Sustainable Meat / Standard Bred Dual Purpose Bird Thread.

[chickenmanIL89]

I just hatched the first batch of my meat bird expiriment. The first crosses are a Dark Cornish Roo over Red Ranger, Pioneer, and Delaware hens. Had a great hatch and will be taking performance data starting tomorrow. My plan is to take #1 male crossed with #1 female. We shall see!

 

[DesertChic]

Would anyone be willing to share how they band their birds for identification? Because I am new to this, I have never banded my birds. Now that I am beginning to breed, I know it is important to keep track of parents and offspring. Any advice from someone who has been doing this for awhile? Please and thank you!

I use small colored rubber bands when they're chicks, and graduate to multi-colored zip ties when they're older. They're super easy to band and change out as the birds grow and different colored bands can be combined if you have a large flock that all looks alike.

 

[Egghead_Jr]

For banding birds there are many methods. I don't do it myself but many breeders do toe punch codes on day old chicks (two webs per foot makes for many combinations for identification). For my purposes I cull, sell off, all the chicks with smallest heads right from the get go. Small head chicks will never grow like their wider headed brood mates. After some growth and out of the brooder they can start wearing bandettes. I like the plastic bandettes, they don't come off and are easily put on and off for reuse. Come in a large range of sizes so start with size 5 when need of identifying any birds out of the brooder and then have a few larger sizes to move them into as needed as they grow. Just keep a records sheet on your computer and make a hard copy every change you make.

The sizes:

http://www.strombergschickens.com/bird_band_size

The numbered bands and color choices. Strombergs is usually a good deal but you can check around:

http://www.strombergschickens.com/prod_detail_list/numbered-plastic-bands


I've got one of this flock banded now. She's the only one laying! Lord knows when I'll ever put together a breeding pen this spring. But obviously will be putting this layer in there. Hopefully the two females I want to breed will be the next to start laying...

 

[lpatelski]

Would anyone be willing to share how they band their birds for identification? Because I am new to this, I have never banded my birds. Now that I am beginning to breed, I know it is important to keep track of parents and offspring. Any advice from someone who has been doing this for awhile? Please and thank you!

I use zip ties and create a number system. You must watch the growth up until a certain point. Cut the zip tie off and replace with a larger one.

When your birds are full adults you can use metal bands.
There was a discussion about wing bands were you very carefully perforate the wing web with a numbered tag.

 

[ijon]

So where are the pictures of your hatch?

 

[El Exorcisto]

I got 30 Welsummer chicks from Murray McMurray with the intent of improving them over the coming years following the Livestock Conservancy's guidelines that they fleshed out while working with their Buckeyes. I'll use their assessment criteria on my cockerels at eight weeks to decide which ones make the cut. According to their work they found that there wasn't a change in which cockerels were the best performers between 8 and 15 weeks so at 8 weeks I'll be caponizing my cockerels that don't make the cut and reserving two for the next year's breeding. The hens will be assessed when they are reliably producing eggs, probably at the six month mark, for performance. Right now they are only two weeks old so there isn't much to talk about. I'll update on assessment day.

The goal is to have a cockerel that dresses out at a 3.5 pound carcass at 15 weeks. I'll let some of my capons go as long as 8 months to have a few birds to put up as whole roasters. From the little reading I've found on McMurray's Welsummers, they are already very good layers which makes sense coming out of a hatchery. I'm going to do my best to hopefully improve but at the very least maintain a good lay rate in my hens since more protein can be taken from a hen through eggs than I could ever hope to from their carcass. I'm also pretty sure that between the Welsummer's speckled dark eggs and my crested legbar/leghorn project's blue eggs that I'll be able to continue selling my eggs at a premium locally to likely completely wash out my feed costs.

 

[RockNSuccess]

So my first hatch of meat birds is in the incubator right now. What I have is:

White Bresse rooster over 3 White Bresse hens and 4 Dark Cornish hens (non-hatchery). I started with Bresse over Cornish as that is what I have mature and laying at the moment.

I will get weights on the rooster, hens and chicks and post them with pictures tomorrow when it is warmer.

 

[Horseman1074]

So my first hatch of meat birds is in the incubator right now. What I have is:

White Bresse rooster over 3 White Bresse hens and 4 Dark Cornish hens (non-hatchery). I started with Bresse over Cornish as that is what I have mature and laying at the moment.

I will get weights on the rooster, hens and chicks and post them with pictures tomorrow when it is warmer.

I am planning the same cross of White Bresse to Dark Cornish. I should be getting the chicks for both breeds in the next couple of weeks so I won't be at your stage until Fall. I am also going to cross Dark Cornish with Naked Necks. I have the Naked Necks now so I will just be waiting on the Dark Cornish. The Naked Neck cock I have is a massive bird.

 

[DesertChic]

So one week ago I hatched out my first attempt at crossing some of my best birds to improve size and growth rates. I'm pretty pleased with the outcome so far and very excited to see how these little chicks change as they grow. Already I've seen the highest growth rates from hatch out of all the hatches I've performed to date, with the majority of my chicks increasing in size by more than 100% in their first week.


This is Gypsy, my NN/Bielefelder chick, presumably a pullet. Her growth rate was only 77%, but that's still good for a female and she started out as one of my larger chicks.


This is Comet, a Ameraucana-mix/ White Rock. I'm thinking it might be a cockerel, though it's too early to know for sure. First week growth rate of 119%.


No name yet, pure NN/NN-cochin mix with a growth rate of 118%.


Ziggy - Ameraucana-mix/Dorking-mix. Not sure of gender. Growth rate = 102%


Simon, a NN/White Rock cross, probably a cockerel, with a growth rate of 111%. This is one of the ones I really wanted...a good NN/WR cockerel to breed over some of my other girls.


Willow - my other NN/White Rock mix, this time presumably a pullet, and just as badly coveted. Her growth rate is only 87.59%, which I still consider to be pretty good since this is a pullet.

And now my "surprise" mixes of Ameraucana-mix rooster/White Rock hen. I don't know genders, but I'm very pleased with all of these birds and looking forwarding to incorporating at least one or two of them into my breeding program:


C12 - 99% growth rate


C14 - 113% growth rate


C15 - 114.5% growth rate

There are a few other chicks in this hatch that I'm keeping a close eye on, but I'll refrain from posting their pics for now. Overall I think this is the best hatch I've had and I'm really excited about the direction I see my breeding plans heading.

 

[Horseman1074]

I use zip ties and create a number system. You must watch the growth up until a certain point. Cut the zip tie off and replace with a larger one.

When your birds are full adults you can use metal bands.
There was a discussion about wing bands were you very carefully perforate the wing web with a numbered tag.

Where do you get these bands?