Info Overload - Question on Caponizing and Roos

[davemonkey]

I can tell the feed you were giving them early on has made a difference. My chicks are only 4 days behind yours in age, (will be 4 weeks on the 26th) and, while their feathers are just about the same as far as being filled in, ours are notably smaller in stature. I won't even bother trying to comapre them to your broilers.

I learned alot reading through the thread. If you ever try caponizing, let me know because I'd like to participate and learn how. It's also good to now have an idea of when to harvest cockerels by if I plan on eating them without caponizing. Ours are so obviously "boys" that I don't think I'll even have to wait until 20 weeks, unless I just want that meat on them. But being the breeds they are, I don't think they'll ever have much meat anyway. Chuck was scrawny even at 45 weeks old.

 

[LilRedRoo]

I'll definitely keep you in the loop if I decide to try it out. The poor girls keep looking at me when I walk into the coop as if to say, "Um, so like, where's the kibble, Dude?" They can get to the layers supplement, but can't balance long enough on the rim to get fed, so they are having to make it on their own with the flock in the field.

On those males, you can just pretend they are thin quail and have a fancy meal with them!

 

[davemonkey]

On those males, you can just pretend they are thin quail and have a fancy meal with them!

HAHA!! I can just picture them wrapped in bacon!

Those poor little chicks...starving to death while the mean farmer makes them eat...what nature intended. Oh, the humanity! They are going to be gorgeous Wyandottes once their mature feathers really start to come in. Ours has gotten more and more beautiful as weeks pass by. When she was 12 weeks old, though, we really had our doubts.

 

[LilRedRoo]

Here is a picture from a couple days ago at just over 5 weeks. We moved them up to the main coop with the layer chicks because I wanted to be able to compare the growth rate with no extra variables to hgave to consider. They had 2 days to themselves, so I doubt that made much difference. They will be 6 weeks this Wednesday (tomorrow) and next week I plan to harvest at least one of them to see what the 7 week product looks like. It's been really cold, and we don't provide supplemental heat, so they will probably need a few extra weeks to get up to the weight that Melinda wants. She told me the other day that she's not concerned with tenderness.

Red Boiler side-by-side a Silver Laced Wyandotte, both are at 5.5 weeks and both given same paddock to range with the same ration offered free-choice in the coop.

 

[LilRedRoo]

Here is a comparison at 11 weeks; I estimate the broiler would dress out at 3 lbs right now. I butchered 4 broilers at 9 weeks and they were a little small, dressing out at 2.75 lbs each. But they were very uniform in weight. They were the larger birds of the bunch. The rest still don't look very big, so I'll probably wait until they are 12 weeks or more. Melinda has asked me to hang onto at least one pullet until she is laying eggs. She wants to see if our RIR rooster will breed her to see how the offspring come out. The cockerel in the picture may go to Dave since he is donating 2 cockerels to me as I start up a back flock. By the way, these two chicks are the same two that are in the middle of the 5-week picture a cuople posts up.

 

[BCMaraniac]

There is no comparison, is there? Feed conversion is less, size is less for the DP breeds. Did you say this was a Cuckoo Marans?? I have Coppers and Birchens. If is interesting to see the head to head comparison though.

I raised Red Ranger broilers last year, butchered the males, and a couple of pullets. Procrastination resulted in 4 pullets achieving the point of lay. They laid big eggs, and were bred by my Bresse roosters. The eggs were fertilized, but I didn't incubate any of them. I don't see any reason that your rooster wouldn't breed them.

I have since butchered them. I got nearly 1 1/2 pounds of gorgeous abdominal fat out of 4 of them that I rendered into schmaltz.

I have BCM/Lavender Orpington crosses that were caponized and the biggest one of them weighed 9 pounds live weight at 29 weeks, so it is gonna take a lot longer to grow them out than the broilers. The biggest up side to them is the sustainability of available chicks and reported improvement of flavor in the older birds. I haven't butchered any full capons yet, so I can't comment on taste. The slips have been very good, however. I want to see how the capons top out weight wise.

Please continue to share age/size comparisons with us!

 

[LilRedRoo]

I made a type-error...they are actually 10 weeks old, not 11...for the breed, aside from the Red Broiler, the chick in the picture is a silver laced wyandotte. All but one of my Cuckoo Marans were killed, but the one that survived is doing very well.

What is schmaltz, and how do you render it out of chicken fat?

Melinda and I have thought about trying to render some of the fat for our use, but aren't really sure how to do it, unless you just boil it down or something...

 

[BCMaraniac]

Schmaltz is basically the rendered fat from chicken, like lard is to a pig. You can do a search on Wikipedia for information.

Schmaltz can be made a couple of ways, as I understand it. You can put a pot on the stove with a cup or so of water in the bottom, then add the chicken fat and bring to a boil then rendering out the fat until all of the water is gone, then it can be filtered and canned. Put Mason jars into the oven at 250 degrees and heat thoroughly. Once the schmaltz is rendered, then filter through cheesecloth into the jar and seal. Some people will dice onion and cook it with the fact to infuse flavor into the schmaltz. That is what I did with the last I made, but I just placed the fat in a pot without water and rendered. It is very tasty to use for cooking. I actually used it in my iron skillet yesterday when I made cornbread......my family thought it was better than cornbread made with lard, vegetable oil, or shortening. Another BYCer says it is awesome when used in pie crust being used for chicken pot pie. It would also be good in soup.

 

[LilRedRoo]

Awesome! Thanks for the information. I'll try this with our next batch. In reading online I also noticed deer fat can be rendered as well, for soap, candles, leather treatment et cetera...among others. This will be a really good project to show the kids how to render fats and what can be done with them afterwards.

I think I'll try my first batch of schmaltz with eggs. Plus one of my iron skillets is due a re-seasoning, so I'll use this for that as well.

 

[LilRedRoo]

Okay, we butchered 6 last night at 12 weeks old; I removed the skin, fat, entrails, legs and wing tips, and I cut out the back (goes to the stock-pot bags in the freezer)...and our skinless, backless semi-free-range reds dressed out between 2.25 - 2.75 pounds. I thought that was half decent. We still have 2 red broilers left, both of which I THINK are pullets. I am going to wait until they start to lay because Melinda wants a few eggs from them crossed with our RIR rooster for when we do our next hatch. That makes it hard to plan the hatch since it will be a while till they lay, if they lay...but it'll be fine since we aren't filling chick orders...just trying to keep a steady supply of replacers coming...