Naked Neck/Turken Thread

[Kev]

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...

sounds pretty good, despite never having capon or chicken raised that way.

Is there really any appreciable difference in taste between capon vs milk-finished(the Bresse way) and regular chicken?

 

[Kev]

This is lil Tiny the serama nn rooster mix

Haha cool chicken! Are you going to add feather legs to the line via that one hen? Mottle on frizzle would be fun.

 

[Kev]

New mother, new chicks.





I have a question- what container do you use for chick starter mash for mother hens and their chicks? The previous hen wasn't too bad with 'treasure hunting'- digging out the feed for little bits of 'whatever' but this hen has this BAD..... must have pirate blood(Bonny or Read?!) in her or something? She's even dusting the chicks by accident.

I used to feed gamebird crumbles so that was never much of an issue.. seems I'm going through a learning curve dealing with chick starter mash. Would love to go back to gamebird but they are now costing over 20 a bag....

 

[draye]

Sorry Kev I don't know ehat to tell you about the mother and chicks. I've never had that pleasure of raising chicks that way.

 

[Lacey1988]

Baby girl growing up so fast.

 

[draye]

I'm trying to develope a flock of egg laying Naked Necks. The few I have now are descent layers. I have 11 hens that lay. I'm now averaging 6 to 8 eggs a day from them. Today I got ten so some days are better than others.
Two if he hens aren't NN but are actually 1/2 NN, from their daddy. One of tge hens is NN but lays a green egg ( from my project that I've now discarded), she is an neatly everyday layer. Averages 5 to 7 a week.

My feed bill had went way down since I cut back. I'm in the process of building them back up though with another project but only for color.

Besides those 11 hens I have coming up on 20 weeks old tomorrow the 22nd, 4 NN pullets, and 2 NN pullets that came from the old project, they have funky single combs so I'm expecting brown eggs. I'll also have 2 young cockerels growing up with them. From my Easter Hatch I have about a half and half mix of cockerel/pullet ratio ( okay can't be exact) count of 13 some are NN and some mor( again the non NN are for color project).
I have 37 eggs in the incubator that are due to hatch this next Wednesday or Thursday.

I'm taking one rooster off for an auction this weekend, 1) because he's a meanie, 2) he's got barring (also orange) and I'm not a fan of barring. He is the dad of the eggs that are hatching, so I have his genes in the pool stock.

This fall I'm planning on ordering 25 pullets to grow out for next spring. To help bring in more genes. To up the egg production.

All this to say because I want to have eggs available to those that want fresh eggs and because I'm thinking that there may be a shortage on eggs after all this avian influenza outbreak in the biggest egg producing state, Iowa. Thinking also the prices may go higher too. So I want to be prepared.

Then again, I'm still hoping that I can hang onto them. I still haven't found a job. So chicken keeping is still up in the air.

 

[Phill98]

My guess is same as yours- also the birds from hatchery stock tend to produce boys growing feathers a shade or two darker than the girls. Just like those chicks.   Also they seem to be showing similarities to some of my lines, the boys get heavier and grow feathers slower than the girls.

Those chicks are showing a much heavier look about them than the typical large fowl NN  here though!  I would love to grow chicks like that here.

Thanks! Their possible mothers are bigger than production reds. I don't have to mention the one we culled earlier. Those two naked necks are actually way smaller than non- naked necks. I don't know why. I also don't like that color. I hope that some blacks or white or dark brown will hatch so I can get them.

 

[Phill98]

New mother, new chicks. I have a question- what container do you use for chick starter mash for mother hens and their chicks? The previous hen wasn't too bad with 'treasure hunting'- digging out the feed for little bits of 'whatever' but this hen has this BAD..... must have pirate blood(Bonny or Read?!) in her or something? She's even dusting the chicks by accident. I used to feed gamebird crumbles so that was never much of an issue.. seems I'm going through a learning curve dealing with chick starter mash. Would love to go back to gamebird but they are now costing over 20 a bag....

I don't know why, but I just love your broodies.They just seem perfect for me. I also like the chick with stripes on back. Is it fm?

 

[hellbender]

sounds pretty good, despite never having capon or chicken raised that way.

Is there really any appreciable difference in taste between capon vs milk-finished(the Bresse way) and regular chicken?

Having never had 'bresse', I might be the wrong person to ask but I have had capon since my earliest childhood as my parents bought them at the market for holidays..... not one of us liked turkey and capons were plentiful and readily available seasonally in those early decades.

I can also tell you that rather than having all the fat between the skin and flesh, as in non-castrated birds, the fat tends to marbleize throughout the meat, (like that of a steer), making it especially tender, even in birds that are as old as 18 months and the skin gets especially crispy when the capon is roasted. You will note, we finish our capons and poulardes with buttermilk and coarse-ground cornmeal and the taste is much more earthy and savory than typical store-bought birds. I hesitate to use the words strongly flavorful, for fear that it might make some think it off-putting. To me and my family, it is our favorite way to produce chicken meat for ourselves and a couple of neighbors.

http://www.dartagnan.com/all-natural-free-range-capon/product/FCAPO002-1.html

 

[ochochicas]

I have a question- what container do you use for chick starter mash for mother hens and their chicks? The previous hen wasn't too bad with 'treasure hunting'- digging out the feed for little bits of 'whatever' but this hen has this BAD..... must have pirate blood(Bonny or Read?!) in her or something? She's even dusting the chicks by accident.

I used to feed gamebird crumbles so that was never much of an issue.. seems I'm going through a learning curve dealing with chick starter mash. Would love to go back to gamebird but they are now costing over 20 a bag....

Cuteness overload on the chicks! Absolutely love them and their momma.

My broody is a crazy scratcher. I've seen her send chicks flying across the brooder if they accidentally get behind her when she is scratching. I have a large, yet shallow, glass or ceramic dish for food that is heavy enough that the hen can't knock it over. I put that on top of a piece of 2 x 12 pine board that is about 18 inches long. The height keeps most of the bedding out of the dish and the hen can't knock it over. The chicks learn to climb up on the piece of wood to reach the bowl. If my description doesn't make sense let me know and I'll go out and snap a picture.

Feed prices here are also going up. Not over $20 a bag yet, but getting pretty close.