The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[hennible]

@ronott1
I can safely say the favus is gone.

 

[Leahs Mom]

@ronott1
I can safely say the favus is gone.

Yay! Good to hear.

 

[armorfirelady]

@Sallyininidiana
The meat was just scraps with lots of fat. And also the liver and heart. Tho it did look tempting to taste,

I like the cooler idea for brining,. This time of year I keep my baked Christmas cookies outside in a cooler as I bake them. To many critters in the house who would like to taste them. Well people to lol. I use Christmas cookies as gifts for the holidays so my big cooler does a great idea of storing them till its time to give them.

It was in the 30s today so I used the cooler to store the venison when I had to run errands. (yes it was thoroughly washed out before I put cookies in it). The suet cakes are out there now cooling. If I could guarantee freezing temps throughout the winter is love to store the hens veggies out there for the winter,

All this talk about brining........I really need to try it sometime.

 

[ronott1]

@ronott1
I can safely say the favus is gone.

Good to know!

It was the tea tree oil that worked?

 

[hennible]

Good to know!

It was the tea tree oil that worked?

Yes it worked well.

 

[ronott1]

Now another question.
If you're going to freeze them, do you do this brining before you freeze or after?

Over on the processing day help thread, many of the brine and then freeze. Try to keep the raw in the brine time down to 18 hours max though.

 

[CoopChick719]

Hahaha! Was this co-worker male by chance?

I took a dozen eggs to my mom on Tuesday that had a few huge eggs in it. When I was showing them to my aunts husband he said "oh wow, do you have lots of roosters?" When I said yes he said "oh that will be why then."

I don't know how many people have asked me how I'm getting eggs if I don't have a rooster.

Thnx Ron....that makes sense. Olivia sat on a golfball for at least a week maybe longer before I bummed eggs from a neighbor for her.

One of my poor girls sat on nothing for a month before I realized what she was doing. Got some fertile eggs from a friend and had 4 chicks hatch in the coop.

More pearls of wisdom from the peanut gallery:

1. You can't hatch those eggs in the coop with the rest of the flock.
2. The rooster will kill those chicks if you leave them in the coop.
3. Silkies DON'T roost.
4. Chickens don't eat meat.

 

[SallyinIndiana]

Now another question.
If you're going to freeze them, do you do this brining before you freeze or after?

I do it after if I'm freezing uncooked. This year with the beef and pork I signed up arriving on the same day, I am tight on freezer space. I am roasting, slow cooking, and making lots of pulled cooked chicken to freeze instead of freezing the whole chicken. It saves so much space. The downfall is the loss of much of the broth as I did not have the space to freeze it and I could only use up so much of it. The chickens did not mind much.

If brining before freezing, consider the spices you are using in the brine. The freezer can change the potency of spices.

Quote: I have read that too. My recipe that had the brine time on it was older, back when raw egg recipes did not even come with any kind of warning.

 

[SallyinIndiana]

@Leahs Mom
Here is a chart I found online for up to date brining times.
http://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/cooking-tips-techniques/turkey-brining

 

[Leahs Mom]

@Leahs Mom
Here is a chart I found online for up to date brining times.
http://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/cooking-tips-techniques/turkey-brining

@SallyinIndiana
Thanks! I find that 1/2 of the turkey recipe is not deep enough to submerge a whole chicken. If the whole chicken isn't under, do you just turn it every few hours...or should I make more so that it IS totally under?