YdogsflY
Songster
- Jun 21, 2017
- 337
- 241
- 130
What have I twisted? You said Alltech was marketing. You said you feed a mineral pack that contained everything your birds needed. You said your mineral pack was the same as Alltech's product. You said some birds were as productive as they were 80 years,ago, offered up your New Hampshires as an example, and then later admitted they were not as productive.
You do not sell poultry, either live or dressed, or eggs? So you deprive your birds of nutrients to get them to a weight at a later time? Why do you feed oyster shell if the mineral pack contains all that they need? You said you fee all birds the same.
My comment was that birds today are not as productive as they were 80 years ago. You disagreed. You offered your New Hampshires as an example, and then admitted they are not as productive as birds 80 years ago. People have different standards. A serama bantam could be considered productive, since you could eat the meat. It takes a long time to produce very little. A bird that lays one egg per year produces. The point was that people have low expectations, and mislead people. If a bird takes longer to reach a certain weight, it is not as productive. If a bird lays fewer eggs per year, it is less productive. That is comparing standard bred birds to standard bred birds. You can forget it if you compare commercial birds.
I hope your customers become educated one day. In the meantime, you should be honest with them.
Look, it's obvious we have different opinions as to what productive fowl are. I'm not comparing the NH's to my leghorns or sexlinks or broilers. From my understanding 80 years ago 3 eggs a week from a hen was considered fairly good on the average homestead/farm. What should the NH's be producing to meet your requirements? If my low expectations are anything more than that, well, I don't know what to say. The NH's are for meat and maybe again I have low expectations, but I see a better carcass on them than the majority of "dual purpose" birds around. Certainly not intentionally misleading people, nor do I see what I said as misleading.
What I knew of Alltech is that they sell minerals. Their posters are flashy with big words. I will do some reading on Alltech to educate myself. I guess I should also find the right words to use when talking about bags of minerals you put in feed. Because just calling them minerals does not appear to be good enough. I use a poultry premix. I call it mineral. "Pick up the minerals while your out that way."
The feed I make is a balanced "all flock" type of feed around 20% protein. Worked with the extension office and a local mill at the start so I would get it right. All the birds eat it and do well on it. Birds are not deprived of anything. The layers along with the NH's get oyster shell on the side because the feed is intentionally lower on the calcium than a layer feed for the non laying birds. There is still calcium in the feed.
Broilers and ducks are done at 6-8 weeks. It's an easy rotation with adding a new flock every 2 weeks. Sometimes they get too big in that time period and we mve to the next flock. Majority of sales are for birds from 3lb-5lbs carcass weight. We slaughter around 700 birds a week in the summer, deliver twice a week, and also mail products out.
My daughter sells the eggs. It's not part of the business. The poultry is only half of the farm. The hogs, sheep, and cattle sell well also.
My customers are educated, but there you go again. You can assume all you want, it doesn't make it true.