Heritage Large Fowl - Phase II

[neopolitancrazy]

Those all sound like good benefits. Can you point me towards a tutorial please?  

I use one bucket. I put fresh water and a fairly dusty/finely ground chick starter (20%) and scratch grain (12%) in to ferment each morning. The next morning, I feed all the chickens from this bucket, with about a cup of fermented feed leftover to "seed" the next day's batch with the proper organisms. Easy-peazy. I use 20lbs of scratch to 50 lbs of starter for most of the birds, starter only for very young chicks. You can leave your first batch open to the air to gather air-borne yeasts and bacteria, but I am not that patient so have used both plain Greek yogurt and raw apple cider vinegar to start the fermentation. There are 2 threads on BYC detailing various ways to do fermented feed, which I relied upon for advice.

Happy fermenting!
Angela

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/644300/fermenting-feed-for-meat-birds

I use two buckets, for me it is faster, I pour off the liquid into the empty bucket and use the fermented feed that I need, add dry feed and pour the liquid back on top and stir, faster than holes in the bottom of a bucket. I fermented with one bottle of kefir and kept the ferment going all summer, no additional kefir required. Winter requires dry feed in my location.

It would be interesting to see a list of "starters" for fermented feed ... with people's opinions about each

I've read about:

Nothing, just let the air provide the good stuff

"Mother" purchased at a specialty store

Unpasturized Apple Cider Vinegar (with the mother)

Yogurt, the real stuff with live cultures

Kefir

...

I'm sure I'm missing a bunch ...

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

Speaking of "fat" birds ... the decidedly non-heritage BBB turkeys are now quite fat. This is not a surprise.

I've been processing both the males and the females a few at a time for a while now, and the males seem to put on the fat between the meat and the skin, mostly on the breast. They do get fat enough that the layer of fat on the breast begins to "sag," but the organs in the toms are gorgeously healthy looking. The hens, however, I have to scoop the fat out of the body cavity. These birds day-range, and the hens run all over the farm to forage, socialize with the humans, and lay. They don't look fat on the outside, but on the inside it is shocking to me (think a double handful of loose fat before I can get to the organs, and an orangish liver like waterfowl during gavage (which can be done naturally ...)). I'm tempted to try some turkey pate.

The turkey eggs are getting smaller as time passes, and I'm sure this is due to the interior fat around the vent.

I'd love to do heritage turkeys, but for the "flying."

 

[capayvalleychick]

I'm putting this pic up to better understand squirrel tail.

Background-- I noticed some of the speckled sussex roosters had "squirrel" tail so tagged the 3 with better tails so I could observe them at different times during the day. WHen on high alert head is up and tail is up; the other extreme is at evening roosting time and the tail is down and the head is not as up. WHat I also noticed once tagged, all the squirrel tailed roosters have 2 long sickle feathers.

THe boy above has 1 long feather and looks better than those with 2.

Comments??

 

[KPenley]

Newbie to show question: Is wry tail a DQ in every age bracket for show birds? I thought so, based on the APA SOP DQ section, but I have had multiple people tell me recently that it is not a DQ in cockerals and pullets. I figured you are the people to ask! tia

 

[NotAFarm]

Newbie to show question: Is wry tail a DQ in every age bracket for show birds? I thought so, based on the APA SOP DQ section, but I have had multiple people tell me recently that it is not a DQ in cockerals and pullets. I figured you are the people to ask! tia

The SOP definition "WRY TAIL-The tail of a fowl permanently carried to one side of vertical (fig. 38), a disqualification."

NO exceptions are made for age.

The key word here is permanently.....I have had young birds, particularly cockerels, that start getting their main tail feathers in and at times will be unbalanced by them and their tails look crooked. As they get older, and they get more size and muscle control, they are perfect. If the tail is ALWAYS held to one side, not to one side and then to the other side as a form of balancing, then the bird has a wry tail and would be disqualified, regardless of age.

Hopefully, Walt or NYREDS will chime and let you know if you should show a young bird with such a feature.

 

[BGMatt]

Newbie to show question: Is wry tail a DQ in every age bracket for show birds? I thought so, based on the APA SOP DQ section, but I have had multiple people tell me recently that it is not a DQ in cockerals and pullets. I figured you are the people to ask! tia

They're probably confusing it with split tail which is defect in young birds and DQ in old birds. Wry tail as already pointed out is a DQ always.

 

[colburg]

Anyone else from this thread planning to be at the show in Tucson Nov 23-24?

Sarah

I'll be there, wife and kids are iffy since the young'uns may be getting sick.

 


Australorps are prone to fatty liver disease. It has to do with their high egg laying ability. I found out about this due to a couple of mine dieing and going in for Necropsy. The condition makes them add fat--it does not indicate over feeding.

Still, that hen must have made great soup!

That's good to know...I'd never had a BA with that much fat before.  All the others I've had were very lean egg laying machines! 

The hen that I processed and asked about on the FF thread that had every bit as much fat as the one in your pics was a BA.

More and more with the way things are going in the U.S. with agriculture/meat husbandry and processing procedures, I am looking forward to when we have some land to actually raise some of our own meat. Reportedly, China may start processing our poultry and sending it back to the states for retailers. One word= "SCARY" 

There's no "may" about it. USDA approved Chinese imported chicken in August

 

[RiddleMe]

I'm putting this pic up to better understand squirrel tail.

Background-- I noticed some of the speckled sussex roosters had "squirrel" tail so tagged the 3 with better tails so I could observe them at different times during the day. WHen on high alert head is up and tail is up; the other extreme is at evening roosting time and the tail is down and the head is not as up. WHat I also noticed once tagged, all the squirrel tailed roosters have 2 long sickle feathers.

THe boy above has 1 long feather and looks better than those with 2.

Comments??

Technically, squirrel tail is past the 90-degree angle point. So, that doesn't look like true squirrel tail. it's unacceptable, but it's not squirrel tailed. Japanese bantams are the only breed where squirrel tail is not a disqualification.

Based on an early comment from Walt wrt how to measure tail angle, I thought this would qualify as squirrel tail... Going from the horizontal, it's not quite 90 degrees, but based off the angle of the back it looks like it's just past 90 degrees. Or maybe squirrel tail is measured from the horizontal regardless of back angle... This subject still confuses me!

 

[Yellow House Farm]

THanks Joseph.

SO I"m guessing the best time to evaluate this is when the boys are calmly freeranging?

You certainly want to assess tail when birds are relaxed All birds tighten things up a bit understress. The best scenario is to invest in some show pens to be able to compare your stock. Tail angle, as capay kim pointed out, is pretty fixable if you have birds that offer a lowering of the tail.

Newbie to show question: Is wry tail a DQ in every age bracket for show birds? I thought so, based on the APA SOP DQ section, but I have had multiple people tell me recently that it is not a DQ in cockerals and pullets. I figured you are the people to ask! tia

True wry tail is grotesque in that it totally deforms the type of the bird. It's a DQ at any age. Sometimes you'll have specimens with lazy tails, which is not upt o standard snuff, but it's not a DQ per se.