Heritage Large Fowl - Phase II

[Lacy Blues]

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 is great! I use it sometimes but the yogurt I get (Mountain High) has 5 varieties of probiotics. It's nice and thick and easy to spoon out.

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.

I have been looking at BSF for a while now. I don't know if they live where I do though as I have never seen one. I try to examine every small fly or bee that I see to see if it is a BSF.

 

[Lacy Blues]

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.

Fred is beautiful! Good luck on his hatch. If you have any profile shots, I'd LOVE to see them. Thanks for sharing.

 

[hellbender]

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 . . . .

Sorry...should have put all this in one quote...but left to their own devices, the goats will do all the clearing needed. I have endless monofloral roses, wild black and raspberry briars. There's about 2 miles of power right-of way that they keep cleared...an almost lethal point of contention with Mon Power...

Oh...got side tracked...the goats will kill the trees and thus the leaves..

 

[RedRidge]

Quote:
Hmmm... here's a profile, but not very good. he is standing funny and it's a bad angle and he looks short backed, but he is not. He has a nice long back and is wide all the way back. Of courser the flash doesn't do him any good either, but....

 

[hellbender]

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.

Very handsome chicken!

 

[RedRidge]

I have been looking at BSF for a while now. I don't know if they live where I do though as I have never seen one. I try to examine every small fly or bee that I see to see if it is a BSF.

Here's a source out in your half of the country for starters...
http://www.northwestredworms.com/Pages/Blacksoldierfly.aspx

 

[Lacy Blues]

Hmmm... here's a profile, but not very good. he is standing funny and it's a bad angle and he looks short backed, but he is not. He has a nice long back and is wide all the way back. Of courser the flash doesn't do him any good either, but....

I have probably said it before, but I really like the rose combed Rhode Island reds a lot! I have a couple of bantams but would like to get some nice large fowl some day. Right now, I'm settling for some buckeyes. I picked up a trio a week or so ago and they're still a bit young so I'm hoping they get big. The lack of comb and wattles in these birds should be a boon during winter! We get some pretty extreme temperature swings here.

Fred is very nice! Thank you.

 

[NeilsHamburgs]

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.

Can you post pictures of that pen he's in?

 

[3riverschick]

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 . . . .

what a great idea!!!

 

[3riverschick]

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.

What is BSF?