Ross Cobs as meat birds

[brandywine]

dancingbear, you totally rock.

 

[Janie]

Quote:
I'll let you know when they stop growing!

Stoopid question but how do you weigh your live birds?? Or is the weight generally referred to as dead weight?

It turns out one of the marans 'sisters' looks decidedly boyish

My first thought was 'dinner' but I'm wondering whether I should keep him and run him with my new girls too. I am guessing he is already a weightier roo than my cochin who is fully grown.

 

[ninjapoodles]

My hatchery cuckoo marans youngsters are "meatier" than the buff orps or the white rocks hatched the same day, for sure. But the coppered black babies seem, at this point anyway, much more likely to conform to the standard, weight-wise. Interesting!

 

[jacyjones]

Dancingbear - well said!! I agree with all the points you make and you put it so clearly. I think all of us who are raising our own stock, whatever it is, are behind you and just want to get on with it and exchange ideas about what works and what doesn't on here. I certainly do not look to be falling out with anyone and am always surprised when some posters seem to go off on an unnecessary rant.

 

[dancingbear]

Thanks, all of you.

Now I'm wondering what a cuckoo Maran hen/Cornish roo would produce. And C. roo/Buckeye hen, C.roo/Delaware hen, etc.

Cornish purebreds grow slowly, and so do a lot of these other larger bids, but when you cross them, you get a hybrid vigor that sometimes results in much faster growing birds.

So, what most of us are hoping for, the reiterate the idea, is a bird that grows fast enough to be a good weight while still young enough to be reasonably tender, but not so fast as to have legs going out, congestive heart failure, or being too fat and lazy to forage around a bit and eat some greens.

I'd be happy with a bird that hits around 6-7 lbs. live weight, that would be around 4-5 lbs dressed.

I really need a new scale, my old one tops out at 5lb., and many of the birds I've raised before were well over that. I know for sure they were bigger because they were obviously a lot larger than birds that weighed just under 5 lbs.

Orps and rocks are scrawny birds, IMO. If I have any breed roos that extra, I eat them, scrawny or not, but I'd never raise orps, rocks, RIR's, Australorps, or most other dual purpose birds specifically as meat producers. The hens make fine layers, though.

Janie, if you have a hanging scale with a good sized pan, you could truss up a bird and weigh it, or if you have an accurate bathroom scale you could weigh yourself, step off, pick up the bird and weigh again, and see what the difference is. That would give you a fairly close live weight. Then after a bird is processed, you can see what's left, then you'd have an idea how much dressed weight to expect in the future. I don't try to weigh them live though, I just kind of guess what they are live, when they look big enough, and feel like a good weight when I pick them up. I weigh them after they're processed, but if it's an older bird that I want to brine, I weigh prior to that, I don't want to add the water weight.

You might want to keep that Maran roo for awhile. It's interesting to see what you get using different combos. C. hen/Dorking roo would give a different result than C. roo/D. hen, because some traits are passed only from the hen to males offspring, and other traits are passed only from the roo to female offspring, etc. It can get very confusing!

Jacy, I agree, I can do without the drama. I have enough real drama in my life, I sure don't need anybody inventing on purpose. I think we were just being trolled. I'm surprised they haven't popped back up, they aren't usually so easily gotten rid of. Maybe a Moderator stepped in. If so, they have my thanks!

 

[Lazy J Farms Feed & Hay]

Quote:
No one has stated that youcan not do what you choose with your birds. PoultrySnob feeble attempted to refute the "Cornish x" myth and provide some factual information regarding Broiler production. If the puprose of BYC is to educate then take his posts for what they are worth, on the other hand, if BYC is here simply to bash commercial production and perpetuate the various lies and myths about modern livestock production the bash away at PoultrySnob, me, and others that attempt to give facts.

By the way, no Moderator contacted me. I was travelling to help my "Evil CAFO hog raising" customers provide wholesome pork for the US and International consumer and did not have time to post.

Jim

 

[Bossroo]

No Moderator contacted me eather. I live in an area where there are so many varied predators in huge numbers that it is about impossible to raise any type of fowl for any amount of time to reach production harvest. I haven't seen any type of live wild or domestic fowl ,let alone a chicken, within a 50 mile radius.We are selling our ranch and will be moving to an area where we again can enjoy raising fowl . It is just a waste of my time to respond to closed minded and argumentatative types who practice similar agricultural practices as the big boys except on a much smaller scale then goes about and knocks the big guys who use scientific methods to raise their birds. When man domesticated plants and animals, he made a pact with them to care and protect them from any and all mayhem and in return they concented to be man's food, beasts of burden, and companions. By not useing antibiotics, vaccines, and poor or improper housing, etc. and thereby exposing their flock to pathogens and predators, thereby causing unnecessary suffering which then allows more to be added to their compost pile. Turning chickens loose to "free range", which gives the person doing so his jollies, but that exposes them to all types of predators and pathogens and extra stress. That is man breaking his pact . What type of fate is that for any domesticated living organism who can no longer fend for themselves as their ancestors once did?

 

[Lazy J Farms Feed & Hay]

Quote:
I also find that many people have a mis-placed nostalgia for "the way Granddad did it". They fail to remember how hard a life it was for them and how they quickly integrated technology into their farms to make life easier for them and better for their livestock. Sure there were misused technologies, but to look at their life with rose colored glasses and then attempt to deride modern livestock production is frustrating to those of us in Production Agriculture.

Jim

 

[blue90292]

i have my chickens in pens and also those that free range. i have noticed that those that free range get sick more often than those that are in the pens. it is definitely easier for me to take care of those in the pens since i can track them much easier. i can see if they are looking bad much quicker and get to their aid promptly whereas, the only time i see my free range birds during the week, is in the morning when i'm letting them out and at night when i'm closing their door. i'm sure this is different from other back yard enthusiasts who only have 10-15 birds.

just like this past weekend, i did surgery on my 8 year old RIR hen who had a peach size crop that wouldn't go away no matter what i did. i probably would have never saw this ailment on her until it was too late, if i had her free ranging with the other flock.

my birds that are in pens are much fatter and look better compared to my free range flock that have a much "healthier" pecking order they must contend with along with, boys that chase them constantly, and other trials and tribulations they go through every day.

BUT

my eggs from my free range girls are much bigger than from my penned girls.


i know when i talk to old timers who have worked in chicken houses, they say they would never eat chicken from a grocery store. but as they explain to me, i'm amazed at the complicated set ups some of these chicken houses have. how much are spent on these chickens to provide them housing, feed, automation, heat, air, etc, etc. it really amazes me how they use every bit of the chicken, even it's poo, for something. nothing goes to waste.

maybe it's the japanese in me, but i like to learn what the other side is doing, so that i can copy it and try to make it better or work for my situation. i'm a very lazy person and if someone has created something, i'll take that idea and make it work for me. i hate inventing new ideas. LOL


obviously there is a need for big commercial chicken growers or they wouldn't exist. but then there's obviously a need for those of us to want the simpler, but harder, existence. hopefully, we can co-exist, at least on this board. my fear about commercialism, is that one day, we'll be like that town in china. because of their use of pesticides and what not, they no longer have bees. no bees to polinate their apple/pear trees and so they have to polinate them themselves. they carefully pick the flowers pollen every year by hand, and then they take chicken feathers (that's how i found out about this town) and polinate the trees with the chicken feather brushes. no bees, can you believe that? it's insane.

 

[dancingbear]

I've been raising birds free-range for about 15 years. My flock size varies from around 20 to around 80, depending on whether I'm raising a batch of meat birds, usually no more than 25 meat birds at a time, but I have raised as many as 50 meaties at a time.

My birds are healthy. I very seldom have any illness in my flock at all. I do not routinely give antibiotics. I do not use medicated feed. If there is any kind of illness that strikes the whole flock, I will use antibiotics to treat at that time, but in 15 years, I've only had to do that maybe 3 or 4 times.

I seldom have predator problems, but it does sometimes happen. This year, so far, I haven't had any lost to the local raccoons, foxes, and coyotes. Last year we had a fox raiding us every few days, until my dog got the fox. About 4 years ago we had a fox problem until my DH shot the fox. About 10 years ago we had a raccoon problem, until we built a new coop and moved the birds. Since the birds go into the coop and get closed up at night, the main predator problem is the occasional fox, we've only had 2 renegade foxes in 10 years. Since the others are generally night time problems, they haven't really been a problem, at least since we moved the birds to a new coop, which I said was about 10 years ago. I've not had any trouble with the coyotes at all, I guess because they usually hunt at night.

Three hens have been hit by cars. However, I'm not going to shoot my neighbors.

One old red hen of unknown parentage (she was given to me) died on the nest about a year ago, where she been going down to the barn and laying her eggs, 4 or 5 times a week. She was only about 8 years old, I don't know what could have happened. (Must have been my poor management that killed her.)

I've never had a chicken develop an impacted crop. I've never even seen an impacted crop.

The eggs from my hens have deep orange yolks. The livers from the meat birds are deep red-brown, no yellow patches, even in the Cornish X that I've raised in the past. In fact, all the internal organs looks very healthy, and they don't have worms, either. I routinely feed food grade D.E. mixed into the feed.

When I have some of the birds confined, generally only very young ones until they get big enough to free range, I only see them when I go down to feed and water, which is at the same time that I open the gates for the free-rangers, and at night to close up. When they're really small I'll go down a couple of times just to look in on them.

I see my free range birds all the time. They spend a lot of time near the house, where it's easy to observe them, which I do quite a bit, because they're fun to watch. They follow me around when I'm doing things outside, hoping for a treat. They sure don't look stressed to me, but maybe calmly scratching around for bugs, clucking contentedly, and scratching out holes in the yard to dust bathe is a sign of undue stress. I don't think so, but then, I'm so stupid and ignorant about raising chickens, how would I know?

I encounter people who want just 2 or 3 hens now and then, sometimes they buy my older hens. I tell them how old the hen is, and what to expect as far as egg laying goes. Sometimes people just want a "pet" chicken or 2, and don't really care much about eggs. Again, the older hens go to a new home. This year, I may actually have to butcher a few older hens, to thin out the flock and replace them with younger layers. I hate to do this, after all the lovely eggs, but I have a few that don't have the old red hen's ability to keep laying in their old age. With feed prices what they are, I can't keep them on as retirees. (Except for just a couple, that we have an attachment to.)

If they post ok, here's a couple of pics of my overly stressed-free range birds.

Now, when this thread started, several of us were discussing various options we might try, problems with meaties, etc. Poultry Snob jumped in and started telling us what idiots we are. (and, neener neener neener I can get special birds you can't get, that makes me better than you because I raise MILLIONS of them neener neener) Then Boss Roo joined in and seconded this, telling us not only that we're stupid, but the main cause of all chicken problems and famines. Just who was being bashed there? They weren't making any attempt to "educate". That's a load of chicken poo. You guys aren't speaking in the interest of fairness at all, (blue90292 this does NOT mean you, you have been doing your best to present both sides, and I thank you for that) or you'd speak up for us, as well. You haven't done so. You don't care if we are attacked, but we're so bad if we respond. What did you expect? That we will bow down and say, "Oh thank you Kind Master for pointing out the error of our ways"?

We weren't, in the beginning, bashing anybody. We were just discussing what we want to do, and sharing our own experiences, asking each other questions. We just aren't following a corporate model. Apparently some of you have a problem with this.

I did not jump into a thread about commercial production and start criticizing. I see no point in doing so, those who chose that path are fairly well set on it, nothing I say will change their minds. So I'm not bothering them. This thread is about home meat production, and commercial raisers felt free to jump in and criticize us.

Clearly, there are those of us who do not wish to raise our birds based on the corporate model. No amount of insulting us is likely to change our minds. What do you expect to accomplish here? I mean, is there a constructive reason for the criticism? If there is, I don't see it.