Pastoral Poultry, Traditional Farming For A Modern Era

[centrarchid]

Maybe emphasis should be on how we can reverse engineer free-range rearing to that predating development of nutritionally complete dietary formulations. If you go back far enough in time you will find poultry raisers that provided little more than protection from predators and cold and the equivalent of scratch and / or table scraps. We now have a lot more knowledge now to target how we can take nutritionally incomplete dietary components to provide an optimal diet for supporting production of free-range chickens.

 

[bayocum]

I've noticed that the more time the birds spend ranging, the less feed they consume. Some of our birds can go two to three days between feelings. It seems to depend somewhat significantly on the breed. Some are quite proficient at foraging, but others seem to have either lost that ability, or aren't bred to be much good at it. It is a very beneficial quality. Our Bresse are very content to rustle up a significant amount of their food during the appropriate times. In fact, the French specifically restrict the amount of protein in the diet of the Bresse during the grow out period in order to encourage the birds to find their own food. We have a couple of flocks starting again after our recent harvest, perhaps we can experiment with these restricted parameters. Something to think about.
Brice @ SF

 

[bayocum]

(A repost from the Bresse thread)

An update on our ongoing Bresse project:
We processed a handful of our Bresse this past weekend with very pleasing results. On average, our birds dressed out at about 80-83% of live weight. We processed one cockerel and four hens, with the cockerel coming in at 5lbs and the hens averaging about 3.3lbs. They are very nice birds with long, meaty thighs and well-developed breasts. We processed at 20 weeks. We had planned to go about 2 more, but some work travel was going to interrupt those plans. Our basic methods, for anyone wondering, are these:

1. We try to use only soy-free, non-gmo, organic feed. A few times we had to improvise due to availability, and then we use Flockraiser. We use a Finisher pellet during the last few weeks, but also mix in some grower crumble at the end.
2. We get our birds off heat and on pasture/grass as soon as possible. In California, that usually means moving out permanently at about 3 weeks. In the meantime, we move the younger chicks out during the day and in at night.
3. We use milk in the feed starting at about 5-8 weeks and throughout the entire 20-22 weeks until processing. We don't use Organic milk unless we know it is not ultra-high temp pasteurized. This process kills most of the beneficial organisms in the milk. If we can find vat pasteurized organic milk (Whole Foods) or local raw milk, we love to use it. We use whole milk.
4. We house our birds in tractors with open bottoms. When they are mature enough, we allow them to free range most days, and put them up at night.
5. In the last 2-3 weeks before processing, we keep them in the tractors all day to try and simulate the French method. It reduces movement, allows them to feed on the grains and milk, and helps finish the meat. The still have access to greens because the bottoms are open.
6. We gather birds into smaller pens the night before processing and cover to keep them calm. We use a Kosher-style method, and have moved away from cones to prevent any blood from being restricted. We offer thanks before beginning.
7. We use a whizbang plucker and heat-shrink bags. We allow our birds to rest in the fridge for 48 hours before freezing.

When it comes to connecting with your food, this is about as good as it gets. It's a solemn and celebratory process, one that helps us understand and appreciate the value of real food. If you have any questions or want to read more about our recent processing, go to our blog here.
Blessings,
Brice @ SF

 

[centrarchid]

Darn. This thread is all about efforts to peddle chickens.

 

[bayocum]

Centrarchid,
This thread actually exists to help those who might be interested in more than just showing chickens. Not that showing chickens is a bad thing, it certainly isn't. But in all our searching on BYC, we couldn't find a single thread that really focused on the production value of poultry. So we were hoping to invite people here to talk about how they raise chickens as part of a larger effort to appreciate heritage food and pastoral farming. If some of us choose to make birds available to others to purchase, which we certainly do, all the better. Unless there is a market for productive poultry, few will see the benefit in raising heritage breeds. I hope everyone that visits this thread can see the value in raising chickens, selling chickens, and incorporating them into a healthier food lifestyle. I hope you continue to share your knowledge and experience here.
Best,
Brice @ SF

 

[bayocum]

Has anyone here experimented with, or had luck with, caponizing? Thoughts, suggestions, reservations?

 

[aart]

Has anyone here experimented with, or had luck with, caponizing? Thoughts, suggestions, reservations?

Lots of discussion:
advanced search>titles only> caponizing

 

[lazy gardener]

I don't qualify to be a thread participant, b/c I only have 5 girls! However, much enjoying reading what you folks who are in it for the long and big haul are doing. Re: providing birds needs outside of the feed bucket and coop... any of the readers here have experience with Siberian Pea Shrub? It's a nitrogen fixer, grows 6 - 10' tall (I think) and it's pods contain seeds that are 30% protein. Supposedly good for chicken or human consumption. I'm hoping to plant some in the spring. Re: caponizing. I think it would be a handy tool for the small production farmer to use. It would allow for more folks to successfully grow and use SR chicks without all of the rooster drama associated with growing out a bunch of hormonal cockrels!

 

[bayocum]

...Re: caponizing. I think it would be a handy tool for the small production farmer to use. It would allow for more folks to successfully grow and use SR chicks without all of the rooster drama associated with growing out a bunch of hormonal cockrels!

You are certainly a participant... the thread is open to all. Haven't heard of the Pea Shrub...is it "native" to your area or are you ordering it from somewhere? Sounds interesting. We totally agree about the benefits of caponizing, just hoping to get some good source material or instructions to insure success as much as possible. Our desire would be to minimize loses/injury and maximize the use of our flock.
Thanks for the comments!
-Brice

 

[BCMaraniac]

Brice,

Thanks for asking me to repost my comments regarding caponizing.

First of all, let me say that I am new to chickens, having gotten my first chickens in late summer 2012. Unfortunately I usually get "all in" when I start something, much to my husband's dismay.

Over the course of this past winter, I began reading about caponizing as a means of raising my extra cockerels to a better butchering weight with better quality of meat. So I read and learned all that I could, and got the tools together to start doing so. I ordered some hatchery cockerels.....White Orpingtons, White Rocks, and White Giants(dark birds generally have darker skin, darker pin feathers, etc which is a put-off to some people). In the interim I bought some straight run Black and Blue French Copper Marans chicks, which gave me 5 cockerels, and I was really only interested in the pullets. So I decided to attempt them first.

I lost the first one, because I nicked the vena cava(the largest vein it the body), and it bled out. The next four lived, but I was not able to completely castrate them, so I ended up with incompletely castrated cockerels known as slips. Since there is still part of a testicle, it will regenerate and the bird will develop characteristics of a rooster eventually as the testicle regenerates, but it will not generally be able to reproduce(kinda like a chicken vasectomy). The time it takes for it to look like a rooster will depend on how much of the testicle was left at the time of surgery.

Just before my white dual purpose chicks arrived, I had a layer hen go broody. Since I had not experienced that, I put some of my layer flock eggs under her, and she raised 9 chicks. They ended up being two weeks younger than my white ones.

THEN I bought Bresse chicks.....crazy, I know. Anyway, I used my mixed layer cockerels to improve my skills, and then caponized the extra Bresse cockerels I had.

The long and short of it all is that I now have approximately 30 capons. A few of them are slips, but the majority of them appear to be full capons. All of the white cockerels, including the Bresse, are now 20 weeks old. They are all growing out together, not fighting, and the only crowing is from the slips. Those, of course will be butchered very soon.

One of the most interesting things that I observed was with the Bresse cockerels. They were 10 weeks old when I caponized them(the others were caponized between 4 and 8 weeks of age), and if you know anything about the Bresse chicken, they get a very large comb very early. Within two weeks of caponizing them, this very large comb became pink, and shrunk to approximately the same size as the pullets.

Since all of my capons except for the Bresse are mixed flock birds, it is hard to make side by side comparisons. However, with the Bresse, I have two intact roosters, 5 pullets, one slip, and 3 full capons. I will make pictures and post them here if that is acceptable to show a side-by-side comparison.

I have all of the layer hens that I need, and I have five 13 week old pullets that I have been growing out to poulardize, which is the female equivalent to caponization. They have to be older in order to identify the oviduct. When the upper part of it is removed, then the ovary will not develop. Instead, the pullet puts all of her energy into growing instead of making eggs, and the meat from a poulard is supposed to be even better than the capon.

It has been quite a journey developing these skills, but it is not an impossibility. The fact that I can raise the capons longer than young cockerels, they will end up being a heavier bird than a young cockerel, have more tender meat, and not have the problems of aggression, fighting, and crowing. I feel like all of this will make the time and effort learning to caponize worthwhile. Time will tell, I suppose.

There is a thread here at BYC that is all about caponizing for anyone who is interested:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/675898/graphic-pics-of-my-day-learning-to-caponize

I will try to find the links to all of the sites that I used to learn about caponizing, and will post them here for anyone who wants to read about it.