Naked Neck/Turken Thread

[jwells84]

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By lockdown (day 18) they should lose about 13% of their original weight.  In your case that would be about 8 grams. 

My eggs are weighed at 7 days and 14 days so I can adjust the humidity accordingly.  If you are in the ballpark I wouldn't worry about it, but if your eggs have lost 20 grams you have a problem! 
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thanks! that helps. im tringto use a chart ive found to. so far they look ok. ive had a hard time keeping humidity down. even with the incubator dry it was running 45 - 50 so i put some rice and slicone pakets in it and cracked windows so the humidity could escape and have gotten it down to 35-40 ]

 

[ochochicas]

Quote:
I wish I could find someone locally that would process some cockerels for me in exchange for keeping a portion of the meat. I don't have the time, equipment, or desire to process them myself, but I'm sure I could work out a sweet deal with someone!

 

[DesertChic]

I wish I could find someone locally that would process some cockerels for me in exchange for keeping a portion of the meat. I don't have the time, equipment, or desire to process them myself, but I'm sure I could work out a sweet deal with someone!

My only recommendation is to check with your local university. If they have an agricultural department, sometimes they will process your poultry for you for a pretty low fee.

 

[Kev]

On the local craigslist sometimes there are ads for poultry or livestock processing.

 

[Kev]

@Kev
Here is 2 shots if one if the Naked Neck Aloha's:





There is a lot of white on this one. I'm sure there will be more color filling in as they grow.

Next is a shot of three chicks: both Aloha and NN Aloha. As you can tell with the chick on the left has way more color than the chick above. They range all colors in between the two. Some with a lot of white with light buff color to almost no white at all.


The next photo is an unrelated chick. This is the only one left of three that hatch from @learycow Red NN rooster over Golden Comet hens. Hopefully make a good layer and the light red-buff color throughout will help the Aloha Naked Necks along also.

Wow it looks like two chicks are white with color almost just on the head and tail? Have to see how those color up for sure.

I have wondered if the Aloha breeder had thought about adding dominant white? That thread is just too big to read it all.. It would turn mille fleurs into birds with bigger white 'splashes' by converting the black bars into white.. but it would also turn their black tails to white..

 

[draye]

Wow it looks like two chicks are white with color almost just on the head and tail?  Have to see how those color up for sure.

I have wondered if the Aloha breeder had thought about adding dominant white? That thread is just too big to read it all..   It would turn mille fleurs into birds with bigger white 'splashes' by converting the black bars into white.. but it would also turn their black tails to white..

I posts these pictures over there also. I was kind of thinking the same thing but I don't really understand the dominant recessive thing either.

I'm just hoping I don't lose this one it's a pullet nearly sure. I want to try it to see if it works.

 

[Kev]

I just butchered my 2nd NN cockerel today. What a difference from the first one! As expected the process is getting a bit easier, but it was the comparison of this carcass to the previous one that really proved educational for me. I had long ago selected this guy as a dinner guest based upon his slower rate of weight gain and flighty personality, but once I had him plucked and started to really clean him I came to understand fully why he was a perfect cull instead of a breeder. He had pretty feathers, but that was probably his only really good attribute. He processed out at 3.2 pounds at 17 weeks on a really tight, narrow frame. I'm beginning to feel a bit better about my breeder selection standards. I've still got a lot to learn, but at least I'm making progress.

Thanks for dinner, Pop Tart! And thanks for contributing to my education.

I'm very impressed with how you;re doing a newbie to the hobby- I saw you had made visual charts also, way cool!

It is really interesting to see how much chicken anatomy can vary when they're all plucked, right?

 

[Kev]

I posts these pictures over there also. I was kind of thinking the same thing but I don't really understand the dominant recessive thing either.

I'm just hoping I don't lose this one it's a pullet nearly sure. I want to try it to see if it works.

My best guess right now why he/she is not using dominant white in the Alohas would be wanting to keep the black tails for the 'tri-color' look?

It would be great to compare Aloha type birds between those with and without dominant white..

 

[hellbender]

On the local craigslist sometimes there are ads for poultry or livestock processing.

Around here, I'd be wary of anyone who offered such services unless I want to use the meat for myself. State and federal law dictates that such processing be done under the inspection of the official federal inspector.

I have nothing in it but my kids are planning to get wound up with enough capons to service two or three restaurants at the Snowshoe Ski resort as well as the Canaan Valley ski resort also. Plus, there are several fancy restaurants in the Elkins West Virginia area and 2 or 3 have expressed interest in our capons.

A sticky wicket is the fact that they (my kids) won't really have enough capons {other than the ones in our freezers} to offer this fall so they will have to wait 'til the summer or fall season of '16 to roll out their sales effort. I know they have contacted a friend of ours who has agreed to dispatch and completely dress the birds for $10 bucks each and the price will go down at a certain point.

That may sound expensive but when you consider that it now costs about $90 bucks to buy a frozen capon from D'artagnan Poultry and some deals are well over $100.00 each....Soooo...$having the birds professionally and legally processed for $10 bucks seems quite reasonable....when the buyer gets a capon with the head, feet and a Federal stamp of certification attached.

A lot of 'sifferin' will have to be done to get some idea of the actual cost of producing such a capon but I do suspect money could be made by selling a fresh or flash frozen product that is locally grown and certainly we can bring them to condition and weight at costs that would be considerably less expensive than those produced, frozen and shipped by D'artagnan, made even more reasonably priced by raising them on our 'specially produced feed stuff' and finished on buttermilk and coarse ground cornmeal...

 

[DesertChic]

I'm very impressed with how you;re doing a newbie to the hobby- I saw you had made visual charts also, way cool!

It is really interesting to see how much chicken anatomy can vary when they're all plucked, right?

Thank you! That compliment means a lot to me coming from you. And yes, the processing has been hugely educational for both myself and my husband. He's watched me process both birds (my emotional support system) and has been a great sounding board for my discoveries. He grew up with chickens but his family handled them much differently than I do. He's still amazed that my birds will come to me by name when called and actually LIKE to be handled.