gonehencrazy
Songster
- Jul 6, 2016
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It's almost "done"!!! Wire to come in the spring. For now the important part was to have a dry place for them to hang out when the weather is wet, snowy and windy!!
Pennsylvania!! Unite!!
- Thread starter LeBlackbird
- Start date
It's almost "done"!!! Wire to come in the spring. For now the important part was to have a dry place for them to hang out when the weather is wet, snowy and windy!!
Hi Easterners!!!
Auroradream asked me to tell you about toads.
Chaos has the progression from CX to toad down perfect. He can give you the details.
I will just show some pictures:
This is Spot. Spot is the first toad of 2017.
this is Bert, now this will get somewhat confusing because I name all my roosters in this experiment Bert, to confuse the Russians if they hack me. This Bert is Grandpa to the chick above.
That is a 20 pound LP tank, like on your grill. I use things like this to give a perspective of his size. He is huge. This Bert is the first Generation of pure Toad. Spot is the 3rd generation.
They have almost died out on me a couple times, I do not butcher many yet. Those I have are amazing birds.
Above on the left is a Heritage turkey and on the right is a Toad they are both the same age, The turkey was 11 pounds 2 ounces the Toad was 15 pound 4 ounces no giblets in either. I wanted a large breast but more dark meat. The legs and thighs are hugs on the toads. We get (for the 2 of us) several meals from this toads. The breasts are 4 meals and hot dish or soup. The legs and thighs are a meal per side. We usually fry up the drumsticks for one meal and thighs for another. The wings are a single serving, (both wings).
We roasted one of these for Christmas 2015, It was amazingly juicy. The guest preferred it to the turkey we had roasted.
Below is the 2016 class of toads. As you can see they even come in black!
Somewhere in this picture is Spots Parents.
They are pretty good layers, I get 5 eggs a week from Bertha, (she is the mother of all the others, Bert's Wife.)
Below is a picture at about 8 weeks old. That is a 6 gallon water fount, Look at the height. They need a couple more weeks to fill out. At 13 weeks I get about a pound a week from the cockerels. Keeping them beyond 16-17 weeks does not seem to gain me any weight. The one with the turkey I think was around 22-24 weeks. It makes little sense to feed them that long. I wanted to make sure I had enough roosters before I killed one.
I hope to process a few this year. I would like to send eggs and chicks to people that will try to keep them going as I do not want to lose the strain after all the work I have in it. It is time to try and spread them around.
The black one is just weird, but there she is.
Below is Bert, who is Bert's Dad, or the Great Grandfather to Spot.
As you can see he had some problems trying to get into the chicken coop. Even some of the turkeys went inside and all Bert could do was stand and look in...
Below is Bert (Grandpa of Spot) as a young'un. See how he compares to a 30 gallon barrel)
Below is Bert and Bertha. I was down to just the two toads at this point and thought they would die out. They did not, I believe this was Sept 2015.
Below is Spring of 2015, this is Bert the Great grandfather, the one that could not get in the chicken coop. This was in his last two months of life. Luckily he bred and I got Bert and Bertha to survive to make babies. This Bert is not a real toad, he is a Lizard, I bred him back to the CX hens (a major feat to accomplish, tooting my own horn)
This Bert got bumble foot, we were trying to save him it failed. But Bert was hatched during this time so he got to meet his Dad. It is good for a young cockerel to know his Dad.
Below is Bert, Spots Great Great Grandfather, He is a Frog. He is showing he is a really chicken by fighting my original legbar rooster.
Below is the same Bert (frog) shaking and it just looked so funny I snapped the picture. You can see how the breasts have shrunk slightly through the generations to get to the toads I have now. I am hoping they are now stable with all the traits cemented in place. I will be (hopefully) culling for size this next year. Keeping the largest ones to keep the dressed roosters at around 15 pounds. 20 pounds would be better, but I do not think I can do that.
Below is Bert the Lizard Next to a Slate turkey.
Below is Bert the Lizard on his roost. He needed a wider roost than I had so I gave him the feed sacks. I had to let him in the man door as he could not get through the chicken door.
Below is Bert the frog, Again you can see how I have changed the bodies. I have also lost the nice clean white for an off white speckled bird, except the black one....I wonder What Bertha's mail man looked like?
You can tell the CX is heavy here. short legs and squatty birds.
I hope I got all the pictures right, I think I did. I am thinking if I ever do something like this again, I will use different names for the roosters. I am hoping Spot will become Bert for next year.
As I said I hope to send some eggs or chicks out later this year. I hope also, whoever gets them tries to raise them and does not just process them. I will try to screen for that before I sent them out.
Anyways Chaos and Aurora can tell you more or if you have questions they can get ahold of me. BTW I am NPIP so all I need is export permits to whatever state to legally sell them across state lines.
Thanks and have a good one.
Look me up on turkey talk or Surviving Minnesota,,or one of the 400 other threads I go to!! Bye!
Auroradream asked me to tell you about toads.
Chaos has the progression from CX to toad down perfect. He can give you the details.
I will just show some pictures:
This is Spot. Spot is the first toad of 2017.
this is Bert, now this will get somewhat confusing because I name all my roosters in this experiment Bert, to confuse the Russians if they hack me. This Bert is Grandpa to the chick above.
That is a 20 pound LP tank, like on your grill. I use things like this to give a perspective of his size. He is huge. This Bert is the first Generation of pure Toad. Spot is the 3rd generation.
They have almost died out on me a couple times, I do not butcher many yet. Those I have are amazing birds.
Above on the left is a Heritage turkey and on the right is a Toad they are both the same age, The turkey was 11 pounds 2 ounces the Toad was 15 pound 4 ounces no giblets in either. I wanted a large breast but more dark meat. The legs and thighs are hugs on the toads. We get (for the 2 of us) several meals from this toads. The breasts are 4 meals and hot dish or soup. The legs and thighs are a meal per side. We usually fry up the drumsticks for one meal and thighs for another. The wings are a single serving, (both wings).
We roasted one of these for Christmas 2015, It was amazingly juicy. The guest preferred it to the turkey we had roasted.
Below is the 2016 class of toads. As you can see they even come in black!
Somewhere in this picture is Spots Parents.
They are pretty good layers, I get 5 eggs a week from Bertha, (she is the mother of all the others, Bert's Wife.)
Below is a picture at about 8 weeks old. That is a 6 gallon water fount, Look at the height. They need a couple more weeks to fill out. At 13 weeks I get about a pound a week from the cockerels. Keeping them beyond 16-17 weeks does not seem to gain me any weight. The one with the turkey I think was around 22-24 weeks. It makes little sense to feed them that long. I wanted to make sure I had enough roosters before I killed one.
I hope to process a few this year. I would like to send eggs and chicks to people that will try to keep them going as I do not want to lose the strain after all the work I have in it. It is time to try and spread them around.
The black one is just weird, but there she is.
Below is Bert, who is Bert's Dad, or the Great Grandfather to Spot.
As you can see he had some problems trying to get into the chicken coop. Even some of the turkeys went inside and all Bert could do was stand and look in...
Below is Bert (Grandpa of Spot) as a young'un. See how he compares to a 30 gallon barrel)
Below is Bert and Bertha. I was down to just the two toads at this point and thought they would die out. They did not, I believe this was Sept 2015.
Below is Spring of 2015, this is Bert the Great grandfather, the one that could not get in the chicken coop. This was in his last two months of life. Luckily he bred and I got Bert and Bertha to survive to make babies. This Bert is not a real toad, he is a Lizard, I bred him back to the CX hens (a major feat to accomplish, tooting my own horn)
This Bert got bumble foot, we were trying to save him it failed. But Bert was hatched during this time so he got to meet his Dad. It is good for a young cockerel to know his Dad.
Below is Bert, Spots Great Great Grandfather, He is a Frog. He is showing he is a really chicken by fighting my original legbar rooster.
Below is the same Bert (frog) shaking and it just looked so funny I snapped the picture. You can see how the breasts have shrunk slightly through the generations to get to the toads I have now. I am hoping they are now stable with all the traits cemented in place. I will be (hopefully) culling for size this next year. Keeping the largest ones to keep the dressed roosters at around 15 pounds. 20 pounds would be better, but I do not think I can do that.
Below is Bert the Lizard Next to a Slate turkey.
Below is Bert the Lizard on his roost. He needed a wider roost than I had so I gave him the feed sacks. I had to let him in the man door as he could not get through the chicken door.
Below is Bert the frog, Again you can see how I have changed the bodies. I have also lost the nice clean white for an off white speckled bird, except the black one....I wonder What Bertha's mail man looked like?
You can tell the CX is heavy here. short legs and squatty birds.
I hope I got all the pictures right, I think I did. I am thinking if I ever do something like this again, I will use different names for the roosters. I am hoping Spot will become Bert for next year.
As I said I hope to send some eggs or chicks out later this year. I hope also, whoever gets them tries to raise them and does not just process them. I will try to screen for that before I sent them out.
Anyways Chaos and Aurora can tell you more or if you have questions they can get ahold of me. BTW I am NPIP so all I need is export permits to whatever state to legally sell them across state lines.
Thanks and have a good one.
Look me up on turkey talk or Surviving Minnesota,,or one of the 400 other threads I go to!! Bye!
Last edited:
Thank you @duluthralphie! You already know that I want to raise some up for a sustainable meat flock 
@emorems0, see Ralph's post for all the info on the toads
@emorems0, see Ralph's post for all the info on the toads
Thank you @duluthralphie ! You already know that I want to raise some up for a sustainable meat flock
@emorems0 , see Ralph's post for all the info on the toads
I just moved the Spot and his 7 friends from the hatcher to the brooder about 15 minutes ago. It is so fun to watch them when they get in the brooder and find out they have so much room, they run jump and try to fly. Chase each other.
Privett has them and they are sexed (I presume you want a pullet). Do you prefer the gold or silvers?
I really like my Mottled Black and Royal Palm turkeys. Definitely not a meat-type, but great for pets and quite pretty. @Auroradream26 has some of those, so you have a ready source for them.We will be in the market for some turkey poults this spring... Hubs decided to ditch his pheasant project and go back to turkeys, but we want something other than bourbon reds this time. Haven't decided which breed yet. It's okay to put a couple of BBW in with heritage turkeys, right?
I missed the conversation about the "toads"... can anyone enlighten me? I plan to have my Delaware x Dark Cornish crosses breeding this year (finally, after losing nearly all of my project flock to predators last spring). I'm hoping they'll have a nice deep breast and large size for a sustainable meat flock.
The laying pen is going to make beautiful cartons of eggs this year. At the moment, I am getting nearly 1 blue, 1 green, and 1-2 tan/brown eggs a day, but once they all pick up and starting laying I should be getting a dozen or so a day of mixed blue, green, brown, and chocolate
We're planning on processing our meaties next weekend, I hope it's warm outside! We'll be borrowing a plucker, but we may do some of the biggest ones tomorrow and just skin them and part them out in the garage. Between my neighbor and I we have 30 meaties to process.
They may not be "designed" for meat but that one we butchered for Christmas this year was nice sized (16 lbs dressed out) and delicious!
Of course I would offer them to you.Dibs!
The toms can get to a respectable size. I have 6 of them running around the farm now. Beautiful birds and quite friendly. I couldn't bring myself to kill any of them.
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