Show Off Your American Gamefowl and Chat Thread!!!

[roosterhavoc]

Thanks. By the way the bird that I was posting about yesterday was worse today. He's now moved on to kicking the pen when my wife just walks by. Lol. He hates her.

 

[maranfarmer563]

X2 excellent

 

[JShubin]

[VIDEO]

 

[roosterhavoc]

Not real funny at the time but my wife got a busted lip today during roundup time of all the roosters. Cornered one and he took off straight up and tried to land on her lip. Lol
As she stormed off I checked the bird for injuries. Good to go lol

 

[roosterhavoc]

That is a stag to the left in the video correct? Bout how old is he and the white one?

 

[doubleleft]

what is the fine looking white stag ?

 

[centrarchid]

there we go

Rooster, your setup looks very nice. With time I will be striving to have so my winter confinement is similar. Where you have a perimeter of woven wire, I have electrified poultry netting. You also have everything down in what appears to be a valley protected by trees while I am up on a ridge dominated by tall grass prairie. The part that will be be most difficult for me is your pens are in what appear to be permanent locations. That means you are not able to periodically move pens as I do to control reinfection with intestinal parasites. Over longer-term you will likely need to be more aggressive against the parasites with chemotherapeutics (de-wormers) which I only employ for birds that have been culled. I think the setup would do quite well for me during winter when pens are not moved as frequently but pens would be moved out for production season

 

[centrarchid]

IMO the proper way to house gamefowl if your gonna have numbers. Protection and total control.

For me it is not just about numbers. The keep itself is part of the selection process. Games, American at least , have a reputation for being excellent free-range birds with mothers being great parents. As soon as birds are denied access to the free-range situations, at least while young, selection against weak birds in such a setting ceases and they will drift away from what will thrive outside of tightly regimented pens. My broods at hatch start off with 10 to 12 chicks on average and that average drops down to about 6 by weaning around 5 weeks post-hatch. Chicks lost are represented most by birds that were infirm.. By time birds are ready to penning, I can also scrutinize for overall health resulting from getting most nutrition by foraging on bugs and the like. Birds no good at that are made into chicken salad sandwiches. If I confine and feed with medicated feeds I can get >80% of chicks hatched up to penning size and they average a lot heavier. I am not sure that indicates birds so produced are better, just more of them and they are not more expensive to produce when you take into account what I invest in pasture and predator management.

 

[sdm111]

I don't have the option of free range where I'm at not enough land and too many animals that would eat them. Other than a few hens I wouldn't want to free range my brood stock anyway cause I wouldn't want them to get used to having other chickens in their space. Real question u don't think that by cohabiting games like freerange that that would lesson
the gameness generation after generation? I rather keep everybody separate especially cocks except I do rotate within pens to get everybody riled up and boy they sure would like to get to the fresh meat lol.

 

[centrarchid]

I don't have the option of free range where I'm at not enough land and too many animals that would eat them. Other than a few hens I wouldn't want to free range my brood stock anyway cause I wouldn't want them to get used to having other chickens in their space. Real question u don't think that by cohabiting games like freerange that that would lesson
the gameness generation after generation? I rather keep everybody separate especially cocks except I do rotate within pens to get everybody riled up and boy they sure would like to get to the fresh meat lol.

Unless actual walks used, even all my broodfowl are penned, all of them except when being moved between pens. Hens rearing chicks are not brood fowl for me. They are pullets and hens whose offspring I would not keep but the same birds can still hatch and rear products of birds in breeding pens. The birds, especially on the male side are not kept in a dunghill fashion as you might think. One rooster per location with nearest usually miles away. I think you still have people down your way employing walks to see how they are setup. Exceptions for me with respect to proximity are very thoroughly vetted to ensure flocks do not interact directly. When I do as done around home the little free-range experiments are closely monitored and the birds are expendable, not broodfowl. Raising juveniles up to early adulthood does incur risks of battle royals but that can me mitigated with use of an older cock (not a brood cock) that suppresses such problems within limits. I do not advocate just letting them run about but do try to make they have as much free-range time before penning to ensure good growth.