Fermenting Feed for Meat Birds

[Triple Willow]

My capons are bigger than any of the hens, but not yet bigger than my roo (a big Lavender Orpington), and are bigger than their siblings  too.

I have ready that Aussies make good capons, though.

Ya know something I was thinking about... American Game capons. The roos are fierce flock protectors and from what I have read, not usually human agressive. But the roos are so agressive with each other that you can only have one roo or they will fight to the death. If caponizing would remove that agression towards each other but they would still protect the flock, some might be worth having around.

 

[BCMaraniac]

Y'all have got me interested in possibly trying it.

I would like to get some of those little roos that are being done away with at the hatchery and grow them out.

That is what I got this year.....but I got all white ones(Giants, Orpingtons, and Rocks). Back in the day where they were selling capons as a cash crop, they mostly used white birds because the skin would be pretty and white for the consumer, and the pin feathers were white as well. All of my mixed capons are black, so their skin won't be pretty and white and have black pin feathers, but it doesn't bother me. A good crispy-skinned roasted bird will be brown outside anyways

Could somebody explain to me how all of my capons are black when my rooster is a Lavender Orpington, and my hens consist of a Delaware, Lavender Orpington, Buff Orpington, New Hampshire Red, White Rock, Barred Rock, and French Black Copper Marans? There were only a a couple of Copper Marans eggs, so go figure. There's some weird genetics going on there somewhere.

 

[BCMaraniac]

Ya know something I was thinking about... American Game capons. The roos are fierce flock protectors and from what I have read, not usually human agressive. But the roos are so agressive with each other that you can only have one roo or they will fight to the death. If caponizing would remove that agression towards each other but they would still protect the flock, some might be worth having around.

Your intact roo would protect the flock, but the capons won't. They are docile.....like little lambs.

 

[Triple Willow]

Perhaps if when she was a pup she would be. She is very loyal and trains easy. But the prey drive in her is strong and I have never tried to break that from her. I don't want squirrle's in my house or bunnies eating my veggie garden.She is one of the best dogs I have ever had. 

Funny story tho. The PRs had gotten out on occasion and she has chased them. Her and her brother (aussie/lab mix) would spend hours at the fence staring & drooling at the hens. I have no doubt they would kill them if they could. I have no squirrels or rabbits in my yard. Lily has brought me baby bunnies every spring   If the chipmunks and mice were not so fast they would also be dead. 

Enter my electric netting....after 3 days of it being electrified and countless yelps by the dogs as they touched it to get closer to hens (I had it up not electrified for almost a month. They were used to sticking their nose through it) & me cowering in the house because it broke my heart every time they shocked themselves   

Neither now get within a 100 ft of the fence. It doesn't matter if I am standing next to it or not.  Even if I move it they stay away. 
And Lily will sit outside the veggie garden (not electrified) and I can leave the gate open and she doesn't try to come in. The veggie garden is the hens winter pasture. So they are all connected. She  could walk up to the coop entering thru this way but doesn't. I have even left it open and gone into the house and neither have passed the open gate.    

I guess this winter I will find out if they have a renewed interest in the hens. They know the metal fencing is safe. They love to sniff the perimeter to see where the rabbits and chipmunks have been.  The best part is both could easily clear either fence but they don't. Thank goodness for small favors 

Too funny! LOL Oh I get satisfaction when they hit that fence when I'm using one to keep them away from something. lol I think electric fencing is one of the farmers very best friends. I can just imagine all the hard work that had to go into fencing before electricity.

I know what you mean about that jumping ability, my dog is an Aussie/Lab too.

 

[Triple Willow]

That is what I got this year.....but I got all white ones(Giants, Orpingtons, and Rocks).  Back in the day where they were selling capons as a cash crop, they mostly used white birds because the skin would be pretty and white for the consumer, and the pin feathers were white as well.  All of my mixed capons are black, so their skin won't be pretty and white and have black pin feathers, but it doesn't bother me.  A good crispy-skinned roasted bird will be brown outside anyways

Could somebody explain to me how all of my capons are black when my rooster is a Lavender Orpington, and my hens consist of a Delaware, Lavender Orpington, Buff Orpington, New Hampshire Red, White Rock, Barred Rock, and French Black Copper Marans?    There were only a a couple of Copper Marans eggs, so go figure.  There's some weird genetics going on there somewhere.

That is odd. Hmmm...?

The Aussie roos that I killed I ended up just skinning because of all the black feathers! Their meat is really dark too. I doubt I will grow many of them out to eat. I may try the Delawares and Buckeyes - maybe even cross the two.

 

[BCMaraniac]

That is odd. Hmmm...?

The Aussie roos that I killed I ended up just skinning because of all the black feathers! Their meat is really dark too. I doubt I will grow many of them out to eat. I may try the Delawares and Buckeyes - maybe even cross the two.

I bought some American White Bresse this year, and am planning to breed them along with my Black Copper Marans. I am seriously considering trying a cross between the two to see what I get there too......

 

[JoyfulPromise]

That is what I got this year.....but I got all white ones(Giants, Orpingtons, and Rocks). Back in the day where they were selling capons as a cash crop, they mostly used white birds because the skin would be pretty and white for the consumer, and the pin feathers were white as well. All of my mixed capons are black, so their skin won't be pretty and white and have black pin feathers, but it doesn't bother me. A good crispy-skinned roasted bird will be brown outside anyways

Could somebody explain to me how all of my capons are black when my rooster is a Lavender Orpington, and my hens consist of a Delaware, Lavender Orpington, Buff Orpington, New Hampshire Red, White Rock, Barred Rock, and French Black Copper Marans? There were only a a couple of Copper Marans eggs, so go figure. There's some weird genetics going on there somewhere.

I just HAD to reply to this, because this is exactly why we decided NOT to keep a Lavender Orpington Rooster as the head roo over our mixed laying flock! See, we were planning on hatching out all from our own flock next year, preferably with broody hens, for both new pullets and DP roos to eat, but after researching the Lavender genes, we decided to sell the Lavender Orpington roo in favor of the Buff Orpington Rooster, because I read that the Lavender gene is just a diluter gene of BLACK, and the chickens need TWO diluting Lavender genes to get the pretty Light grey "Lavender" color, but if they only get one Lavender gene, the underlying color will come through, which is BLACK! So a Lavender roo over mixed color hens will have mostly BLACK colored chicks!!! Your experience proved that theory right! Thanks!

By the way, we had the opposite experience this year, with a Delaware Roo over our mixed flock. He must have had some pretty dominant WHITE genes, because all the chicks hatched were white, with varying amounts of the Delaware black speckles around the neck and one or two accent feathers in the tail. And this was the Delaware roo crossed with Buff Orpingtons, Black Australorp, Partridge Rock, and Easter Egger! The only exceptions were the few eggs from a Barred Rock or a Black Star(RIRxBR) - these chicks turned out looking like Barred Rocks, though some of them had a bit of a faded whiter patch on their chests. So anyway, if you want white chicks, a Delaware roo will give them to you!

 

[wlhtx]

Y'all were talking about your dogs being egg thieves. We have a lonely little female Khaki Campbell duck. She is the only survivor of our big dog's puppy years. Since we have no drake, her eggs are obviously not fertile. If I can find them, I use them for baking - but otherwise the big dog usually gets to them first. I was so excited one day when I found this little hidden nest. It was so pretty.

She had found an excellent hiding spot, and you can see that she had put some really hard work into it. I think there were like 15 or more eggs in it total. I wasn't going to take any since this was smack in the middle of summer and I wasn't sure if they were still good or not. But, you guessed it, our big dog followed right behind me and ate EVERY single one of those eggs in one sitting. I actually felt so bad for our little duck. The breed is known for not being great mothers, but you could tell she was sad when all her eggs went missing.

She abandoned this nest after that, and I have deliberately not tried to find her new spot.

 

[Beekissed]

Perhaps if when she was a pup she would be. She is very loyal and trains easy. But the prey drive in her is strong and I have never tried to break that from her. I don't want squirrle's in my house or bunnies eating my veggie garden.She is one of the best dogs I have ever had.

Funny story tho. The PRs had gotten out on occasion and she has chased them. Her and her brother (aussie/lab mix) would spend hours at the fence staring & drooling at the hens. I have no doubt they would kill them if they could. I have no squirrels or rabbits in my yard. Lily has brought me baby bunnies every spring

If the chipmunks and mice were not so fast they would also be dead.

Enter my electric netting....after 3 days of it being electrified and countless yelps by the dogs as they touched it to get closer to hens (I had it up not electrified for almost a month. They were used to sticking their nose through it) & me cowering in the house because it broke my heart every time they shocked themselves

Neither now get within a 100 ft of the fence. It doesn't matter if I am standing next to it or not. Even if I move it they stay away.
And Lily will sit outside the veggie garden (not electrified) and I can leave the gate open and she doesn't try to come in. The veggie garden is the hens winter pasture. So they are all connected. She could walk up to the coop entering thru this way but doesn't. I have even left it open and gone into the house and neither have passed the open gate.

I guess this winter I will find out if they have a renewed interest in the hens. They know the metal fencing is safe. They love to sniff the perimeter to see where the rabbits and chipmunks have been. The best part is both could easily clear either fence but they don't. Thank goodness for small favors

Guess they can be trained off that prey drive after all, huh?

I think folks think if you have a dog with a high prey drive it cannot be convinced chickens are not prey and if you convince him of that, then he will also no longer chase any other prey. Nothing could be further from the truth. A smart dog will know the difference and it seems like you have some very smart dogs. Jake kills mice, songbirds, possum, coon, squirrels...anything he can catch in his perimeter is a goner. He rarely ever barks, he just pounces and breaks their back...no blood, no fuss, just death. He pays absolutely no mind to the deer in our yard because he was warned off them when young, so they stroll right past him and he yawns...but he'll consume a deer's entire head in one day and all the bones of the carcass and extremeties in two days time. Prey drive fully intact when it is prey that he is allowed to kill or consume.

But..he was so incredibly easy to train off of chickens because of his intelligence and eagerness to please. He is half lab and have Border Collie, so he has a high prey drive and a herding instinct...but he never uses that on the chickens. All it takes is a little effort to produce a great stock dog that will guard the chickens and not harm them.

If your dogs can be convinced by an electric fence to obey that distance from the chickens, I'm betting they would be very easy to train off them permanently and still retain their nice prey drive for the varmints in your yard.

 

[armorfirelady]

If your dogs can be convinced by an electric fence to obey that distance from the chickens, I'm betting they would be very easy to train off them permanently and still retain their nice prey drive for the varmints in your yard.

I would really like to try with Lily. She is a really good dog. (except for counter surfing) I can take her camping and don't need to tie her up. Even the chippers squeaking and squirrels around she stays on our site. If she gets a little to excited a quick whistle and back she comes. Last time I was reading and was wondering what Bear was watching . I looked over and a squirrel was busy preparing for winter. I quickly looked for Lily and she was next to me just watching that darn squirrel 15 ft away. Never moved & I didn't have to say a word to her

I have had her since she was 8 weeks old and she is my shadow. I take my dogs with me everywhere I can. They have no problems with crowds or other dogs. People are amazed I can just let her out of the car and she stays close. I lucked out.....she has been like this since she was a puppy. I take her everywhere so we can practice more. I really think if I could get her in the run with the hens on leash for a few minutes every day she would eventually leave them be. Maybe I will start today.....I have wanted to try it.......

Lily on the left Bear on the right. We were out geocaching and they had been sitting here for about 10 minutes on the stay command. Thats about all the time I can get them to stay. Tho when they start moving its towards me lol

Bear is close to 7. His prey drive is really strong and even with working for him its hit or miss if he listens. He is never off leash when we are away from home. He listens better when attached to his sister than alone.
And he is changing.....he is very skittish now. He has always has anxiety issues but they are getting worse no matter how much I work with him WOnt go outside at all during the day now. Have to stand next to him so he eats......just weird. I cant say its one thing that changed him. I keep working with him hoping he will change but no luck so far