Fermenting Feed for Meat Birds

[Triple Willow]

Grandaddies stink and they taste bad, from all accounts...never saw a bird that would eat one. 

Here's an interesting little BEEP(Bee Tip..a little easier to remember than a BIP). In the course of canning up meats this weekend, I had large, wide bowels full of meat but no lids to place on them while they were in the fridge awaiting canning.  I was looking around for those elastic plastic bowel covers we had bought once~expensive but really neato for family reunions~and found we were out of them.  Then the Ol' Batness brought out some disposable processing caps that she uses when she perms her hair.  Perfect!  They fit the huge bowels I was using and were cheap enough to dispose of and hardy enough to wash, rinse and save if one wanted to do so.

Then a light bulb went on and I got to thinking about all those folks out there covering their FF with towels and such and thought...processing caps would fit neatly over a bucket and still allow airflow enough for gas to escape.  Found them in packages of 100, extra large one size fits all, on Amazon for $7.62 and free shipping. 

We'll be keeping a supply of those handy little boogers from now on...quite a few uses, quite a good price. 

I figured those grand daddies must have smelled funky of something. lol They don't seem to eat those brownish and black wooly worms either, can't blame them! Cough cough gag! lol What is the saying about those things to do with the weather??? I have seen a bunch of the dark ones.

I am having somewhat of "a day off" (first time in several months!) and all I want to do is sleep and eat ...but people won't let me! I guess I may as well get up. I suppose the dogs and chickens are expecting supper too. Ahhh sigh.

 

[Triple Willow]

Bee, those shower caps would be handy dandy! I believe I shall invest in some too. I'm fixing to try to trade for one of those vacuum sealing food storage thingies too.

 

[Kassaundra]

Egg color is in the proposed SOP standard and is in the the French standard, which covers all of Europe, as well as other national breed clubs. It is only common sense that when the standard refers to egg color and egg size as being the defining characteristics of the breed, then that quality is pretty darn important. Just because it can't be proved at a poultry show doesn't mean that breeders are not ethically bound to breed to standard for egg color. Many national Maran organizations go further and advise culling hens that don't have a #4 egg color as a minimum. I can't think of any fault being worse than one where culling is the solution.

Following a discussion on the ideal silhouette of a Maran, the French breed club says this:
"This represents an undeniable signature of the breed, like color of its eggs or feathering of its shanks."

So, yes, color of eggs is a defining feature of the breed whether it can be proven at a poultry show or not.

I believe I quoted from your comment about Ameraucana's not having a stated SOP egg color, but then stating they had to be blue.

 

[BCMaraniac]

THX for your answer. I won't be removing any testis. Without testosterone do they act like hens> I mean there is no protection for the hens like a normal rooster would do? Just wondered. : )

Actually what happens is they end up further down the pecking order than the lowest hen. Some things I have read about them is that because they tend to be a bit of an outcast, they make good broodies for chicks, because the chicks are all too happy to be with them. What they recommend is putting the capon somewhere that it can't roost off the ground and put a couple of chicks under him during the night, and if all is well in the morning, give him the rest of the chicks. I haven't tried anything like that, but I do have a White Giant that has gotten picked on everywhere he goes. He was getting run off from the food, and was so skittish that if somebody even came up to him he would run. So I separated him out with another one that was had been picked on some and raised them together. However the other ended up being a slip, so he is in the freezer. He is by himself now in one end of the barn, and seems content. He is now a bit of a pet, so I may keep him and give the brooding thing a try the next time I hatch chicks. It would save me a lot of work if he would be their Mama.

 

[BCMaraniac]

You see this guy right here? Says he's a Golden Cuckoo Maran....and BUD had a lot of the same coloring in the same places and now I'm thinking maybe ol' BUD was not a mix mutt of NH and BR, but could possibly been of this breed.




There at the end he was getting more red on his hackles and along his back and his saddle feathers...was starting to look a lot like the Golden Maran in the pic but without the darkness of the barring or the developed comb and wattles yet. What do y'all think?

Bee, apparently the Orpingtons can carry a hidden barring gene as can the BCM's so when I crossed the two of them, I actually got some Cuckoos.....all males. The oldest one that is a capon recently has started getting a little golden/copper on his wings.....I'm not even going to try to figure that one out. Initially I just thought he had something on a couple of his feathers. I don't know if any more coloring is going to show up or not.

 

[Beekissed]

I would never have believed a rooster would brood chicks if I hadn't seen it at my own coop..and if he had been a capon it would have been perfect, because as soon as the chicks got a little older he tried to breed them, so he had to be processed at that time.

Someone had given me a young WR rooster and I had just received 54 meaty chicks, so they were housed together and he kept wanting to get in the brooder with the chicks, so I finally let him and he tried to brood the whole batch. It was very cute and he was a good Mr. Mom until his hormones got the better of him.

 

[RoseMarie1]

I would never have believed a rooster would brood chicks if I hadn't seen it at my own coop..and if he had been a capon it would have been perfect, because as soon as the chicks got a little older he tried to breed them, so he had to be processed at that time.

Someone had given me a young WR rooster and I had just received 54 meaty chicks, so they were housed together and he kept wanting to get in the brooder with the chicks, so I finally let him and he tried to brood the whole batch. It was very cute and he was a good Mr. Mom until his hormones got the better of him.

Well now isn't that something! So cute to!
Hey Bee did you go get those free roosters? I hope you got em!

 

[jajeanpierre]

I would think that, ideally, one would be breeding and culling for both distinctions on this breed so as to not lose either original quality of the bird...that is, if one were interested in preserving the breed to its original traits. I believe it was first noticed for its meat flavor and development and then later caught interest for the color of the eggs, so a return to that original dual trait would be the goal, I imagine, if one were trying to uphold good breeding standards.

By the second half of the 19th century, the main characteristic of the breed was big red eggs, and type was something worked on later. I believe that in all the breeding programs in France to try to bring the breed back from its decline after the second World War, egg color and size of egg was never compromised for better type or plumage color.

 

[Kassaundra]

Actually what happens is they end up further down the pecking order than the lowest hen. Some things I have read about them is that because they tend to be a bit of an outcast, they make good broodies for chicks, because the chicks are all too happy to be with them. What they recommend is putting the capon somewhere that it can't roost off the ground and put a couple of chicks under him during the night, and if all is well in the morning, give him the rest of the chicks. I haven't tried anything like that, but I do have a White Giant that has gotten picked on everywhere he goes. He was getting run off from the food, and was so skittish that if somebody even came up to him he would run. So I separated him out with another one that was had been picked on some and raised them together. However the other ended up being a slip, so he is in the freezer. He is by himself now in one end of the barn, and seems content. He is now a bit of a pet, so I may keep him and give the brooding thing a try the next time I hatch chicks. It would save me a lot of work if he would be their Mama.

My capons were accepted as part of the flock, not outcasts at all. We'll see if that holds true w/ the newest one, he will be the only one unless I get around to caponizing Audra (saw her as a girl out of wishful thinking)

 

[jajeanpierre]

I believe I quoted from your comment about Ameraucana's not having a stated SOP egg color, but then stating they had to be blue.

I checked the SOP, and blue eggs are referenced in the preamble. I was mistaken that it wasn't in the SOP.