solid breast bones, no sign of cartalidge, translucent bones, whats going on, is this an alien species, no info anywhere

[tlcmurphy]

Edited my post above to give a more accurate butchering age.

Sorry, wasn’t calling you out just agreeing that grocery store birds are much younger that a year old.

 

[Mother of Chaos]

Sorry, wasn’t calling you out just agreeing that grocery store birds are much younger that a year old.

Oh no, absolutely, and thank you for the correction! I was just spitballing the age while thinking “I think it’s younger than that.” I should have looked it up (posting while fixing dinner, lol.)

Keeping posts accurate is what makes BYC so helpful!

 

[GodofPecking]

Exactly, that's what I'm saying. If he's looking at an old rooster he butchered from his own flock and is remembering some commercial birds he's eaten in the past, there would be a world of difference.

comparing my own 6-12 month old roosters to the crap in a bucket from the drive-thru, which is slightly younger. All my young roosters are pretty much like this, although perhaps slightly different in years past, surely I would remember such a shocking stand out breast bone as this one.

not too old, not too young, there is a regular turning down of the volume using an axe and a helpful friend. I really don't like cleaning them myself, I can get the 'over and done with' part 'over and done with' because sometimes a bird is so badly injured you have to make it calm and comfortable and end it's pain when there's no hope. Can do that, but pulling it to pieces is harder. Eating your friends is impolite as a general rule.

this shouldn't stop anyone raising them as there is ALWAYS someone you know who can clean them for a percentage of the meat or whatever.

was the rooster eating layer feed and thus getting extra calcium?

I never buy from the shop what is other peoples opinion on what is food. I have tried all the different bags of food, scratch mix, corn, oats, barley, the works.

The chickens took a 'mix' one time and ate everything, except one item, like a kid who won't eat blue lollies there was a container of one thing left. Obviously so soaked in chemicals the chickens had no choice but to warn me about it. with pellets, they can't warn you of anything, the poison gets into you. Forget that.


Now, by co-incidence I am moving the hell away from store-bought. Woolworths in australia where I live sold me something left on the dock too long and it went off. The trays I open stank and it was unmistakable. Last time I gave it to the local cats I invited for dinner in the humane local mesh diner, and some to the chickens, as they won't get harmed by some off chicken. I can't go to the shop myself (health) so a fried helps with shopping which is nice.


Woolworths refused to take back $150 worth of chicken fillet, told my friend that it was off, and our fault, and f@%# you as far as a refund goes. I was buying from them for years every 2-4 weeks, so I buy a shipload of chicken, but not anymore.

I figure with my buy I can easily fit many times as much into the freezer and process it now I got a pressure canner ($98 online) and put it into re-used not pressure canner bottles (same as people do jam forever, but it's a pressure canner). You can waterbath, but I wanted to do it as proper as possible.

As I figure I can buy $500 or $1000 if the quality is ok, then I'll ask a few friends if they want to put in and we'll send one person to the halal factory when the next person goes to the city. paying for a tankload of fuel is a cheap easy thankyou from all of us, and it's better than woolworths, obviously, all the other stuff they do to food, f that.


No, I'm not muslim, but one time I looked up what 'halal' means and it's like they don't do the whole cruelty thing to the animal like normal, and they say a prayer when they kill it, fair enough I say. I expect they probably get busy with putting all the poison into it, no, wait a second, that's the shops actually. Bovaer, no freaking way, it states, on the frikking insert, that it makes mammals sterile. I'm sure whatever mammals are, they probably wouldn't like that if they could read labels. Something like 16 % of it that a cow is fed goes straight into the milk.

So I'm going to get some bulk runs and then hopefully just raise more feathery critters. Just weird this bone thing. seems I haven't seen a real chicken before, wondered if that is what it is and has anyone ? I should try for a picture maybe.

 

[GodofPecking]

All I can think of off the top of my head is: was the rooster eating layer feed and thus getting extra calcium?

I get so distracted I forgot to answer.

they get more calcium, but never from layer feed. Bagged food is torture for a prisoner, wouldn't it be illegal if you make them eat the same crap from a bag forever more ?

They get scraps from a friends kitchen as I'll never keep up so at her house 'everything goes in the chook bucket' which actually is a preference for her even though she gets eggs from other friends and enough of them. She feels it's better throwing stuff out knowing it is not wasted, and says so very often. cleaning out the cupboards is a feast for the chooks.

All eggshells and rotten eggs are given to the chooks along with addled eggs. All eggs need to be thrown down and cracked so they can demolish the rest. In the distant past I had an eggbreaker or two, but it is never ever the case now, not for hundreds of years, because they eat better and don't get cravings for anything they don't have.

Chickens certainly know a good egg from a cracked open one and will eat enthusiastically broken eggs and shells but will not ever break open a good egg. They always leave it alone. can't say the same for flapping crows. Yes, I know, I know, native people say they are re-incarnated dead people, but they don't tell you all those people were pri*#$ who killed children and steal eggs and kill chicks and I have one here I saved and it's eye is still not open, it was a horror show, horrible. bloody crows.

Feed the chooks everything they will sort it out. egg eating, like not laying in winter and dropping dead in winter are all signs you are killing your chickens by believing the salesman who is selling flaming bags of bird poop on your doorstep and rings the doorbell. THAT's what it is.

Calcium costs money, they don't put it in.

 

[Susan Skylark]

Could be a sporadic genetic condition, mutant not alien, there are several examples in young, large breed dogs of bony growth abnormalities, sadly you ate your PhD thesis! Dietary hypercalcemia should effect multiple birds not just one, you’re safe from space invaders but watch out for pizza and karate loving turtles.

 

[GodofPecking]

abnormalities, sadly you ate your PhD thesis!

from the look of it, it's healthy. in fact healthier than regular chickens.

in fact come to mention it my friend who comes to help by cleaning them, he does a lot in his life and time to time to feed his family, he very often comments they are the healthiest he has seen.

so it may be like supermarket eggs., supermarket eggs are always weeks old and runny on purpose, as fresh eggs would stand out and cause alarm amongst customers. they can take up the ups and downs in sale when all the eggs are two to three months old and crack open the same way, this would give them a solid month to even out the ups and downs.

if supermarkets on the other hand sold 1 day old till one month old eggs its still a month that they can use to flatten out the ups and downs in sales but EVERYONE would notice because a 3 day old egg is nothing like a month old egg. people would be shocked.

maybe this is just as a chook should always be. probably as old painting have carved chicken with bones like these.

 

[GodofPecking]

so I went looking at historical paintings, anatomy, biology, veterinary, culinary, so many grandpa carves the roast chicken stock photos, came across someone on here with the same soft of thing.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/keel-bone-without-cartilage.904746/

it is not just the 'keel' or breastbone, it's other ones as well..

but mystery solved,

https://www.backyardchickens.com/content/type/61/id/6451628/width/350/height/700

 

[BigBlueHen53]

So it is indeed the age of the processed chicken that "densifies" the keel bone and converts the translucent cartilege to solid bone?

 

[GodofPecking]

So it is indeed the age of the processed chicken that "densifies" the keel bone and converts the translucent cartilege to solid bone?

I would say the food has to be taken into account as well, when there is profit first in the food chain things like calcium, magnesium are left out.

If the chickens don't have it in their food, they cannot put it in their bodies at any speed.

I guess mine must benefit from being fed everything I can find including eggshells and freeranging, so when they were put in the freezer/pot soon after crowing, then they exhibited this never before seen 'this is what a real chicken looks like' characteristic.

more important, drive thru chicken does not get fed what they need to make proper bones. Ignore the breastbone, just snap a drive thru bone in your hands, it's easy !! but you can't snap homegrown well fed chicken bone, it's like steel.

If you eat drive thru chicken, your bones cannot be like steel, they will be easy to snap, because you do not get anything from the chicken to put in your bones to make them strong, the chickens condition is proof that the chickens never got fed what is needed for strong bone.

this has to be why so many people get broken hips and osteoporosis (weak bones).

In history, people eat proper food, whatever they could find and didn't get broken hips, Henry the eighth, Tutankhamen, marco polo, they never got broken hips because bucket chicken is a new phenomenon.

 

[RoyalChick]

I would say the food has to be taken into account as well, when there is profit first in the food chain things like calcium, magnesium are left out.

If the chickens don't have it in their food, they cannot put it in their bodies at any speed.

I guess mine must benefit from being fed everything I can find including eggshells and freeranging, so when they were put in the freezer/pot soon after crowing, then they exhibited this never before seen 'this is what a real chicken looks like' characteristic.

more important, drive thru chicken does not get fed what they need to make proper bones. Ignore the breastbone, just snap a drive thru bone in your hands, it's easy !! but you can't snap homegrown well fed chicken bone, it's like steel.

If you eat drive thru chicken, your bones cannot be like steel, they will be easy to snap, because you do not get anything from the chicken to put in your bones to make them strong, the chickens condition is proof that the chickens never got fed what is needed for strong bone.

this has to be why so many people get broken hips and osteoporosis (weak bones).

In history, people eat proper food, whatever they could find and didn't get broken hips, Henry the eighth, Tutankhamen, marco polo, they never got broken hips because bucket chicken is a new phenomenon.

Tutankhamun was only 18 or 19 when he died. Even if living off nothing but bucket chicken osteoporosis, isn’t common in teenagers.
Henry VIII was only 55 when he died. Older, but still not the age when osteoporosis has caused broken bones today.
Marco Polo was 69 when he died. Again older but still younger than the mean age for hip fractures in men (early 70s to 80s) today.
So I don’t think you can conclude much from those examples as they all died before you would expect to see hip fractures regardless of their diet.