Meat Birds and Egg laying...

[igorsMistress]

There's a thread about crossing Red Ranger hens with Dorkings. He hatches eggs and is trying a Cornish cross as well. About page 52 I think.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/crossing-my-red-ranger-hens.1281099/

Thanks for the link aboit Toads!

 

[Kris5902]

I see what you are going through. From the time I have spent here on BYC I have come to understand that my fellow chicken keepers in the State have a ROOSTER problem. They don't know what to do with those freeloading gangs of rambunctious cockerels who show up every spring and who taste like garbage.

No matter how much you cull, a rooster is gonna taste like a Rooster that is tough, chewy and stringy. What my family calls ''a sad meal'' The male hormone testosterone makes the meat less desirable. That's why people castrate their calves, lambs, baby goats and piglets. A steer's, wether's and a barrow's meat is always superior to that of their intact counterparts.

The castrated male animals also create less problems on the farm and pose less danger to their handlers and to each other. They also don't overbreed the females. If you let a gang of hormonal roosters overtake you are going to have hens with bloody bloody heads, bald backs and a lots of injured roosters. The flock will look like they have come out of a tornado.

The best way to deal with this problem is to caponize your extra cockerels. They will be mellower than a hen, disciplined like a well beaten wife, peaceful like a nun and kind enough to brood the chicks.

Capons are plump like a mellon and their meat is tender like a mother's love. It is juicy, moist and full of flavours. You don't need to process them in mass and care about maintaining a freezer like Cornish cross. They live as long as a normal chicken.

Here is a pic of my RIR caponView attachment 1886359

Note: Nothing I said is an exaggeration.

Please edit... the “disciplined like” phrase is highly inappropriate even for a meat bird forum that is less likely to see younglings, there are still plenty of non “disciplined” women and I’m sure men here that will hopefully object to this turn of phrase.

Primary reason for castration in male animals is handling, with the exception of boar taint and a slightly more gamey flavor in old rams... goats are a whole other story, like boar taint but everyone can taste it My cockerels are quite tasty, though the leg meat is a little tougher at 19-20 weeks, the breast meat was just fine.

Older bull meat is prized for balogna as it has the ability to hold more water than steers. (We professionally raise beef cattle and lambs, hunt goats and deer, I may be new to chickens, but so far, no one has found cockerel meat that unpalatable here!)

 

[Kris5902]

Well, there was a lady on the caponizing thread, she had a CX hen that lived for years and laid super large eggs.View attachment 1886361 View attachment 1886362

Not disputing the possibility of doing it... that is why I traded large 3 Red Ranger birds Dressed out for 3 CX pullets...I’m hoping I can incorporate them into a meat bird breeding program... I’m quite happy that 3 made it to 20 weeks and thus far only one has succumbed to leg problems.

 

[Kabootar]

Please edit... the “disciplined like” phrase is highly inappropriate

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I am extremely sorry about that 'disciplined' phrase. I didn't know that it is regarded as inappropriate. I can't think of anyother way to put it, so I just deleted that part. Pardon me for my foolish mistake .

 

[Kabootar]

Primary reason for castration in male animals is handling, with the exception of boar taint and a slightly more gamey flavor in old rams... goats are a whole other story, like boar taint but everyone can taste it

It makes handling cockerels easier and safer too and that's too many exceptions.

My cockerels are quite tasty, though the leg meat is a little tougher at 19-20 weeks, the breast meat was just fine.

It will be interesting to know how you finish your roosters. Looks like you are processing the cockerels before they reach their full potential. At that age most cockerels are scrawny and they have much more bone, feathers and entrails than they have meat and it's an undeniable fact that the meat they have is still much tougher than that of a capon. I request you to try a capon once and compare it with that of a cockerel. I bet you can't ignore the difference between the fibrous rooster meat and a capon.

Older bull meat is prized for balogna as it has the ability to hold more water than steers. (We professionally raise beef cattle and lambs, hunt goats and deer, I may be new to chickens, but so far, no one has found cockerel meat that unpalatable here!)

Kris meat of an older hen or a roo is preferred for making stews and broth, but not many people prefer to eat an old hen or roo as regularly as they like to eat the meat of a broiler. BTW I was talking about the meat of a full grown male bird.

 

[Kabootar]

Not disputing the possibility of doing it... that is why I traded large 3 Red Ranger birds Dressed out for 3 CX pullets...I’m hoping I can incorporate them into a meat bird breeding program... I’m quite happy that 3 made it to 20 weeks and thus far only one has succumbed to leg problems.

It's always best to raise your own CX as a day old chick in the supervision of an active hen like a game hen or another breed like Cornish. Someone who is good forager.

 

[Kabootar]

There's a thread about crossing Red Ranger hens with Dorkings. He hatches eggs and is trying a Cornish cross as well. About page 52 I think.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/crossing-my-red-ranger-hens.1281099/

Thanks for the link aboit Toads!

Looks interesting, I want to read the whole thread , then I will give my take. It will take a few days. But at the same time I am voracious reader, I may waste my sleep on it. Who knows

 

[igorsMistress]

Looks interesting, I want to read the whole thread , then I will give my take. It will take a few days. But at the same time I am voracious reader, I may waste my sleep on it. Who knows

Thatslwhat I did. He has some interesting stuff there surrounding sex linking too. I have a couple of eggs from his Dorking/Red Ranger crosses due to hatch Sunday.

 

[Kabootar]

Thatslwhat I did. He has some interesting stuff there surrounding sex linking too. I have a couple of eggs from his Dorking/Red Ranger crosses due to hatch Sunday.

Good luck with the hatch and be sure to keep us updated. Unfortunately we don't have Red Rangers in India yet.

I get my hatching eggs from PUSA Agricultural University. The university buys a lot of exotic birds, but not all. I know a guy who works in the university and I have to bribe him to get those eggs. Their breeds are of superior quality and I get them at much cheaper price.

Btw the university was started by one Mr Henry Phipps from Chicago at the dawn of the last century hence the name PUSA, Phipps of USA.

 

[Kris5902]

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I am extremely sorry about that 'disciplined' phrase. I didn't know that it is regarded as inappropriate. I can't think of anyother way to put it, so I just deleted that part. Pardon me for my foolish mistake .

Thank you... cultural differences most likely, and understandable. I would always rather let a person know directly than have an otherwise good post “reported”, as I’ve noticed that quickly leads to threads being shut down.

It makes handling cockerels easier and safer too and that's too many exceptions.



It will be interesting to know how you finish your roosters. Looks like you are processing the cockerels before they reach their full potential. At that age most cockerels are scrawny and they have much more bone, feathers and entrails than they have meat and it's an undeniable fact that the meat they have is still much tougher than that of a capon. I request you to try a capon once and compare it with that of a cockerel. I bet you can't ignore the difference between the fibrous rooster meat and a capon.



Kris meat of an older hen or a roo is preferred for making stews and broth, but not many people prefer to eat an old hen or roo as regularly as they like to eat the meat of a broiler. BTW I was talking about the meat of a full grown male bird.

The only Roosters I have are the ones I am keeping for breeding (and one sort of “pet” who might be a candidate for the procedure) so I will probably be a while off of processing one of them! Give the boys and I a few years and I’ll Let you know what I think on old rooster... but the cockerels are not worth caponizing for me, it’s not the easiest thing to do from what I’ve read, and for 20 birds at a time... I’ll just stick to ending them as they become hostile to each other.

It's always best to raise your own CX as a day old chick in the supervision of an active hen like a game hen or another breed like Cornish. Someone who is good forager.

They were raised by another local farmer we are developing closer ties with, and I picked her up at 6 1/2 weeks old (they were from the same order as my Red Ranger chicks) I’m pretty sure they are pushing 17–18lbs live weight now, mostly due to breeding. The CX we have here grow ridiculously large extremely fast. The last of my rangers which I processed at 14 weeks were 6-7lbs dressed out.