Making Lemonade [Selective Culling Project - very long term]

[U_Stormcrow]

Not sure i'm keeping this one

 

[NatJ]

Not sure i'm keeping this oneView attachment 4132999

Is that for color reasons?

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Is that for color reasons?

Yes, I'm waffling on it, BADLY. Against my clays (or wood chips) she disappears. But against anything else, she sticks out. and she's a little narrow. Not thin and upright like a game bird, but definitely more medium than "chonky". OTOH, she's not the crimson red I have in others of my hens that is even more pronounced on my grounds.

(i.e. Bird in back, who is from the original TSC purchase, four or five years ago)

 

[NatJ]

Yes, I'm waffling on it, BADLY. Against my clays (or wood chips) she disappears. But against anything else, she sticks out. and she's a little narrow. Not thin and upright like a game bird, but definitely more medium than "chonky". OTOH, she's not the crimson red I have in others of my hens that is even more pronounced on my grounds.

(i.e. Bird in back, who is from the original TSC purchase, four or five years ago)

For the lighter colored one, her chicks (especially daughters) are likely to be darker than herself. Either she's got genes to make red shades into lighter tan shades, or else she's got the silver gene (will be inherited by her sons but not her daughters, because the gold/silver genes are on the Z sex chromosome.) That's assuming the rooster has more of a red/brown/gold color than she does.

For the body shape, I have no idea whether it's better to select more heavily for the correct body shape at this stage (cull her) or to select for whatever has managed to stay alive so far (leave her alive to potentially breed, which means your next generation comes from a slightly larger gene pool than if you were to cull her.)

 

[U_Stormcrow]

I'll keep her then, and find out. She lays some of my darkest eggs, so they will be easy to identify/sort out later, should it come to that.

 

[Sally PB]

Plus, she's pretty...

 

[AntiqueB]

She is.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

A little over 8# of ground chicken meat from 4 of the roos I culled, makes fine burgers, meatballs for chicken soup, meatloaf, and this weekend I'll try using it for chicken tamales. Carcasses went into a 20qt stock pot, have been cooking down for two days. Cooling now, will separate out the bones to burn and turn back into the soil, then jar the rest.

YUM!!!

and still have two full birds in freezer camp.

 

[Sally PB]

Carcasses went into a 20qt stock pot, have been cooking down for two days.

Outside stove?

My hubby HATES the smell of making bone broth in the Instant Pot. If I were to cook a large stock pot of broth down for two days in the house...

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Outside stove?

My hubby HATES the smell of making bone broth in the Instant Pot. If I were to cook a large stock pot of broth down for two days in the house...

Car Accident roughly 25 years ago. Nerve damage, this is as good as it will get. Almost no sense of smell.

We all have our challenges.