Naked Neck/Turken Thread

[Angie8eggs]

Hello, new NN chicken keeper here I have been searching this thread for the question that has probably been asked many many times and couldn't find my answer. Forgive me, here it goes..everything I have read on the Internet is giving me a Yes and a No answer. Are they pretty cold tolerant? I live in Ohio and when I ordered them, they site said yes. (Or was I imagining it?) I hope they are, I will have 4. Don't want the little gems to suffer in the winter because of my failed research

 

[flower]

Hello, new NN chicken keeper here

I have been searching this thread for the question that has probably been asked many many times and couldn't find my answer. Forgive me, here it goes..everything I have read on the Internet is giving me a Yes and a No answer. Are they pretty cold tolerant? I live in Ohio and when I ordered them, they site said yes. (Or was I imagining it?) I hope they are, I will have 4. Don't want the little gems to suffer in the winter because of my failed research

NN or as sometimes called Turkens are both heat and cold tolerant. Most depending on breeding are good layers, calm and can be good foragers and some even go broody.

 

[Angie8eggs]

Thank you so much! Feel much better now!

 

[DesertChic]

Trying to psych myself up for bird processing. It is illegal to do in my city, so I'm not going to be doing it myself.. not that I could, tbh.. but I found a processor nearby (which is apparently the best place locally, but also not for the feint of heart) and I've got 5 broodies on LF eggs. Since they're all from my scaleless project I'm going to be really reluctant to let extra roosters go to anyone willy-nilly. I want to make sure I'm being responsible with this gene since it poses ethical questions considering the extra husbandry, I don't want people getting birds off me to try and make a quick buck or have a novelty bird they let die exposed to the elements, you know? So any boys not kept for breeding are gonna get butchered, probably.

I've only been raising serama up until now. This is very new to me. Gonna be agonizing over it for months, I'm sure. That and I have to find a chest freezer.. hoo boy I hope I have the guts to actually do this cuz if I can't go through with it I'm going vegetarian. Well, no. I'm going no-more-chicken-itarian. Then no more breeding for me because I'd not be cut out for it.

That said!! It will be cool to hatch my own naked necks from all sorts of mixes, since my barred rock went and sat on eggs she'd been hiding from who knows who. So it won't just be my scaleless splits.

First I just want to say, You CAN do it! I literally cried over the first few birds I processed, feeling as if I'd somehow betrayed them. Even now after processing quite a few birds, each one requires some mental preparation for me. As silly as it may be I still thank and apologize to each bird I butcher, and my son has commented that I tend to utter the same phrase each time, "I know baby, but it will be over soon. I'll make it quick." The physical process has become much easier as I've become more skilled. The real trick is to NOT psych yourself out. Our greatest barrier to performing any task is typically a mental one, and since it's your brain, you have control of what you want to think about all of this. For me the concerns I have about food quality in this country combined with my determination to do what's best for my family proved stronger than any apprehension I had about butchering a chicken. And once I ate one of the birds I butchered ther was no going back. Find what's most important about this for you, and focus on that.

Good luck!

 

[DesertChic]

Hi folks!

I looked at my four-week-old NN this morning and though "uh oh". These were vent sexed as pullets, so I was feeling somewhat confident I had girls.

Are NN pullets prone to reddening early? These are the first of this breed for me.

(Having trouble with attaching my photos)

My NN pullets actually showed redness before my cockerels did, primarily around their ears. The first time I hatched this breed I was convinced that something was wrong with my girls, but eventually the boys reddened too, and far more. Think of it as a healthy blush of color, like with human babies who have pink cheeks.

 

[Kassaundra]

First I just want to say, You CAN do it! I literally cried over the first few birds I processed, feeling as if I'd somehow betrayed them. Even now after processing quite a few birds, each one requires some mental preparation for me. As silly as it may be I still thank and apologize to each bird I butcher, and my son has commented that I tend to utter the same phrase each time, "I know baby, but it will be over soon. I'll make it quick." The physical process has become much easier as I've become more skilled. The real trick is to NOT psych yourself out. Our greatest barrier to performing any task is typically a mental one, and since it's your brain, you have control of what you want to think about all of this. For me the concerns I have about food quality in this country combined with my determination to do what's best for my family proved stronger than any apprehension I had about butchering a chicken. And once I ate one of the birds I butchered ther was no going back. Find what's most important about this for you, and focus on that.

Good luck!

Substitute "little one" for "baby" and that is nearly word for word what I say before processing each one too.

 

[Pensmaster]

@DesertChic
Question for you. Feed store has NN roosters only. Most have clean necks except a few feathers on the head. Was this the better type to get if I was to breed with my Dark Cornish or does it matter. There are a few with bow ties
Thanks.

 

[draye]

@DesertChic
Question for you. Feed store has NN roosters only. Most have clean necks except a few feathers on the head. Was this the better type to get if I was to breed with my Dark Cornish or does it matter. There are a few with bow ties
Thanks.

Not desrtchic, but that would be a good cockerel to get. It would assure you of Naked Neck babies.

 

[Pensmaster]

Not desrtchic, but that would be a good cockerel to get. It would assure you of Naked Neck babies.

Thanks Draye I meant to write or anyone along with that.
The feed store gets theirs from Murray McMurray

 

[Skink]

It gets easier, stick to your guns and follow through. Take them to the processor, come home have a good cry and some wine.

I wish the carriers were easier to tell, any of my birds could be carriers and I'm in the same boat, very reluctant to sell my chickens, chicks or eggs

The crying will happen for sure. I'm already dreading the trip and handing them over terribly.. apparently if you go there on a not too busy day, you're in and out within like 20 minutes, it is scary for the birds. That's what gets me. I could probably do this with a good thumping on my chest and a resolve to do what's right for future birds no problem if it wasn't for the fact people have said they're handled roughly and get scared. I can't drink for a whole swathe of reasons but sometimes I wish I could, lmao.

At this point I'm just trying to have homozygous scaleless birds at all, but then I'm torn on direction. I want to breed them down to near-or-matching serama size to make it easy for people to bring them indoors during bad weather, except they would rapidly stop making a good meal, but I'd still need something to do with the extras. Alternatively I could breed for good meaties, but enough folks treat meat birds as lesser and wouldn't be willing to consider extra husbandry needs leaving them extra prone to neglect, which is the exact kind of future for potential offspring I'm trying to avoid. I would say I could just breed something that is both, but as handsome as the cornish bantam is, I look at it as.. kind of a warning. Not healthy birds.

Either way I could always go for more NN hens. NNs are supremely unpopular in this part of TX for some reason. People'll have less reason to want to steal my ladies if they're showing some skin

Quote:

Thank you for the luck! I will need it. I'm not in this because of food quality or family, it is vastly moral. I am trying to look at it as, it isn't as if I've never had someone else kill a chicken for me before. As long as I am eating chickens, I am killing chickens. I have just had the privilege of not seeing it in action until now. It becomes a matter of looking at how those chickens lived instead. Factory farming is disgusting, chickens are viewed poorly and treated even worse. Chickens aren't just my favorite food but my favorite animal and there are many chickens I hold very, very dearly as living things so that is an injustice I want to see stricken down within my life time. I'm not going to ignore the fact that factory farmed chicken, as the world is right now, is a cheap and necessary protein. I'm not going to be classist and condemn people for eating it because it is what they can afford... I just mean no one should be happy with factory farming as it is, everyone should want it to change for the better. I want to be part of the solution by educating, and supporting home production. I believe any food someone can reasonably produce at home, they should. It is better for the animals and the environment. I just gotta practice what I preach. That and I honestly think a lot of people who already practice home meat production specifically could do to be more humane about it, because not being factory farming on its own isn't enough. I have to set an example rather than just say that.

Just EEGGGHH... knowing they'll be scared.. and I'll have these birds for 18 - 20 weeks looking after them, knowing them, being as good as I can be to them.. it is like my fear of needles. It is less about the actual puncture and more about knowing there's hurt on the horizon. Once it's happening, I'll grit my teeth and muscle through. Not to mention I don't ever actually want it to become easier. I'm afraid of becoming someone who's numb to just how supreme an important but unconsenting sacrifice these birds are making for us to have a sustenance. I believe remaining at least some kind of tender to the process is part of it being humane.