Homesteaders

[Chicken girl 15]

Woohoo!!!! I successfully raised 17 cx to butcher weight. Today I processed the first 3 tomorrow the rest. What a simple job it is once you figure it out.

 

[Beekissed]

Great job!!! The CX are so much easier to butcher than regular chickens, aren't they? Such tender skin, meat and joints to cut through. You can practically wipe the feathers off their skin after scalding. Another thing I like about butchering the CX....sooooo much meat for your time spent.

You guys gonna eat GOOD this winter!

 

[lcertuche]

I helped someone a few days ago butcher 5 DP cockerels. It took me two and a half hours. I skinned them instead of plucking. For one or two this would have been fine but my finger and arm strength waned, lol. Next time it will be plucking for me. I got the stuff to make a plucker that goes on a drill and if that fails I know how to hand pluck. I have eleven boys waiting to go to freezer camp. I wish I had a pressure canner because I really like canned chicken. Oh well, 'sigh'. Maybe in a few months...

 

[duluthralphie]

Grats on the CX processing!

I bought a new "Plucker" I have so many to do and plucking to me is the worst job. I am going to sell me old one.

Here is what I bought:




Also I have made my own "breed" of meat birds, I call them toads, I am hoping to have 15 pound birds dressed!

Here is a picture of one:



The fount is a 6 gallon one to give you a size reference...




And finally a shameless plug.... I tried to find a wild mushroom hunting and eating thread on here and found they had all died years ago. So I made a new one, most likely headed to failure, but I hope not, I have really gotten into mushrooming a free food that is everywhere..


https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/1130577/mushroom-foragers#post_17467780

Thanks for joining if you do..

 

[greenfeathers]

I'm interested in the Toads.What are they?

 

[duluthralphie]

I'm interested in the Toads.What are they?

They are my own creation kind of. I like CX's but they are not perfect. They are very fragile and short lived. Keeping them alive to breeding age is a feat in itself.

They also have large breasts but the ratio to thighs/legs is too low for me. My Wife and I like dark meat. So I kept 5 CX's over winter, or tried to 3 hens and 2 roosters.

Only one lived to successfully breed. I had planned to cross the hens to a Rainbow rooster I had that was overly large. As fate would have it he died too. Working with meat birds can be trying and frustrating.

I made lemonade out of the lemons, I crossed my rainbow hens to the CX rooster. He only lived a few months and because of his size most eggs were not fertile, but I got a few chicks. They were what I wanted.

The next year I crossed these back to the CX's. Getting what I called "frogs"

The next year I crossed these crosses back to each other again I did not get many because of the size but they were getting better. I kept my best rooster (and a spare, I learned) to breed back to the biggest best hens.

This worked and I got the parents of these. I bred these back, to their father to cement the traits I wanted. I like what I have now. Next year I plan to breed cousins and try and get a real number of chicks instead of the handfuls I have had the last few years.

I am thinking I might try AI as distasteful as it is to me, to get higher fertility on the eggs. Also the roosters are so big they hurt the hens and the chances of conception are very slim. Naturally I am lucky to get one in 10 eggs to hatch.

I wish there was a place to show these birds, they are so fantastic, in my mind, but all the shows exclude a class for meat birds in the open division. I guess they think the CX's dominate so much and they are all hatchery eggs so no sense to show them. These crosses, my Toads, will blow away a CX for size, and health.

I do not have to limit feed as much with these as I did with the CX's. They have slightly better self control at the feed dish.

They are extremely docile so I have to pasture them in a separate area from my other birds. They just will not fight or stand up for themselves. When I had the USDA Vet out to do my NPIP inspection she was extremely impressed with the "toads". She could not believe the size of them...


Also they are not bad layers, I get 5 eggs a week from the hens and they weigh in at around 3 ounces, They are the same size as my turkey eggs, matter of fact they looks so much like a turkey egg, I goofed up this spring and hatched 2 with the turkeys. I inspected the eggs a week before hatch and found two empty shells! Looked on the bottom shelf and there were two chicks!

So there you have it more about "toads' than you wanted to know...

Short answer they are 3/4th CX 1/4 Rainbows.

 

[greenfeathers]

They are my own creation kind of. I like CX's but they are not perfect. They are very fragile and short lived. Keeping them alive to breeding age is a feat in itself.

They also have large breasts but the ratio to thighs/legs is too low for me. My Wife and I like dark meat. So I kept 5 CX's over winter, or tried to 3 hens and 2 roosters.

Only one lived to successfully breed. I had planned to cross the hens to a Rainbow rooster I had that was overly large. As fate would have it he died too. Working with meat birds can be trying and frustrating.

I made lemonade out of the lemons, I crossed my rainbow hens to the CX rooster. He only lived a few months and because of his size most eggs were not fertile, but I got a few chicks. They were what I wanted.

The next year I crossed these back to the CX's. Getting what I called "frogs"

The next year I crossed these crosses back to each other again I did not get many because of the size but they were getting better. I kept my best rooster (and a spare, I learned) to breed back to the biggest best hens.

This worked and I got the parents of these. I bred these back, to their father to cement the traits I wanted. I like what I have now. Next year I plan to breed cousins and try and get a real number of chicks instead of the handfuls I have had the last few years.

I am thinking I might try AI as distasteful as it is to me, to get higher fertility on the eggs. Also the roosters are so big they hurt the hens and the chances of conception are very slim. Naturally I am lucky to get one in 10 eggs to hatch.

I wish there was a place to show these birds, they are so fantastic, in my mind, but all the shows exclude a class for meat birds in the open division. I guess they think the CX's dominate so much and they are all hatchery eggs so no sense to show them. These crosses, my Toads, will blow away a CX for size, and health.

I do not have to limit feed as much with these as I did with the CX's. They have slightly better self control at the feed dish.

They are extremely docile so I have to pasture them in a separate area from my other birds. They just will not fight or stand up for themselves. When I had the USDA Vet out to do my NPIP inspection she was extremely impressed with the "toads". She could not believe the size of them...


Also they are not bad layers, I get 5 eggs a week from the hens and they weigh in at around 3 ounces, They are the same size as my turkey eggs, matter of fact they looks so much like a turkey egg, I goofed up this spring and hatched 2 with the turkeys. I inspected the eggs a week before hatch and found two empty shells! Looked on the bottom shelf and there were two chicks!

So there you have it more about "toads' than you wanted to know...

Short answer they are 3/4th CX 1/4 Rainbows.

Not more than I wanted to know. Thanks for taking the time to write it up. Do they still have a similar growth rate to a CX or is that stretched out?

 

[lazy gardener]

What? You don't declare the cash value of your barters, like I do?

Licensing: Giving your rights to the government, then paying the government to buy them back.

They are my own creation kind of. I like CX's but they are not perfect. They are very fragile and short lived. Keeping them alive to breeding age is a feat in itself.

They also have large breasts but the ratio to thighs/legs is too low for me. My Wife and I like dark meat. So I kept 5 CX's over winter, or tried to 3 hens and 2 roosters.

Only one lived to successfully breed. I had planned to cross the hens to a Rainbow rooster I had that was overly large. As fate would have it he died too. Working with meat birds can be trying and frustrating.

I made lemonade out of the lemons, I crossed my rainbow hens to the CX rooster. He only lived a few months and because of his size most eggs were not fertile, but I got a few chicks. They were what I wanted.

The next year I crossed these back to the CX's. Getting what I called "frogs"

The next year I crossed these crosses back to each other again I did not get many because of the size but they were getting better. I kept my best rooster (and a spare, I learned) to breed back to the biggest best hens.

This worked and I got the parents of these. I bred these back, to their father to cement the traits I wanted. I like what I have now. Next year I plan to breed cousins and try and get a real number of chicks instead of the handfuls I have had the last few years.

I am thinking I might try AI as distasteful as it is to me, to get higher fertility on the eggs. Also the roosters are so big they hurt the hens and the chances of conception are very slim. Naturally I am lucky to get one in 10 eggs to hatch.

I wish there was a place to show these birds, they are so fantastic, in my mind, but all the shows exclude a class for meat birds in the open division. I guess they think the CX's dominate so much and they are all hatchery eggs so no sense to show them. These crosses, my Toads, will blow away a CX for size, and health.

I do not have to limit feed as much with these as I did with the CX's. They have slightly better self control at the feed dish.

They are extremely docile so I have to pasture them in a separate area from my other birds. They just will not fight or stand up for themselves. When I had the USDA Vet out to do my NPIP inspection she was extremely impressed with the "toads". She could not believe the size of them...


Also they are not bad layers, I get 5 eggs a week from the hens and they weigh in at around 3 ounces, They are the same size as my turkey eggs, matter of fact they looks so much like a turkey egg, I goofed up this spring and hatched 2 with the turkeys. I inspected the eggs a week before hatch and found two empty shells! Looked on the bottom shelf and there were two chicks!

So there you have it more about "toads' than you wanted to know...

Short answer they are 3/4th CX 1/4 Rainbows.

I believe the Rainbows are the same as Pioneers. I kept one Pioneer pullet as a layer, and she was my earliest and best laying pullet that season. She has produced some very nice daughters. And all of her sons have carried forward the same coloring as the original Pioneer roos, and they have been massive. I think that Pioneer/Dixie is a great way to breed some size into a back yard flock.

I love to hear folks breeding programs. Any thing to move away from the hatchery system. Not that that doesn't have it's place, because it does. But IMO, home bred flocks should be the back bone of back yard flocks throughout the country. Those little pockets of genetic material just may save the future of home grown poultry. Breeding disease resistance into flocks. Breeding flocks that thrive in your particular climate.

 

[Woodsdweller]

And finally a shameless plug.... I tried to find a  wild  mushroom hunting and eating thread on here and found they had all died years ago. So I made a new one, most likely headed to failure, but I hope not, I have really gotten into mushrooming a free food that is everywhere..


https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/1130577/mushroom-foragers#post_17467780

Thanks for joining if you do..

Just to clarify... did the threads die or did the mushroom eating people die from eating the wrong fungus?

 

[Beekissed]