Pennsylvania!! Unite!!

Pics
Date sort Score sort
fisherlady said:
I find the meat birds tend to have a hard crop for a while after eating.... I believe it is from their habit of gorging on their food and then later trying to drink a bunch of water to flush it down. If his system was shutting down he may have eaten a lot (out of habit) and then it didn't pass through because of the pressure from the fluid build up.

The yellow fluid is usually called ascites (pronounced ah-see-tees). It is common in meat birds due to CHF but can also be found in abdominal cavities due to other health issues and it even occurs in humans. When you pull the heart you will also sometimes find the sack around the heart (pericardium) has fluid in it.
The fluid could theoretically be drained but it won't correct the underlying condition and will only buy a couple days grace.

Birds with early acute CHF often don't grow as well simply because their organ efficiency isn't what it should be so nutrient absorption is impaired. Birds that develop it later are more likely to be normal sized. Some birds are just more genetically prone to the early onset and they are the ones which just never seem to keep up.

Most show early signs which you will come to recognize as you get more used to seeing them.... poor face and comb color (I tend to notice that rather early), bulging backside with a feeling of 'drum tightness' in skin over backside once fluid build up is worse in late stages, failure to thrive (noticeably lagging behind others in weight gain) and lethargic in appearance.
If the skin showing between feathers on the back half of the bird looks sort of bluish or purple then they are declining rapidly.
DH and I got in the habit of daily evaluation of bird activity levels and color, any who had questionable evaluations were marked with a spritz of blu-kote and re-evaluated more often. We were able to rather accurately track the CHF birds and thankfully avoided all but one 'flipping' without warning.

2.b process weight is small for CX (I don't remember how old yours are) but is very understandable with an early CHF bird. I processed 2 at about that size (out of 57) because they were failing... it sucks but it is better to do it for the bird.


One of these days I'm going to give that a try... DH likes firm pillows... and goodness knows we had enough feathers for a few of them!

The are adorable, and love the names!

everyone mentions how friendly the turkey are and I can't help but think.... they will end up as pets because I just know DH will give them a name!
Click to expand...
just remember, no wing or tailfeathers, quills to big and hard. momma made little pillows for the grand daughters, one of them picked a little hole in the corner and then when she would go to sleep she would pick a feather out and tickle her nose til she fell a sleep, momma had to keep stuffing it
gig.gif
 
sharron said:
just remember, no wing or tailfeathers, quills to big and hard. momma made little pillows for the grand daughters, one of them picked a little hole in the corner and then when she would go to sleep she would pick a feather out and tickle her nose til she fell a sleep, momma had to keep stuffing it
gig.gif
Click to expand...

How did she wash the feathers? I'm really intrigued by this idea!
 
emorems0 said:
How did she wash the feathers? I'm really intrigued by this idea!
Click to expand...
if i remember correctly(remember i'm getting old and forgetful lol) she would take them and put them into a pillowcase and wash them outside in a big pot of water that she had built a fire under, thats how she washed clothes when i was growing up, until they could afford to buy a washer, this was in the early 50's, you're to young to remember but back then they all had big castiron pots that they used for butchering hogs , to heat the water to scald the skin so they could scrape the hides, or at least my momma did, other times she heated water and washed the clothes, stirred the clothes with a stick, then put them into a pot of cold water, and had to wringe them out by hand, then hung them on the clothes lines
hmm.png
 
sharron said:
@chippysmom327
, and anyone who goes to the uniontown swap meet, there won't be a swap meet because of the bird flu, guess they're all canceled for the year or at least til farther notice, pass it on
Click to expand...


That's good, I wasn't going to go anyway for that very reason. So many people will still show up though, then be mad when they won't be let in. Thanks for letting me know!
 
The meat will be fine... I have eaten many birds which had fluid in their body cavities and around the heart and have not had any ill effects from it.

Cute little song and awesome that you are taking the time to teach things like that to the little one! It is something not many kids are blessed enough to have these days!

as far as processing... I like to figure about 30%-35% weight loss from live weight to butcher weight (not including neck, gizzard, heart and liver). So an average 10lb bird should yield about a 6.5 to 7lb roaster carcass, give or take a couple of ounces.

ideal butcher weight depends on intended use.... for a meaty roaster for Sunday dinner you may want to wait till you get a bird in the 10-11lb range but if you are doing 'beer can chicken' on the grill you will need a lighter one so it cooks quicker, so an 8lb live bird would produce about the right size processed bird.

birds in the 9-10 lb range produce very nice wings but birds in the 5-6 lb live weight range have much smaller wings....
 
sharron said:
just remember, no wing or tailfeathers, quills to big and hard. momma made little pillows for the grand daughters, one of them picked a little hole in the corner and then when she would go to sleep she would pick a feather out and tickle her nose til she fell a sleep, momma had to keep stuffing it
gig.gif
Click to expand...

I'll try to avoid the stiffer quilled ones... unless DH happens to make me mad that day!
lau.gif
 

New posts New threads Active threads

Back
Top Bottom