Heritage Large Fowl - Phase II

[NanaKat]

Anyone hatching their Heritage breeds with all this cold weather we are having? what kind of results are you getting?
I tried to collect eggs every hour or two but still had eggs that felt cold. If the eggs were under a hen, they were marked with a star.
Hatch rates are down because of the chill factor in both the Cochin and Columbian Wyandotte pens.
Those that have successfully made it to the hatcher and out of the eggs are really vigorous.

 

[Arielle]

Quote: That is an interesting historical breed-- from the Narragansett Bay area of RI. Nice to see a choice other than the popular Bourbon REds.

 

[Arielle]

Quote: Bantam, LF and WF were the 3 catagories.

YOu answered my question as to why the turkeys are not discussed here on this thread if they are not LF by the APA.

Your chickens, ducks and geese don't get nabbed free ranging?? Or you mean that you keep them penned?

I understand the space requirement-- my old horse paddocks work well, and the horses don't seem to mind them.

Your friend must ahve a good line of BR-- turkeys can be good layers , but I can't see it being more economical than a chicken that is much smaller and needs less feed. . . .

 

[Arielle]

Quote: THat thread has been abandoned.

THere is another group that is very active (the Turkeys for 2014) but not SOP breeders per se, but we enjoy sharing what we know and learning from each other. Mostly the blind leading the blind ; a few experienced people would be helpful. Generally what is nice aboutturkeys is that they have not been inter bred quite like the chickens, meaning more likely to get a basically decent bird, but does need some work like improving the weights.

Thanks for all the info-- clearly turkeys do not belong on this thread. THanks for the reposnses.

 

[BGMatt]

Bantam, LF and WF were the 3 catagories. 

YOu answered my question as to why the turkeys are not discussed here on this thread if they are not LF by the APA.

Your chickens, ducks and geese don't get nabbed free ranging??  Or you mean that you keep them penned?

I understand the space requirement-- my old horse paddocks work well, and the horses don't seem to mind them.

Your friend must ahve a good line of BR-- turkeys can be good layers , but I can't see it being more economical than a chicken that is much smaller and needs less feed. . . .

How odd that they were grouped that way. I've seen Guineas and Turkeys lumped together with chickens (bantams included) and referred to as land fowl but that's not what happened there.

I do indeed keep the chickens and ducks penned. The geese are fences in and nothing that can climb or fly over the fence has messed with them (although a couple ducks were taken out of the goose pen which is why they're in covered pens now).

I think he justifies the extra feed cost with feeding a ton of scraps and leftovers combined with the larger eggs size, I was stunned at how well his turkeys were laying though.

I do think in this whole age of keeping poultry for home raised food and renewed interest in homesteading and sizing it down and everything that ducks and turkeys are horribly neglected and should get more attention rather than just the chickens. I'll stop derailing though.

 

[brahmabreeder]

Anyone hatching their Heritage breeds with all this cold weather we are having? what kind of results are you getting?
I tried to collect eggs every hour or two but still had eggs that felt cold. If the eggs were under a hen, they were marked with a star.
Hatch rates are down because of the chill factor in both the Cochin and Columbian Wyandotte pens.
Those that have successfully made it to the hatcher and out of the eggs are really vigorous.

I'm trying, again that is

. My other hen decided to start laying again after a little break and it looks like my one roo may be starting to give fertile eggs( kind of looked like a bulls eye in the one egg but I'm not 100% ). I've got eight eggs saved up as of now and it's been four days. The one egg I got today was rather cold so I'll see what happens.

 

[RedRidge]

Anyone hatching their Heritage breeds with all this cold weather we are having? what kind of results are you getting?
I tried to collect eggs every hour or two but still had eggs that felt cold. If the eggs were under a hen, they were marked with a star.
Hatch rates are down because of the chill factor in both the Cochin and Columbian Wyandotte pens.
Those that have successfully made it to the hatcher and out of the eggs are really vigorous.

They are laying heavy and I'm setting but a little soon to determine hatch rates. My first is due to hatch tonight but I'm not to hopeful, one of the 8 hatched early and is doing great (the egg I took directly from lay to bator) but not sure the others will come thru...
My chickens didn't even know what negative temperatures were until this year. :-0. So I'm not holding my breath until the weather settles out.

 

[bnjrob]

Anyone hatching their Heritage breeds with all this cold weather we are having? what kind of results are you getting?
I tried to collect eggs every hour or two but still had eggs that felt cold. If the eggs were under a hen, they were marked with a star.
Hatch rates are down because of the chill factor in both the Cochin and Columbian Wyandotte pens.
Those that have successfully made it to the hatcher and out of the eggs are really vigorous.

Hatched some at the end of December and have some hatching today and the next couple of days. If any were ice cold on days that were below freezing I marked them with an "F" to see if that had an impact on hatching. Of the ones that were fertile, the hatch rate was great so I must have gotten to the eggs in time before they actually froze.

The chicks are 3 weeks old now and doing well - very well feathered and quite vigorous. Lost one after 24hrs due to belly not closing completely and lost another after a couple of weeks due to injury. But the rest are crazy and growing like weeds.

Not expecting the best hatch this time because the majority of the eggs I set were too old - over two weeks old - and I haven't bothered to candle so it will be a surprise on how many hatch until I break open the non-hatchers and see whether they were even fertile or not. Right when I needed to start collecting eggs for the hatch I have going on now, one of the hens decided to go broody and the others also stopped laying until I could get her broke of it - she had to spend a week in the broody breaker cage. Now that they are over with their little broody spell and sympathy broody spells, they are back to laying normally again, about every other day.

 

[bnjrob]

That is an interesting historical breed-- from the Narragansett Bay area of RI. Nice to see a choice other than the popular Bourbon REds.

I like them because they have more of that "old" look to them. They are the typical turkeys that I have always thought of when I think of Thanksgiving.

 

[BGMatt]

Anyone hatching their Heritage breeds with all this cold weather we are having? what kind of results are you getting?
I tried to collect eggs every hour or two but still had eggs that felt cold. If the eggs were under a hen, they were marked with a star.
Hatch rates are down because of the chill factor in both the Cochin and Columbian Wyandotte pens.
Those that have successfully made it to the hatcher and out of the eggs are really vigorous.

Got a late start thanks to hatching much too late last year, but have first batch due on the 30th. Just hatched some American Game and others for a friend, they came out pretty well. Still only my oldest pullets laying so very small batches for a while.