Heritage Large Fowl - Phase II

[LeslieDJoyce]

I understand your comment. But when you start with only 6 hens and two cocks - that combination didn't produce eggs needed .
That is even more critical when two of six go broody LOL
Thus the laying flock . That however will change when we get to a point all hens are breed forward type.

I sure had more fun hatching this year with more females in the breeding pen. I SHOULD make more careful choices of females next breeding season, but I don't enjoy the stress that causes when organizing clutches. I'm not sure I'll ever be one of those "single mating" breeders. Unless we get to the point where we're making tiny tweaks or trying to run experiments. That would require tweaking our set up a lot.

I got chastised by a local breeder a week or so ago for indulging in the hatchery layers & mutts. But then when I explained the math with the egg-to-customer ratio, I got temporary permission to carry on with the hatchery birds until the Delaware numbers are up. The layers are paying for the feed for the chicks at the moment.
As a grown woman who doesn't feel I need any scolding, I didn't admit that I also think we have too many hatchery birds around here.

But for sure I don't think having the hatchery birds/mutts here is messing with my focus. Especially when they present me with surprise clutches of chicks. I'm pretty brutal in my ability to cut ties with worn-out relationships, so I trust myself to do the culling as needed when the hatchery hens start to take their annual break from laying.

I THINK we worked out the major kinks for culling last winter/spring.

 

[bnjrob]

I understand your comment. But when you start with only 6 hens and two cocks - that combination didn't produce eggs needed .
That is even more critical when two of six go broody LOL
Thus the laying flock . That however will change when we get to a point all hens are breed forward type.

Yep, been there done that. It's a wonder I get any eggs to hatch when they are always going broody. I've had at least 4 hens going broody at the same time for the past few months. Throw one into a cage and get her broken, and another one steps up to go broody in its place. Driving me crazy. We have a layer flock in addition to our breeders - they are our hens that did not make the cut to be breeders, and I don't want them leaving the property for someone else to try to breed them. So they are our unsupervised free-rangers, roaming the pasture on bug extermination duty.

 

[finnfur]

George - Heres the RFID egg tally thread I mentioned - its interesting in theory and could work.
He just works on it part time . Sounds like a good project for your boys as the younger generation seems
to have a handle on the high tech stuff.
It has a link to his blog where he documents his projects.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/736895/rfid-tags-used-to-report-which-birds-are-laying

 

[MagicChicken]

M

 
I count all my eggs every day and write the counts in a notebook (green eggs, white eggs, duck eggs, eggs from the breeding coop). What I don't count are the hens in my laying flock.   Right now I think the laying coop is only producing about 45% every day, and vent checks haven't revealed any non-layers, just a lot of slightly older hens who don't lay every day. I'll be doing a big cull when they stop laying for molt/winter this year. Then I'll reassess the wisdom of the laying flock ... I'm more into the breeders now.

Last year I kept the chicks in the breeding coop at least until they reached POL so I knew when they started to lay. I'm not sure how I'll handle that this year. 

That is half of the battle , to find our own rhythm.

Except for a variety of colored eggs, I never understood the rational behind a "laying flock". My "breeding flock" is my "laying flock".

My current laying flock is what is left of my original stock and their offspring, after the dogs killed my most promising birds - leaving me with nothing but culls I hadn't gotten around to eating yet and a couple of not-horrible breeders. I keep the layers for backup and for eating eggs during hatching season. Hopefully I can get to the point where the backup birds are just as good as the breeders. That will take a while. With some luck it may happen in my lifetime

 

[Lacy Blues]

I'm not George but if it were me and they were kinda' getting in the way, I'd separate them out, feed them buttermilk and very coarse corn meal and perhaps some oatmeal (always mixed with the milk), give them plenty of fresh water and in about 30 days, I'd do the deed.

Thanks Ron. Will it really take 30 days? Ugh. I guess I need to look for a place that is kind of out of the way where I can stick a few roosters together. Does this buttermilk etc., plan work well for older roosters too or just the young ones?

 

[hellbender]

Thanks Ron. Will it really take 30 days? Ugh. I guess I need to look for a place that is kind of out of the way where I can stick a few roosters together. Does this buttermilk etc., plan work well for older roosters too or just the young ones?

It works well with any age but naturally, the younger birds will be more tender. As for the buttermilk...you don't want the mix to be sloppy, in fact you want it to be kinda firm but fresh clean water on the side is SO important.

The oatmeal is good too...it can be mixed with the corn meal ...none of it needs to be cooked. They don't need too much room, in fact you want to crowd 'em a bit, so they don't get much exercise.

They will get dirty but when you scald them, that does wonders. You don't really have to do it for 30 days but the longer you can do it, the better the meat will be. Just a fair sized dog crate works like a charm. The metal kind is best in the summer and It washes up really well. If possible, run a nice stick or two through, about one foot from the bottom so they can roost.

They will gain more than you think and not just fat. If you have some stale bread...you can add that with the mess....keep food in front of them all the time.... don't get enough to rot. The buttermilk will provide a bit of 'controlled spoilage' anyhow.

PS If you take a notion to clean the cage (I never do), make sure you don't let 'em run around while you do it. Put them in a card board box if you have to...NO MORE FREEDOM...Catching them again and locking them might cause them to go PTSD and start them on a downward emotional spiral...

Good luck!!!

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

I've read other people recommend CalfMana for fattening cull cockerels before butchering. That sounds promising unless you have some kind of special recipe/promise to your customers about how the birds are fed. My egg customers are the "no corn/no soy/no canola/no GMOs" crowd, and there are some of us here who don't do a great job of keeping different feeds straight, so I can't risk having even a secret stash of contraband feed on the property.

Of course here we want to segregate the cockerels before they're becoming obnoxious hormonal terrors, but can't always make breeding choices until they get past that stage. They do want to run around and show off and cause as much trouble as they have space for, and aren't always easy to confine during the worst of it. Luckily, the dual purpose breeding birds are a little less clueful about escaping than hatchery birds & mutts.

About birds on suicide mission: I took an odd path through the poultry area yesterday and happened upon a hen with her head stuck between a rock and a hard place. She really looked dead when I found her, but I lifted her out very gently, and then she shook it off and went for refreshments. She made it to her usual roost last night, so I think she will be okay. It was a total fluke that I found here before she managed to succeed in killing herself.

 

[hellbender]

I've read other people recommend CalfMana for fattening cull cockerels before butchering. That sounds promising unless you have some kind of special recipe/promise to your customers about how the birds are fed. My egg customers are the "no corn/no soy/no canola/no GMOs" crowd, and there are some of us here who don't do a great job of keeping different feeds straight, so I can't risk having even a secret stash of contraband feed on the property.

Of course here we want to segregate the cockerels before they're becoming obnoxious hormonal terrors, but can't always make breeding choices until they get past that stage. They do want to run around and show off and cause as much trouble as they have space for, and aren't always easy to confine during the worst of it. Luckily, the dual purpose breeding birds are a little less clueful about escaping than hatchery birds & mutts.

About birds on suicide mission: I took an odd path through the poultry area yesterday and happened upon a hen with her head stuck between a rock and a hard place. She really looked dead when I found her, but I lifted her out very gently, and then she shook it off and went for refreshments. She made it to her usual roost last night, so I think she will be okay. It was a total fluke that I found here before she managed to succeed in killing herself.

I feel pretty certain there's corn in Calfmanna... and soy...No matter, I don't use it.

We have a cock/cockerel house and lot for the males now. My daughter will not stand for HER hens having the feathers and hide kicked off them and it's actually not a bad idea. We've segregated in the past but always fallen back to old ways but that's before our 'Compo-Queen' took over with her capon program.

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

I feel pretty certain there's corn in Calfmanna... and soy...No matter, I don't use it.

We have a cock/cockerel house and lot for the males now. My daughter will not stand for HER hens having the feathers and hide kicked off them and it's actually not a bad idea. We've segregated in the past but always fallen back to old ways but that's before our 'Compo-Queen' took over with her capon program.

Which is why I don't use it here. It has a lot of stuff in it my customers would disapprove of. BUT ... in the spirit of "milk finished poultry," I thought I'd throw the idea out there. Some people swear by it.

I like the idea of fermented mash. I offer Fermented Feed to my birds, as an optional choice for the older birds, and a starter for the chicks. I just moisten some of their regular pellet feed with plain water, and let it sit & occasionally stir it until it ferments, then I can use a scoop of that to start another batch and it is ready in about a day and a half. For the chicks I add some scrambled eggs and a little Nutritional Yeast, too. They seem to do pretty well on that.

If I had access to affordable buttermilk I'd probably throw some of that in the fermented feed to see how they did on it. But when I experimented with regular milk to scramble the eggs, the chicks got poopy bums, so I stopped.

Oh, man ... Capons. Now there's a whole big subject.

Emphasis on big.

We have a Cockerel Colony here. A coop and a nice shady run. Right now we have one of our breeder cocks in there to help civilize the youth. Then we have a large Cull Cage where we can confine the ones we're getting ready to eat.

 

[hellbender]

Which is why I don't use it here. It has a lot of stuff in it my customers would disapprove of. BUT ... in the spirit of "milk finished poultry," I thought I'd throw the idea out there. Some people swear by it.

I like the idea of fermented mash. I offer Fermented Feed to my birds, as an optional choice for the older birds, and a starter for the chicks. I just moisten some of their regular pellet feed with plain water, and let it sit & occasionally stir it until it ferments, then I can use a scoop of that to start another batch and it is ready in about a day and a half. For the chicks I add some scrambled eggs and a little Nutritional Yeast, too. They seem to do pretty well on that.

If I had access to affordable buttermilk I'd probably throw some of that in the fermented feed to see how they did on it. But when I experimented with regular milk to scramble the eggs, the chicks got poopy bums, so I stopped.

Oh, man ... Capons. Now there's a whole big subject.

Emphasis on big.

We have a Cockerel Colony here. A coop and a nice shady run. Right now we have one of our breeder cocks in there to help civilize the youth. Then we have a large Cull Cage where we can confine the ones we're getting ready to eat.

I guess we're pretty lucky at that. We have dairy goats and buttermilk is a frequently frozen here for such uses...even whey and whole milk is also frozen in 3 or 5 gallon buckets. Nothing goes to waste here.

You may recall my 'General-Animal-Diet' that is processed here from various product from other farms, our place and the roadkill deer carcasses??? That's still going on despite the fact we have far fewer birds...we do have far MORE dogs to feed and it works out pretty well for all concerned. Not a very clean or good smelling process but it has done the job here for many years!