Fermenting Feed for Meat Birds

[tcmstalcup]

Just throwing out a question. What happens if you raise some CX right with your other chickens instead of separate with there own special feed regime?

 

[Beekissed]

Just throwing out a question. What happens if you raise some CX right with your other chickens instead of separate with there own special feed regime?

I've done it with excellent results. Just give the CX their own feeder and feed them first or your layer flock will be standing back with a puzzled look on their faces while the CX swarm the feeder....like this....



You can feed them the same rations too. I fed mine the same feed, once a day just like my layer flock, and they free ranged all day long with the flock. Didn't have a single death, all finished out with no health problems and at good weights. You can see their story and progress in a thread I started on the experiment: https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/...have-a-rooster-raising-50-cx-chicks-new-batch

That was before I found FF and they would have been even better with the use of the FF, but basically the same methods would have been used.

 

[beverly evans]

I think I have 8 more to process. Four of them are Red Ranger pullets that I am ashamed to say are laying eggs, even a couple of double yolkers!! They hatched on May 10, so they are just over 6 months old So I don't know exactly what I will do with them after I process them. I also have 4 Marans roosters that are about 7 months old......big boys....and I was thinking about canning them and making stock.

As for breeding, I am not smart enough to go there except to try to get some good sized birds to get meat on the table. Hopefully with breeding my Marans and caponizing I can accomplish that.

What's a Red Ranger? Is that the same as a Red Star, a Red Sex Link, or an ISA Brown?

 

[Triple Willow]

Here's a clue...I live in the sticks.  Ain't nobody alookin'....    I could sit out here nekked and no one but the chickens, cat and dog to see.  In the interest of sparing their sight and good digestion and that of my poor mother, I do not go nekked but it's an option if we so wished. 

Bee, they have those dang satelites all over the world now. You could be sitting on your front porch all alone and somebody in China looking at you! lol My phone has this "Google Street View" or something like that. It is like you are walking down the road looking at everything. It will show pics of people driving down the road and you are standing right there looking at them, like you could reach out and touch them! And of course nobody was even around when the satelite took those pics! It is plumb dang scary! ...So keep your drawers on while outside! hahaha I wouldn't doubt it it can't peep in windows!

 

[beverly evans]

We were going to do the same thing this summer but found our well casing wouldn't take the electric pump and the pipes for a manual pump at the same time. We had really wanted a way to draw water when the electric is down. We store a lot of water for when it goes down for a couple of weeks but for longer than that, we might be hurting. I can dig down a bit and hit the underground spring that feeds our well, but it would take a bit to get that spring to settle down and I couldn't do it if the ground were frozen. So, I get where you are coming from...back in the day we used to have a hand pump and it was wonderful to not have to worry about water or lack of power.

As it is, we have an outhouse, wood heat, gas stove and kerosene lamps, so other than the water, we are good for awhile on keeping things going in a power outage. Our wheat grinder is electric and that's a downside...wish I had a manual grinder for that.

Bee, in Texas because of the drought with water shortages, the city prohibits water use except for the bare necessities sometimes so I got rain harvesting tanks. I have 1000 gallons of water in one and half that in another. Could you do that ?

 

[beverly evans]

I did invest in a manual wheat grinder, so I am good there. I thought about a sun oven, but I haven't really given that a really good look.. Hubby and I have been cooking in our dutch ovens, and one of these times I am going to try my hand at baking bread in one.

Just like the Boy Scouts wit their dutch oven cakes!

 

[Beekissed]

What's a Red Ranger? Is that the same as a Red Star, a Red Sex Link, or an ISA Brown?

A RR is a red broiler bird, supposedly better at free ranging and raising on pasture than the CX...they don't finish out as large and I've heard mixed reviews about their supposed hardiness and ranging abilities.

The others you mention are hybrid production layers.

Bee, they have those dang satelites all over the world now. You could be sitting on your front porch all alone and somebody in China looking at you! lol My phone has this "Google Street View" or something like that. It is like you are walking down the road looking at everything. It will show pics of people driving down the road and you are standing right there looking at them, like you could reach out and touch them! And of course nobody was even around when the satelite took those pics! It is plumb dang scary! ...So keep your drawers on while outside! hahaha I wouldn't doubt it it can't peep in windows!

Our place doesn't have a street and the tree cover pretty much prevents the GE feature from pinpointing much about the house, but I've no doubts they have their ways to spy upon us all the same....but...they get what they richly deserve at that point.

Somewhere, in some spy station, a group of people are using their films of me in shorts as motivation for their company fitness program. I feel like I'm doing something~in some small way~ to better humanity by this exposure and so will bravely continue on in my efforts.

 

[Windy Bay Farm]

I know this isn't the right thread to be posting in but I'm going to anyway; I have 13 girls all around 6 months of age and I have been getting 5 - 6 eggs per day lately with all of the girls acting and doing normal chicken things. They free range during the day, are fed FF and all have been acting normal. Up until yesterday that is; I noticed one of my black stars, who is always very active and one of the top layers, was kind of acting depressed and keeping to herself. After a day or so it seemed like she was acting better so I let it be. This morning when I let them out to free range she came out but went off by herself and stood alone, with head tucked in her wing. She's definitely not acting normal that's for sure. I noticed her butt is messier than normal too. However, two of my BR's have had messy butts the last couple of days but they are still acting normal. The other thing is , they aren't eating their FF like they normally do... Usually when I put that stuff out it is gobbled up within minutes but the last few days I can fill their trough with FF during the day and the next day it is still half full. Even while free ranging thy ALWAYS cleaned the FF dry. To note, I recently (1 week ago) added a 5 month old rooster to the flock, he too seems to be acting normal with no signs of illness. I got him from a man with a small flock who ended up with. 4 roosters and of course e wanted to get rid of some. I'm worried about the black star and am wondering what I should do to treat her. I have separated her from the flock and given her some dry feed and ACV water. Could this be vent gleet or something , coccidiosis, etc ? What should I do about the other two BR's or have messy butts but otherwise seem to be acting normal ? Also, I am now only getting about 3 eggs per day, down from 5 - 6. I find this a bit stressful and am hoping that someone can offer some advice. I don't understand what's going on or why their appetites aren't what they used to be.

 

[Beekissed]

Bee, in Texas because of the drought with water shortages, the city prohibits water use except for the bare necessities sometimes so I got rain harvesting tanks. I have 1000 gallons of water in one and half that in another. Could you do that ?

Sure could...if I wanted to drink water from the chemical laced skies we currently have above us. No boiling will remove heavy metals, so we would need one heck of a filtration system for that. Can't afford it....but in a pinch and for survival, we could utilize it for drinking.

When the power is down we do catch rain water for watering livestock, bathing and flushing of commodes if we so wish...I've even showered under the eave spout before, so that's a given and we've always utilized rain catchment for that here in the sticks. When we were homesteading, we had huge whiskey barrels to catch rainwater for bathing and washing of clothes. That was back when beer shampoo was all the rage and we had our own secret of whiskey hair washing...

Back then, rainwater left one's hair silky soft.

 

[beverly evans]

Hahahaha@ naked

Good job on both birds!

I read in here somewhere about a breed of bird that had black skin, but it wasn't an Australorp. Is this foto for real?