Heritage Large Fowl - Phase II

[thedragonlady]

What's your opinion of cultured buttermilk? My does are dry now but often, when I'm feeling lazy, I mix Layina, fish meal and enough goat-buttermilk to make a very dry mash. The chickens love it. I sometimes use whey as a substitution.

Somewhere in my files I have a photo of 3 Mastiffs, a couple of cats, 4 chickens and chicks, and a crow, all drinking goat milk out of the same pan.I always fed excess milk and whey to all my critters. Great stuff !

 

[thedragonlady]

I'm certain most of the calcium stays with the curd but there are various minerals, salts and some sugars.

When I get on a big 'cheese kick' I use the whey to mix with Land-O-Lakes goat milk replacer to bottle feed the kids.

If I can help it, the kids (especially the doelings) never see their dams. Two or three kids can really do a damage to a great

udder and a kid that is raised by her dam is frequently wild as deer.

If I don't need or have an order (with a big down payment) ...most buck kids don't even dry off.

Exactly. One question: Do you pasturize your milk before feeding it to kids, or are your Saanens CAE free ?

 

[RedRidge]

I'm a cheese maker, I milk both sheep and cattle (no longer commercially thank goodness) but do not feed a lot of whey or curds or yogurt to the poultry since we have very little go to waste here - what I make is for human consumption. I do tend to feed buttermilk in the spring during butter making season. However, a few things... There is never any added sugar in any yogurts or cheese I make - ever. I can't imagine ever even needing to add sugar. Second, keep in mind that excess calcium is great for laying hens but bad for growing chicks. This is why I feed BSF to the adults only. Yes it's great animal protein, but it's way too high in calcium for the babies. The babies tend to get fish meal and sometimes liver but never BSF or dairy. That said... I couldn't feed the number of adult poultry I have and assure a complete balanced ration without raising BSF too. I grind and ferment my grains but the BSF balance that ration out for me and assure they get the animal protein poultry require. I encourage everyone to raise BSF because it's so easy and of course free. I tend to run out of BSF if we have a late spring but that is when I make all my butter for the year, so a lot of the buttermilk goes to the adults on the spring before heavy BSF crawl off begins and before bugs are prolific.

 

[Arielle]

Someday I would like to make my own cheeses; for now I live with homemade yogurts and this year DH is cutting more trees than he would like!!!

To allow sunlight for pasture . . .

It is now February-- would anyone be willing to put up a picture of their heritage breed with the name of the breed, like a slide show, to encourage the lurkers . . . .

 

[brahmabreeder]

a kid that is raised by her dam is frequently wild as deer.

Must agree on that! My ND doeling won't let me get near her and when I do she acts stupid. Plus she is never quiet.

 

[Arielle]

My bottle fed is never quiet!! I can hear Goergina and she is on the other side of the barn. But she does run up to us as fast as she can . . . .

 

[ChickenCanoe]

If you are having to force feed, the vets have an ideal paste called Nutrical. I kept my hawk struck hen alive on it for a week, after her throat was ripped open.She is eating small amounts now, but her throat is still very sore.one inch of Nutrical twice a day will keep a bird going for a long time. I've used it on all sorts of sick, or hurt critters. Good stuff !

Nutrical is great stuff and is relatively inexpensive. Good thing to have on hand for all species.

Is their like one specific to poultry/chickens?

I found a probiotic powder that can be used with feed or water and is specifically formulated for chickens.
http://www.gro2max.com/

What's your opinion of cultured buttermilk? My does are dry now but often, when I'm feeling lazy, I mix Layina, fish meal and enough goat-buttermilk to make a very dry mash. The chickens love it. I sometimes use whey as a substitution.

Cultured buttermilk has many of the same probiotics as yogurt. If buying from the store though, it has to say live active cultures on the packaging. I was looking for cultured buttermilk for my last batch of fermented feed but none had live cultures. I found some Kefir with 10 different types of bacteria which I used.

I found a source for whole milk powder that I use for finishing roosters before butchering. It's full fat, unlike the skim or low-fat powder at the grocery stores.
http://www.myspicesage.com/whole-milk-powder-p-554.html?cagpspn=pla&gclid=CNO26KzjrbwCFc5DMgodZnAAcQ

Here's a great link to different types of feed for livestock and how it's utilized by different species, etc. Pretty comprehensive: http://www.feedipedia.org/node/245

Great. Thanks for the link.

~~He's done died on me. I have eggs in the bator so hopefully he started fertilizing eggs before he died so I can get a son out of him. If I do happen to get fertile eggs I will collect and set for like three weeks from now. Once that time period is up I will put the other cock on them as long as he doesn't decide it's his time to go.

Did you do a necropsy, at least a home one to find out what was ailing him?
Some of his symptoms sounded like gout. Do you feed layer feed to your whole flock?
Postmortem for visceral gout - shrunken breast muscle, chalky white crystals on liver and in kidneys, either both kidneys will be shriveled or one shriveled and one pale and swollen.
At the same time you can check him for worms.

 

[hellbender]

Exactly. One question: Do you pasturize your milk before feeding it to kids, or are your Saanens CAE free ?

we are CAE free and as far as I'm concerned, pasteurized milk is worthless, hardly to mention tasteless too.

 

[hellbender]

My bottle fed is never quiet!! I can hear Goergina and she is on the other side of the barn. But she does run up to us as fast as she can . . . .

I'm guessing Georgina is Nubian? If so the only way to quiet them is a to garotte them with their own ears!

 

[RedRidge]

...-- would anyone be willing to put up a picture of their heritage breed with the name of the breed, like a slide show, to encourage the lurkers . . . .

This is Fred... a Rose Comb Rhode Island Red cockerel.
This photo was taken when he was 7 months old...
He was one 4 finalists for my breeding pens, and because his chest developed better than I had hoped after this pic he made it to the final 2 and is now is a breeding pen... his first eggs are due to hatch today.
Fred was named after my great grandpa CF Haffey who bred and showed RC RIR in the first half of the 20th century.