The Old Folks Home

[hennible]

JW12 I'm 29.... And very behind the times.

 

[hennible]

Not all silkies are completely black....  but good bloodlines are...  There is a huge market for black skinned or melanistic  chickens through the Asian Community.

deb

I just wanna eat them myself pretty sure the 3 Asian families here wouldn't be a big enough market
I just need to put a sign up on the bulletin board asking about fertile black silkie eggs, I know someone around here has them.

 

[Sylviaanne]

Not all silkies are completely black.... but good bloodlines are... There is a huge market for black skinned or melanistic chickens through the Asian Community.

deb

Do the completely black ones, live that is, go for more money?

 

[perchie.girl]

Quote: I dont really know but I have seen pictures of carcasses that were like half and half black and light.

SOP for Silkies .... I believe talks about Black skin bones and meat....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silkie

But in many Asian and Indonesian cuisines the meat is considered gourmet food. One of the hard things though is Silky chickens are bantams as well as they go Broody at the drop of a hat... so you dont get many eggs from them. Also its difficult to sex them before you actually hear a crow... though people who raise Silkys get good at identifying them but not as early as hard feathered chickens...

So it takes longer to identify hens and once they are identified they are low producers of eggs. But lots of people raise them for Broodies.

deb

 

[perchie.girl]

Quote:
They might be a source for you too. I loved my silky roos they were a hoot. Silkys dont handle the cold well because their feathers dont hold in the heat like a hard feathered bird....

deb

 

[ozexpat]

Hemp seeds have a high energy content, and due their low cost, are a traditional staple of pet birds mixes. Seed-eating migratory birds are attracted to hemp fields at harvest time, and, in many countries, the seeds have been used as poultry feed (Khan et al., 2009).
Broilers

Up to 20% dried and crushed hemp seeds have been used successfully in broilers and resulted in higher breast, leg and thigh weight. This positive effect has been linked to the combination of a good protein and lipid quality associated to other beneficial properties, such as the lack of trypsin inhibitors and the antioxydant activity of cannabidiol (Khan et al., 2009). Feeding broilers with hemp seeds powder (at 20%) resulted in better feed conversion ratio, higher liveweight gain and lower age at slaughter and lower mortality rate (Khan et al., 2010)
It is possible to partly replace soybean meal by hemp seed meal in broilers. Supplementation of hemp seed meal at 1.5-9.0% had no adverse effects on immunological factors. Levels of 1.5-3% might promote B cell differentiation and maturation as well as immunity. Levels of 4.5-7.0% enhanced nitrogen utilization (Ma Li et al., 2007).
Laying hens

With hens fed on 0 to 20% of cold-pressed hemp seed meal, no significant differences were found between feed treatments for egg production, feed consumption, feed efficiency, body weight change or egg quality. Increasing dietary inclusion of hemp seed meal produced eggs with lower concentrations of palmitic acid and higher concentrations of linoleic and alpha-linolenic acids (Silversides et al., 2005).

Rabbits
Feeding rabbits with hemp oil cake is possible but it has a moderate energy value for rabbits, due to its high fiber content that reduces diet digestibility. It does not have significant organoleptic effect of fresh rabbit meat (Lebas et al., 1988).

 

[hennible]

They might be a source for you too.  I loved my silky roos they were a hoot.  Silkys dont handle the cold well because their feathers dont hold in the heat like a hard feathered bird....

deb  

Yes the cold... Crap they'd freeze stiff in my current coop.

@ozexpat
Got through the protein study, good info. Any thoughts on the addition of molasses to my FF while my birds moult.
Oh and they didn't like the hemps seeds I gave them nearly as much as I expected. I just feed them out as a treat.

 

[ozexpat]

Yes the cold... Crap they'd freeze stiff in my current coop.

@ozexpat
Got through the protein study, good info. Any thoughts on the addition of molasses to my FF while my birds moult.
Oh and they didn't like the hemps seeds I gave them nearly as much as I expected. I just feed them out as a treat.

FF is not really practical with large coop numbers so I have not done a lot of research on it. I have limited knowledge on FF.

There are a few people on this thread that are more equipped to answer

 

[Peep_Show]

Stoopid apple thief didn't show for court. Another summons; another court date. At least we were the third case and didn't have to sit there all afternoon.

 

[hennible]

Stoopid apple thief didn't show for court.  Another summons; another court date.   At least we were the third case and didn't have to sit there all afternoon.

Sheesh