HERE is where we are going to talk about a sustainable meat bird flock

[paduanchook]

What the heck is wrong with tsc? The heat lamps are way to high to heat the chicks! I picked up dying cold chicks out
of the bins. Dang it, it made me very unhappy. I even asked the workers why this was so, and he said it happens evey year!
I picked out 6 (the minimum) and bought them. Now I have several Cornish x in the mix (uh oh). Now how am I gonna raise
them? What a mess, either I'm forced to kill them in. Cupla months are put them on a diet, why didn't I just leave them there
aaaarg.

 

[BirchHatchery]

same happens here it mostly becasuse its uneducated people runin it who dont no a thing about raising birds like u go into a auto store ask the clerk a ? and he doesnlt no what a distriputer does same goes at farm stores most dont no their behind from a whole in the ground.

 

[BirchHatchery]

i also got 10 cornish rocks from tractor supply today they were striahgt run so i picked out ones with short wing feathers and ones with long as i dk if their feather sexable but i tried. Anyhow But i got a question for Brunty farms i no you have cornish x hens that were put on a diet and doin fine my question is could one do the same with roosters n hens and use them for breeding if they were kept on strict diets and forced to roam the farm? If so i was thinkin of feeding them my layer mash it would be less protien and more calicum to promote strong bones and less meat correct and what kind of time frame should i leave feed in say like 6 hrs a day 8 hrs or so what do you think hope hear from u asap? Any other ways to keep them goin strong?

 

[corabee]

We are thinking of purchasing a straight run of 50 Buff Orps for our meat chickens, since they are dual purpose. I plan to incubate eggs to keep us going. What is everyone's opinion on Buffs as a meat bird?

 

[HallFamilyFarm]

Quote:
Have been eating Buff Orpingtons for years. Have raised show quality and always eat my culls. Very good eating, taste just like chicken!

Yea I know:

But I had to say it!

 

[Buster52]

Quote:
Huh. I've heard that story, but with a different ending and it happened in Missouri.

Indeed, the bright young man came home from school with lots of new ideas. They would go industrial with a CAFO system. Production increased exponentially and the young man took over the farm.

At some point, however, this farmer learned that there is more to farming than increased production at all costs, exterminated every last one of his industrial hogs, and started over with a more humane, more sustainable, and yet very profitable style of farming.

 

[Wifezilla]

There has been a lot of throwing out the baby with the bathwater over the years. Not all new ideas are good ideas. Not all old ideas are good either. Objective assessment and ongoing experimentation are needed.

 

[Bossroo]

Hey Buster, Not all farmers are created equal. That farmer in Missouri just may have fell asleep in his class and may have had a run of bad luck. My wife's cousin is hale and hearty, is prospering raising his family of 4 kids on the family farm (and put all of them through college) which he paid his father ( he paid his 9 siblings off after his parents died) for in 22 years. He also added another 500 acres to his operation which allows him to grow all of his feed for his crossbred hogs that he markets for a handsome profit. One of his sons is now working on the farm after he graduated from college.

 

[dancingbear]

Quote:
Well said.

I grew up in Oklahoma, and I'm well acquainted with the long drought, resulting from poor land management practices, that resulted in the long, gruesome, "dust-bowl" years. We knew less then about sustainable practices, than we know now. The massive land clearing for agriculture actually changed weather patterns. That's a good example of an old idea that didn't work out very well in the long run. But the modern CAFO isn't the best answer, either.

As far as livestock and poultry goes, I really like Joel Salatin's example of something that does work. For other agriculture, I'm currently reading one of John Jeavons' books, Grow More Vegetables* (and fruits, nuts, berries, grains, and other crops) *Than you Ever Thought Possible on Less Land Than You Can Imagine

I've gardened organically for years, and while I can't claim total success with everything, if one thing fails, I have other things that do well. That's one advantage of diversification. If one tomato doesn't do well, I have several other that did. I may lose one plant to bugs, and have 10 that had no trouble at all. Best of all, I know my food from the garden is safe. There's no poison sprayed on it. Little kids can wander around my garden, and it's ok if they touch the plants. They aren't gong to get pesticides on them. (of course, they still shouldn't eat the leaves off certain plants, but brushing against it isn't going to harm them)

Just about everything I do is an experiment. There's always something new to learn. Anybody who thinks they know it all is kidding themselves.

Quote:
I'd love to have some SQ BO's. I saw some at the fair a few years ago, they were huge! Nothing like the scrawny little hatchery stock BO's I've had. Maybe I'll get out to the fair again this year and snag some of the good birds before they're all gone.

I'm just about ready to start hatching out eggs from some of my new experiments, Dark Cornish roo over various hens, Delaware, Buckeye, light Brahma, Dorking, and some of the better mixed breeds.

 

[Bossroo]

The agricultural landclearing practices of the "Dust bowl" was ballyhood by Federal Beuarocrats who knew nothing about farming or land management as well as the landgrabbers. This appeared in yesterdays' newspapers ... The organic environmentalist crowd mandated that the public waste management departments in the San Fransisco bay area give away for free, fertilizers gleaned from the areas' sewer wastes for anyone to use as ORGANIC fertilizers several years ago. Tons were given away. All of a sudden, the very same environmentalists are now in a panic saying that that fertilizer is contaminated with toxic chemicals and should not be used but placed in plastic containers and buried in toxic waste dumps. So, just how ORGANIC are all the crops from the lands covered by all of these toxic chemicals now ? What about other areas of the country? WOW, just wow !!!