Naked Neck/Turken Thread

[DesertChic]

Bit sensitive aren't they? Two dozen... just two dozen? that's not even half of a drop in a bucket.... Silly, they are......

p.s. weighed two cockerels today- 11 and 13 pounds, a bit pleased at that.

NICE!!!!

I have a few cockerels overdue to be weighed, the heaviest of which is big Tubbs, the CX I hatched from @lpatelski 's eggs. He's looking like beautifully feathered boulder on legs.

My son asked last night, "Where are you going to put them when they hatch? There's no room!" I reminded him that he hasn't so much as looked at the chickens in the past month so obviously doesn't realize that I have one empty 4' x 6' isolation pen and one empty 8' x 10' coop in which I used to house some of my selected breeding cockerels. Empty chicken space begs to be filled.

 

[DesertChic]

When I was talking to my mother on the phone about the spring plans (including how excited I am to evaluate the S&G chicks), she paused and said, "we're worried about you..."

Wow! What age/background?

- Ant Farm

Non-chicken people just don't get us.

 

[Kassaundra]

I'm still in holding pattern waiting for the cross girls to start laying.

I have two groups the nakeds w/ the cross girls I plan on trying to increase the size of the nakeds for meat.

Then there is the "laying" flock that I am intending to make as dark fm as I can get. Nice size in that group would be a good side benefit for eating the culls, but I'm really going to concentrate on the fm. In that group I have some serious culling to do of the girls, that I am dragging my feet on, like others have mentioned I have issues sending the gals to freezer camp. But I have to get the girls eliminated before I can set any eggs in that group.

 

[Kev]

When I was talking to my mother on the phone about the spring plans (including how excited I am to evaluate the S&G chicks), she paused and said, "we're worried about you..."

Worried about the fact you ordered only 25 chicks instead of 50, right...?

or do I need to switch gears and consider maybe she is not a chicken person and therefore does not understand..?

 

[Phill98]

I'm still in holding pattern waiting for the cross girls to start laying. 

I have two groups the nakeds w/ the cross girls I plan on trying to increase the size of the nakeds for meat. 

Then there is the "laying" flock that I am intending to make as dark fm as I can get.  Nice size in that group would be a good side benefit for eating the culls, but I'm really going to concentrate on the fm.  In that group I have some serious culling to do of the girls, that I am dragging my feet on, like others have mentioned I have issues sending the gals to freezer camp.  But I have to get the girls eliminated before I can set any eggs in that group.

Do you still have some of the chicks you hatched this year? Would love to see them...

 

[Kev]

Wow! What age/background?

- Ant Farm

Quote:

Begging with flashing neon signs. Sigh..

The cockerels are cx(maybe slow grow cx?) crossed with NN. Unfortunately, no marked date of their hatch.. they are several weeks younger than the last big hatch this year in May, so either a June or July hatch.

I was looking at them yesterday thinking it was time to choose a keeper. One has the short and wide body, not really a fan of that. The other has longer body and is taller, which I just like better but he is also narrower bodied. Handled them at about 8wks old, noticed the former had rather short keel, the other a very long one going almost right to the vent. Was thinking the latter surely was the keeper but decided to let both of them grow due to a majority pullet hatch this year. So I decided it was best to do another hands on evaluation and was completely shocked at how the short bodied one was so massive and meaty- tons of meat on the breast area- keel grew a little longer, huge amount of meat off along the sides- sort of a heart shape. The other still has the extremely long keel, good amount of meat but not as massive as the other.

The other thing is so far it is looking only two pullets of this cross are laying colored eggs. Yikes.. only few more pullets to go before the final tally. The cx were bred with a tinted egg layer and a green egg layer, these chicks were hatched and raised together, no real way to tell which one was out of which hen. I have a feeling the taller, less massive cockerel is out of the green egger, but even if he is, only a 50% chance he has the gene... chicken math....

Not sure how to use the two cockerels, use separate pens or put both together over a bunch of hens, leave it up to chance, end up culling one or what... would like to rotate and do multiple separate, better controlled hatches but have very limited space, would be best to do only a couple but huge hatches.

 

[DesertChic]

I'm still in holding pattern waiting for the cross girls to start laying.

I have two groups the nakeds w/ the cross girls I plan on trying to increase the size of the nakeds for meat.

Then there is the "laying" flock that I am intending to make as dark fm as I can get. Nice size in that group would be a good side benefit for eating the culls, but I'm really going to concentrate on the fm. In that group I have some serious culling to do of the girls, that I am dragging my feet on, like others have mentioned I have issues sending the gals to freezer camp. But I have to get the girls eliminated before I can set any eggs in that group.

I've decided to start selling off some of my hens and pullets that I've no intention of using for breeding programs. I've had a few people ask me for laying hens and now that everyone is FINALLY coming out of molt I feel more comfortable selling them off. That should help reduce my numbers at least a little. I've also decided to start making more chicken dishes to empty out the freezer a bit. And empty freezer always encourages me to roll of my sleeves, make the hard (emotional) decisions, and restock.

 

[Phill98]

Begging with flashing neon signs. Sigh.. 

The cockerels are cx(maybe slow grow cx?) crossed with NN.  Unfortunately, no marked date of their hatch.. they are several weeks younger than the last big hatch this year in May, so either a June or July hatch. 

I was looking at them yesterday thinking it was time to choose a keeper. One has the short and wide body, not really a fan of that. The other has longer body and is taller, which I just like better but he is also narrower bodied.   Handled them at about 8wks old, noticed the former had rather short keel, the other a very long one going almost right to the vent.  Was thinking the latter surely was the keeper but decided to let both of them grow due to a majority pullet hatch this year.   So I decided it was best to do another hands on evaluation and was completely shocked at how the short bodied one was so massive and meaty- tons of meat on the breast area- keel grew a little longer, huge amount of meat off along the sides- sort of a heart shape.   The other still has the extremely long keel, good amount of meat but not as massive as the other.

The other thing is so far it is looking only two pullets of this cross are laying colored eggs. Yikes..  only few more pullets to go before the final tally.   The cx were bred with a tinted egg layer and a green egg layer, these chicks were hatched and raised together, no real way to tell which one was out of which hen.  I have a feeling the taller, less massive cockerel is out of the green egger, but even if he is, only a 50% chance he has the gene...   chicken math.... 

Not sure how to use the two cockerels,  use separate pens or put both together over a bunch of hens, leave it up to chance, end up culling one or what...   would like to rotate and do multiple separate, better controlled hatches but have very limited space, would be best to do only a couple but huge hatches.

Sizes really are impressive-they surely are big.

If you want to breed for green eggs- I would breed only green laying hens to a rooster that you think might carry it. Other hen to other rooster. Then you could just rotate the roosters and get whatever you might want to get from them.

Since I don't know what are you breeding for or how many hens you have in total- I'm just throwing first thing that crossed my mind!

 

[Kassaundra]

Haven't posted pics in a while so here goes, these are the ones who cooperated today.

Here's the main man Vader always watching.



Beautimous has grown up




This girl looks so much like a boy



Ever watchful, Vader



One of the black fm girls w/ Stripey butt in the background



One of my favorite fm girls, Stripey butt and S tip, daughter or R tip, daughter of Q tip.





This girl may tempt me to keep a feather necked girl.



I love this girls coloring



Such a handsome portrait









This girl is also tempting me











You can always tell Beautimous she has the Marilyn Monroe beauty mark.

 

[Pensmaster]

Awesome groups of birds.