Heritage Large Fowl - Phase II

[neopolitancrazy]

May is sitting eggs sired by Tux, her son. I know some of the eggs will be 30+ days old by the 21st day. Shall I remove those eggs to make sure they don't explode in the nest? If I remove all the eggs and she is broody, will she lay more eggs and still sit on them the required 3 weeks? Tux's comb is healing nicely from the frostbite. I don't know if he is fertile yet. It's a good possibility.
Thanks,
Karen

I would wait until she has been sitting about 7-10 days, then candle all the eggs under her and remove the infertile ones. I would also recommend firing up the incubator for the ones that appear to be infertile, as they may be a few days behind the other eggs, or she may get off the nest and you will need a place to finish the incubation. Last year, I had a hen go broody while others kept laying in her nest. She got off the nest with the first 8 chicks, and I got another 8 chicks by putting the remainder of the clutch in the incubator a few more days.
Best wishes,
Angela

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

May is sitting eggs sired by Tux, her son. I know some of the eggs will be 30+ days old by the 21st day. Shall I remove those eggs to make sure they don't explode in the nest? If I remove all the eggs and she is broody, will she lay more eggs and still sit on them the required 3 weeks? Tux's comb is healing nicely from the frostbite. I don't know if he is fertile yet. It's a good possibility.
Thanks,
Karen

In my experience, a determined broody will sit for as long as it takes to get chicks. We had one poor bird last year who was so big and clumsy on the hatching eggs we kept firing her from trying to hatch our breeder eggs and did various things to try to break her but she just stayed broody all summer. Finally we gave her some random mutt eggs ... a few of which hatched ... and she had been sitting so long those chicks had to practically drag her off the nest. Clearly we need to have a better method of breaking broodies. (The bird is completely fine now ... being a normal bird out on pasture, and her chicks are laying. But next time we won't leave it so long.)

We always segregate a broody before we give her eggs, let her settle on fake eggs in the nest where we want her to sit, then give her the fertile eggs we want her to hatch all at the same time. That way all the eggs start incubating on the same day, hatch at the same time, and she stays "organized." Also that way we don't have to worry about any partially-incubated eggs getting mixed in with the eating eggs.

We have a couple broody cages we set up on the floor of the regular coop. Once the chicks are up and out of the nest and eating and drinking, then we remove the cage.

 

[3riverschick]

Thanks, all for the great advice!

 

[3riverschick]

Where is everyone and how re things going in your chicken world?
Best,
Karen

 

[DesertChic]

Where is everyone and how re things going in your chicken world?
Best,
Karen

Baking in the heat of AZ while waiting for the rest of my Silver Grey Dorking eggs to hatch.

How are things in your part of the world?

 

[Lacy Blues]

Got my first sunburn of the year today. Hopefully I don't get many this year. My "yard bird" chicks are a month old and there are 12 of them (I think... maybe 11) anyway, they were outgrowing their nursery pen. I had to make the spare chicken yard in the yardbird pen, a lot bigger. Most of those chicks are males. I might have two or three girls, if I'm really lucky. So, I was increasing pen size and getting it ready for the little tykes and got them moved this afternoon... first night without added heat but all of them piled up together in a bunch of new shavings ought to keep them nice and warm.

I have a couple more hatches after those of Andalusians. I need to finish up my large fowl this week and then I can put a big setting of bantams on and hopefully be done for the year.

 

[MagicChicken]

After last year's dog attack wiped out my most promising birds, I started almost from scratch on my breeding program this year. I still have a few of my original Urch line of Black Javas. Last fall I picked up a trio from a different line of Black Javas a friend of mine has been working with for several years. His line still needs work but he has had some individual stunners that placed well in local shows. He got them from a hatchery to start and does not know their lineage before he got them.

This season I set 18-20 eggs every 7-10 days. I hatched 65 chicks. At the end of April I finished hatching for the season. It hit 100 degrees at my house today. I hatched some chicks out of each line, and then tried some test crosses to see what happens when the two lines are mixed.

The test crosses went as follows:

The two Urch hens crossed with the Other Line cockerel produced lots of eggs that were either clear or died early in the process. None of them made it past the 10 day candling.

The two Other Line pullets crossed with the Urch line cock produced lots of eggs, many of which were either clear or died early in the process. The five eggs that made it to the hatcher all popped out like popcorn, right on time. Those chicks look pretty good so far. They are about two weeks old. Fingers are crossed that they actually are an improvement over their parents.

This week I sold 11 chicks which helped offset some feed costs and cleared a bit of room in the grow-out pen in preparation for birds coming out of the brooder.

Since I finally learned how to spatchcock a chicken I've been roasting a lot of the young cockerels. I am much less tolerant of flaws in young cockerels now!

So far there is one pullet who is looking pretty good. She is from the trio I bought last fall. She is one of the few birds I have with a good head. Definitely a keeper. I am hoping there will be a few more like her. You never know...

 

[DesertChic]

After last year's dog attack wiped out my most promising birds, I started almost from scratch on my breeding program this year. I still have a few of my original Urch line of Black Javas. Last fall I picked up a trio from a different line of Black Javas a friend of mine has been working with for several years. His line still needs work but he has had some individual stunners that placed well in local shows. He got them from a hatchery to start and does not know their lineage before he got them.

This season I set 18-20 eggs every 7-10 days. I hatched 65 chicks. At the end of April I finished hatching for the season. It hit 100 degrees at my house today. I hatched some chicks out of each line, and then tried some test crosses to see what happens when the two lines are mixed.

The test crosses went as follows:

The two Urch hens crossed with the Other Line cockerel produced lots of eggs that were either clear or died early in the process. None of them made it past the 10 day candling.

The two Other Line pullets crossed with the Urch line cock produced lots of eggs, many of which were either clear or died early in the process. The five eggs that made it to the hatcher all popped out like popcorn, right on time. Those chicks look pretty good so far. They are about two weeks old. Fingers are crossed that they actually are an improvement over their parents.

This week I sold 11 chicks which helped offset some feed costs and cleared a bit of room in the grow-out pen in preparation for birds coming out of the brooder.

Since I finally learned how to spatchcock a chicken I've been roasting a lot of the young cockerels. I am much less tolerant of flaws in young cockerels now!

So far there is one pullet who is looking pretty good. She is from the trio I bought last fall. She is one of the few birds I have with a good head. Definitely a keeper. I am hoping there will be a few more like her. You never know...

How did I not know you lived in my neck of the woods? Or did I have a major brainfart and simply forget? This heat has been pretty awful. My flocks have been panting like crazy and I've had to hose them down and provide bottles of ice for them to lay next to for respite. Do you ever show your Javas? And what is "spatchcock"?

Wow....sorry for all the questions. Your project fascinates me as the Java is one of the breeds I had originally considered for my heritage bird "program". Instead I decided on the Dorking, and just had a very successful 90% hatch rate with eggs I purchased on-line, but I still appreciate the beauty of the Java.

Nice to meet you, fellow southern Arizona.

 

[neopolitancrazy]

Where is everyone and how re things going in your chicken world?
Best,
Karen

This year I am hatching and raising Blue Laced Red Wyandottes after having MAJOR problems last year with the Silver Gray Dorkings. The Dorkings were the center of my "happy chicken daydreams" for ~40 years and I find I am still wishing for them, despite the fact that the Wyandottes are in every respect laying/hatching/growing better and are overall much closer to standard. This afternoon is slated for moving all the little chicken tractors to new grass and doing a partial cleaning of the brooder. Hopefully, tomorrow we will hit Lowes/Home Depot to pick up the materials for our first panel hoop house.

Spatchcock is one of my new vocabulary words, and it refers to a way to cut the butchered chicken carcass. After plucking or skinning, one uses sharp, heavy-duty shears to cut the neck/spine/tail free from the remainder of the bird, allowing the internal organs to fall out easily. One then splits the bird along the sternum/keel producing a right and left half to the carcass. These halves are well suited to grilling or barbecuing and are favored for young-ish cockerel culls, around 12-13 weeks of age.

Best wishes,
Angela

 

[MagicChicken]

Quote:
Hmmm... I thought we'd been pretty lucky this year. It waited until May to hit 100 at my place. The two years before this it hit 100 in March and early April.

"Spatchcock" is a technique of cutting out the backbone of a bird carcass and flattening the bird for grilling or roasting. Works great for smaller, tender birds. I haven't tried it with anything over 3 lbs but I saw a video of someone who spatchcocked a turkey. Apparently it works for any size bird. I wouldn't do it on my older birds because they usually require 4+ hours of stewing before I can get a fork into them. Here's a link to a how-to video:

Most of the recipes seem to be for grilling. My grill is too small so I put mine in a roasting pan and bake them. Yum!

My non-Urch Javas came from Dan Pennington. I'd have gotten my birds from Dan to start with if I had known who he was when I was first looking. Once I got the Urch birds my plan was to keep a pure Urch line. I still have pure Urch line birds but the flock lost a lot of the better traits in last summer's dog attack. I'll maintain a pure Urch line as long as I can keep them healthy birds and more or less on track as Javas, but I think most of the long-term improvement in my flock will come from mixing the lines - as long as the mix doesn't pop up too many crazy variants. Time will tell.

Dan's birds have good solid bodies, good close feathering, and better coloration. Their biggest flaw is they have relatively short backs. Most of my Urch birds have good long backs. Hence the test crosses. I toe punch and wing tag all the chicks so I can track which birds are from which lineage. So far I don't have any cockerels that are better than the males I used in this year's breeding program. That means I am eating well this spring. I have one four month old pullet who looks promising. Time will tell.