Thinking of trying an experiment.

[Folly's place]

Mary

 

[lazy gardener]

What is marsh elder?

 

[aart]

What is marsh elder?

I had to look it up too.
https://www.google.com/search?q=mar...er&aqs=chrome..69i57&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

 

[bobbi-j]

Hmm, that doesn't look like what we call Marsh Elder here. It's about 8' high, has broad leaves and a stalk about 1/2" thick. I'll have to take a picture.

 

[bobbi-j]

OK, here are pictures of what we call "marsh elder" here.

The top board on the run is 6' high.




Size of leaf in comparison to my hand. (I have long fingers for a woman)

Shape of leaf.

 

[bobbi-j]

Forgot to mention - all cockerels present at bed check! Everyone survived our vacation.

 

[Mini Meat]

OK, here are pictures of what we call "marsh elder" here.

The top board on the run is 6' high.




Size of leaf in comparison to my hand. (I have long fingers for a woman)

Shape of leaf.

That looks like a marsh mallow to me.

 

[aart]

Always hard to tell with colloquial plant names.

Glad all your birds survived your vacation....was anyone checking on them, collecting eggs?

 

[bobbi-j]

Always hard to tell with colloquial plant names.

Glad all your birds survived your vacation....was anyone checking on them, collecting eggs?

Nope - all my chicken sitters were at the wedding!

There were 11 eggs, but it wasn't too hot out, so I'm not worried about using them.

 

[bobbi-j]

So - after a lot of quality time in the car this weekend (we put on around 600 miles, leaving at 9:30 yesterday morning, arriving home tonight at about 9:00), DH has decided that Tues. is butchering day for the cockerels. They are approximately 18 weeks old, so a bit past optimum, but some will be canned anyway, so that doesn't matter. The rest will "rest" in the fridge before quartering, packaging and freezing.

I'm going to freeze the "canning birds" whole, and deal with them when it's time to process the old layers later this fall. (So far, some - or all - of them are still laying, and the pullets haven't started yet, so they will be spared for a while. I plan on keeping the one that went broody this year, but the other 5 will go.) I plan on keeping the carcasses of the ones I quarter, and the ones I de-bone for canning, and following RR's idea of boiling them, gleaning and freezing meat bits and canning the broth. For the time and effort we put into raising them, I don't want to waste any of it! (Except the feet - still not gonna do the feet.

)

Anyway, with this announcement, I went to the grow out pen after we got home and groped and hefted cockerels. Based first on keel bones, I narrowed down my choice to three - the White Giant, the NN, and the Buff Rock. (The meat-type rooster, of course, had no obvious keel bone and is the size of a small turkey, but I just don't think it's in his best interest to keep him around.) So after deciding that the three with the least sharp or prominent keel bones were my choices, I hefted them. Not easy to do with large, broad-built struggling birds. I decided to keep the White Giant, and the largest of the 3 Buff Rocks. I put them back in the coop with the hens/pullets. (Should be an exciting morning for all concerned.) Tomorrow morning we will pull the feed from the rest of the cockerels and I'll close the pop door to the run tomorrow evening.

I always have mixed feelings about butchering. I LOVE roosters! I love how beautiful they are, and I love hearing them crow. The generic red rooster has the perfect crow. The Black Australorps are SO pretty when the sun shines on them, as is the SLW. The NN is very colorful where he has feathers. But, I went into this knowing that we weren't going to keep them all. It would help if they weren't all so pretty. I also have a backup cockerel so if in a couple of months one of the two turns out to have a bad attitude, the broody-hatched chick is also a cockerel (of course he is - he looks to be an EE/cross, too). If the other two are still OK in a couple of months, he will have to go. Probably when the hens' day comes.