The American Cemani Breeders Club...open forum

[Ms Biddy]

The chickens are resting in the fridge for a few days before we eat or freeze them. I'll take more pictures of the meat and post them later. It's hard to say how my hen might compare to yours or anyone else's or even other birds in my own flock. I do think it's interesting though.

 

[Ms Biddy]

Here's my rooster. He has black nails and no feather leakage, but you can see he has mulberry in his comb/

wattles and his downy feathers aren't the blackest black. The hen to his left is the one we culled.

 

[Tiegrsi]

Did you cull her because of the tongue?

I've seen a lot of people talk about culling chicks with white toes or skin coloration issues; some who even cull for lesser defects such as a couple of grey or white feathers...but then I also see a lot of information about how much they change as they grow. My question for anyone breeding Cemanis, then, is - do you have a rule about raising them to a certain age before deciding, or any particular fault that you will always cull for regardless of age?

 

[Ms Biddy]

I culled her for knock knees and a badly sprigged comb. I believe all my AC's have white tongues. I think that's a pretty major fault, but I'm not really looking to cull all of them, lol. I'll be getting some more chicks sometime this year and will continue trying to pick out the better ones. I'd like them to be blacker of course, but for now I'm just happy to have something so different from our other chickens.

 

[Ms Biddy]

I should mention that I admire the breeders here who have worked hard and refined their lines. I would love to have some AC's of that quality eventually and would also be very curious to see how they butcher out in comparison to mine.

 

[Tiegrsi]

I...would also be very curious to see how they butcher out in comparison to mine.

I'd be interested in that, as well...I would love to know the statistics for how many aren't black inside and if there are any specific outward signs of that, that will always be noted before butcher. I'd hate to butcher birds specifically for the black meat only to find out it isn't; and I'd hate to grow out a bunch only to find out it wasn't worth my time and expense.

 

[Ms Biddy]

Okay, I just put our chicken in brine and got a couple more photos showing the internal cavity, leg meat and breast meat. You can see that the cavity and leg are very dark, but the breast meat is light with flecks of gray pigment. Interesting right? Is this normal for an Ayam Cemani? I have no idea.

Spoiler

 

[Pyxis]

You might want to put all those organ and internal cavity shots under a spoiler. It doesn't bother me, but some people don't think to see those things

 

[Ms Biddy]

You might want to put all those organ and internal cavity shots under a spoiler. It doesn't bother me, but some people don't think to see those things

Okay, done.

 

[Pyxis]

Okay, done.

Thanks! To make it even cleaner, instead of the warning and the dots, you can use the spoiler feature built into the website. So you would type [ spoiler ] without the spaces before your pictures, and then [/ spoiler ] (again with no spaces) after, and it'll put them in a box, totally hiding them from view unless someone who wants to see clicks on them

And then you get this:

Spoiler

Pictures go here