pure german but of the german/american cross or straight american Good Shepherd NH's.

 

[Arielle]

Quote:

My personal choice for the ultimate homesteading chicken would be the New Hampshire....fast to feather, mature, dress out and lay plenty of eggs. I am not speaking of the pure german but of the german/american cross or straight american Good Shepherd NH's.

In other words, lines that have been heavily selected for these traits.

 

[Robert Blosl]

Quote: Boy you said a mouth full. There are Barred rock strains that are slow to develop the males have no tails at 10 months of age all their good for is a few eggs and to eat. If you showed them with a good group of rocks you would get beat bad. Why I choose them over my white rocks that I have been breeding for 25 years. Is they are old fashion barred rocks. They fit in with the Homestead sprit. Now white rocks a good strain that is breed for high egg production like I use to have would be great but the average person wants a colored bird for a Homestead farm. They sometimes ask me for off the wall breeds that look pretty in catalogs and have good hype on the story when they where around 50 years ago but today they a hard to find. A good example was Delaware's. Most are hatchery level and one lady in Mo started her own line she is in to her third year crossing New Hampshire's onto Barred Rocks. She could not find any worth fooling with and boy has she made progress. In maybe two to three more years she will have some like they had in the old days.

New Hampshire's are a good breed also, Buckeyes.

I am a Rhode Island Red Guy so I guess I should have said R I Reds. Rose Combs in the north and Single Combs in the South. bob

 

[Robert Blosl]

Got a private message from a guy who is wanting a Old Time Breed to convert from his present stock he got at Tractor Supply.

He was going to have a trio of White Plymouth Rock Large Fowl shipped in for $300. or ten started chicks in March of White Rocks for $170 .

He finally found a breeder who has a old line that is at least 50 years old and has a nice breeding trio for $50.

Well let me get back and read my Mother Earth News old issues that I got 20 years ago. bob

 

[Yellow House Farm]

Well, I guess we're pretty obvious. f I were to go with one, it would be wither the Dorking or the Ancona. If carcass were a question, the former; if feed-thrift were on the docket, the latter.

 

[bnjrob]

These are three Java cockerels we (hubby) butchered over the weekend.

The ones on the outsides were the same age - 5 months old. The one on the right dressed out at 4 lb 15.75 oz. The one on the left, the same age, dressed out at 3 lb 12.5 oz.

The middle carcass was a 9 month old cockerel. He dressed out at 4 lb 15.5 oz. He weighed less than the younger bird on the right and I attribute the difference to the fact that the older bird did not get separated from females as early as these 5 months olds did, and so this older bird did nothing but chase females and other males around from 3 months old on. Even after being separated from other birds, he continued to constantly pace the wire trying to get to the other birds and didn't eat nearly as much as the other males that live by themselves eat.

The younger cockerel on the right had a wider keel than the older cockerel in the middle.

The Javas don't have huge breasts like some other birds, but the breast are tender and moist - at least they are the way that I brine and cook them. I brine them since most of our birds that get butchered are older and aren't kept penned in small spaces to fatten up prior to butchering. They do have plenty of meat on their legs, even the birds that have thinner shanks usually have large meaty thighs.

 

[Fentress]

Did not separate my cockerels like I said I was going to. I have culled once and need to again. The RIR that I have my eye on are about 18 weeks. Do you really think that separating them makes a difference in their weight gain? When you do separate them do you restrict their free range as well? I would never take them off the grass, but I could reduce the size of the pasture to just a small area. The cockerels are behaving a little better this year than last (my first year) maybe because there is an older rooster in the flock?

 

[NanaKat]

I like to separate the cockerels from the pullets at about 5 - 6 months because the boys really stress out the girls. Also it affects the weight that the cockerels gain when they are running around pestering the pullets. I up the protein in their feed and have them on a grassy pen. They get to free-range for about an hour and a half each evening after I lock up the other free-rangers in their respective pens. They also get grass clippings and more veggies from the garden than the flocks that free-range all day.
The pullets seem to like the separation also...becoming more calm and reach pol more smoothly...in my opinion. I have Wyandotte and Cochin.

 

[bnjrob]

Did not separate my cockerels like I said I was going to. I have culled once and need to again. The RIR that I have my eye on are about 18 weeks. Do you really think that separating them makes a difference in their weight gain? When you do separate them do you restrict their free range as well? I would never take them off the grass, but I could reduce the size of the pasture to just a small area. The cockerels are behaving a little better this year than last (my first year) maybe because there is an older rooster in the flock?

I do think it can make a difference in size by gender separating them. There are still some that are smaller than the others, but there is a noticeable difference in size comparing those that stayed all together, and those that got separated into gender housing early vs late separation. When they don't get separated by gender or get separated late, the cockerels spend so much energy running around, and running the females around, that no eats as much as they could be eating, and they run off the calories they do eat. Even our pullets are looking larger this year having separated them from the males.

Ours can only free range when we are out there to supervise - just don't have enough breeders to be able to let them roam free all the time. When not outside with me in the pasture, they are in their giant tractors with approx 10ft/bird space in the runs and 4ft/bird in the coops. This has not changed, we've had this setup since the beginning, even though this is the first time to separate by gender to grow out. We have a whole fleet of these sheds on wheels in the pasture with more to come.

 

[Fentress]

Thanks. Also, if you don't mind, does separating the sexes also help the pullets. Seems like I have heard that there is an optimum way for pullets to enter their first laying period. And if there are too many cockerels around they will start to lay too early before they reach the preferred body weight, resulting in smaller eggs than normal, even for pullet eggs. Or, maybe the better way to phrase it is they start laying when they are suppose to, but because of all of the running around ( as you mentioned above) they are below weight. Just read NanaKat's post. I think we answered the question re: the pullets.

Thanks again,

mark