Hatching Eggs the Scientific Way!

[normanack]

I've read that you can raise duck, quail, and something else I forget for restaurants, the kind with real chefs.

 

[Steemroo]

Squab (gourmet pigeon)? Capon (the steer of the chicken world)? Signet (swan - used to be a delicacy)?

It seems to me that a "real chef" might want slower growing chicken meat to feed his or her customers.

I know Europeans who complain about US supermarket chickens - bland, no chicken taste. People I know who've recently been to France say that restaurant chicken there is much more tasty than ours.

The Bresse chicken in France - unholy expensive - is raised on pasture. Well, brooder - then at age they go out into the fields, possibly supplemented by feed (but getting a lot of food from the field). The last few weeks before slaughter, they are penned - dark to calm them - fed grain and fatty milk products (yogurt?) - and they actually marble up.

Then, they are not water chilled after slaughter - they are air chilled.

This produces fabulous flavor and is thought to be more important than the breed, though breed does matter (some taste better than others).

Whole Paycheck in Cali. sells a RIR type whole chicken carcass for about $5 a pound - it's scrawny (they average 3.5 pounds) compared to a Jumbo Cornish X - but is said to taste good.

Anyway...we're so used to cheap, tender but somewhat bland Cornish X ... but there are growing markets for better food! Try!

 

[Sally Sunshine]

checkin in!

 

[cchardwick]

Perfect timing, I have seven new baby chicks! I think I may have more hatching too since tonight is the 21st day!

 

[Sally Sunshine]

Perfect timing, I have seven new baby chicks! I think I may have more hatching too since tonight is the 21st day!

awesome! I had a mental note to check in.... NOT I had it noted lol I need to write everything down or I forget and I didnt want to forget ya! pictures~ !!!

 

[Sally Sunshine]

updates!!

 

[cmfarm]

How did things go? Did they hatch well?

 

[cchardwick]

Well I had ten out of 20 chicks hatch and I looked at the feathers and I think you can feather sex these birds. It looks like I have a mix of roosters and hens. I also noticed that there is a black stripe on the heads of some of the chicks, about half have it. Maybe this is a sex link trait? I've seen other birds with differences on the top of their heads as a sex link, maybe it's true for this breed as well. I didn't notice it until I put the photo on my desktop and stared at it for awhile!

 

[Sally Sunshine]

Well I had ten out of 20 chicks hatch and I looked at the feathers and I think you can feather sex these birds. It looks like I have a mix of roosters and hens. I also noticed that there is a black stripe on the heads of some of the chicks, about half have it. Maybe this is a sex link trait? I've seen other birds with differences on the top of their heads as a sex link, maybe it's true for this breed as well. I didn't notice it until I put the photo on my desktop and stared at it for awhile!

did u eggtopsy? cool you got ten!

 

[cchardwick]

Nope, didn't have the heart to break them open, I'm such a softie! Here's the pic of the chicks, notice the black spot on the head of some of them and not on others. I have a guy who is buying these ten along with the next 30 that hatch, so I doubt I'll be able to track them to adults. I'm thinking I should get another couple brooders and have another hatch in the spring that I grow up myself and separate the chicks with the black spot on the head from the ones without the black spot to see if this is a sex linked trait. If so it would really help sorting my chicks when they hatch!