Toad Raising.

[duluthralphie]

This thread is for those that plan to raise toads.

As I have said is several threads I am about ready to start selling toad eggs. I will be selling them on the Buy/sell ad on BYC. I will lay the terms down there.

I want people to try and make this a self sustaining meat bird.

I do not think you will need to limit feed on the toads like those of you that have tried to raise CX's have done. I do not limit feed, however, I do occasional let mine go hungry for a day to use extra fat up.


You can raise them however you want. My dream for this site is for us to discuss how they are growing problems and so forth.

To me the Toad is the perfect meat bird. For some of you this is a re-hash for others it will be new, so all my BYC friends that have seen these pictures just hang n there.

I really want to have more people try to make these sustainable. I would prefer you not process all the Toads you get this year but try to over winter them to get more toads. I have only eaten a couple roosters so far.

I am interested in how they do in different climates. I would like to see them go to some NPIP places so I could get some back if I need to.

Here are some pictures:






The ruling Bert, the Grand dad of this generation of Toads.



Above is a turkey and Toad of the same age, Toad is on the right! 15.5 Pounds.

 

[duluthralphie]

OK, I'll bite....what is the parentage of a 'toad' meat bird?

The Toad is a 4 step process,

The first Generation is Cx crossed to CX,, That is known as a frog

Next Generation is a Frog to a Dixie Rainbow, This becomes a lizard
Then the lizard is crossed back to the CX.

That gives you a toad, it is 7/8th CX and 1/8 Dixie rainbow. That little Rainbow gives a bigger bird that does not eat itself to death.
They are huge with more dark meat to white meat ratio. They are not lazy slobs.

The hard part was keeping CX's alive long enough to breed them. The Toads are not problem. They seem to live longer than the CX's.

 

[duluthralphie]

Because of a clerical error, I have discovered 2 toads in my incubator!

 

[duluthralphie]

Bertha died last night... she was devoted wife of Bert, Bert jr, Bert the third and Bert the fourth who proceeded her in death.

She is survived by her Husband and Great-great-great-great Grandson Bert the 5th. There will be no services and she will be interned Monday by Randy’s Garbage service in a plain brown plastic can.

Donations should be send in lieu of flowers to her grieving caregiver and favorite farmer, Duluthralphie..

 

[duluthralphie]

Hi all, It has been a while sinice I posted here.

I had a 4h kid show a market pen (2) toads at the county fair. She took second with them. The judge was extremely impressed with the size of the birds and the mobility they had. He had never seen such a large bird able to move with such ease.

He said he would have given her first, but the two of them were 2 pounds different in weight. I have a 4H er showing some at a fair next week. they are only 1 pound different in weight and the owners are spending the week trying to get the weights closer.


I saw a person in TSC today and he asked if I had meat birds and what kind I had. When I told him I had toads. He got all excited and said he saw them at the fair for the first time. He had never seen such big meat birds and was wondering which hatchery I got them from.

He is coming out this week to look at them... .Toads are becoming known!!

 

[MNChickMom]

Below are pictures of Toad 2.0. There is one who is 3.5 weeks old and 3 that are 2.5 weeks old. I apologize for the poor red light pictures but I didn’t have the heart to take them out of the brooder when we are enduring a Minnesota cold snap. The oldest is nick named Hoover as the instant he was taken out the hatcher he went around sucking up food.

 

[duluthralphie]

Cindy,

There are many factors in the modern day Toad that come to play.

One is the size of the birds. It is a long raise up for the rooster to mount the hen. The size itself becomes a hindrance to breeding. I believe if we could get enough people raising these birds that would take care of itself.

The rate of fertile to non fertile eggs is high, granted. But if you have 50 eggs incubating and get 25 birds we might have enough to keep the variety going. My wife and I do not need 25 birds in the freezer each year.

These birds will never replace the CX the commercial market uses. They have spent too many years spending millions of dollars to convince the consumer a 3-5 pound bird is the size a chicken has to be to eat. What so many do not know and particularly the city born and raised person under 50, these 6 week old giants have no taste.

When I was a kid we ate a red-ranger type bird or we ate leghorn. None of them were 6 weeks old, the leghorns were a year or better many times, all were at least 6 months. BUT they tasted like chicken.

I am trying to recreate that with the toads. I do not expect anyone to be eating 6 week old toads. I want them consumed at an older age so they get time to gain the chicken flavor.

I also want a bird that can free range and wants to free range. A bird that I do not have to give all it's food too. A bird willing to run around and gather bugs and seeds to eat.

I am not a fan of white meat so I purposely sought to increase the dark meat to white meat ratio. This does no mean the breasts are not large on the toad. It simply means we increased the size of the hind quarters. It was MnChickmom and Holm's idea to add in the buckeye to eliminate the single comb. This was a good idea, in addition it reinforced the large hind quarters. When you look at Hoover or Bert you are looking at a rooster that stands nearly 2 ft tall and has legs like a kangaroo.

When they are roasted and placed side by side on the table with a turkey most my family and guests will dive into the chicken and comment on how good it is before they eat the turkey. I wish I could convey the mouth watering taste of a roasted toad to everyone.


In addition, my wife and I, albeit late in our lives have opted for a more minimalist or naturalist type of life style. I want meat that is not pumped full of antibiotics simply so they can be raised in close confinement and turn a profit for a multinational corporation.

I understand the need for confinement raising of meat animals. We simply have too many mouths to feed to raise everyone's feed with my methods.

I chose to raise my own meat in this style. I firmly believe many people could do this for themselves. Even if in a city a person could easily raise 20 birds on most city lots. Sure it would take work and not be neat and clean, but to me neat and clean is over rated.

My wife and I have this "discussion" often. She is a city girl, did not move to the country until she was in High School. She hates chicken and turkey poop on the sidewalk and deck,,,,Yep, we have a sidewalk to our old farm house. She insisted.....I find it easier to go along than argue over those little things...I would never do anything she does not approve of agree with..


She has really embraced the country life style though, she knows I cannot survive in close contact with my neighbors, like in a city..and the neighbors might not either.

The toads are as much of a political statement for me as they are a challenge. Simply stating " I can do this myself" I do not need the government or the market telling me how I have to live and eat.

To this end I will gather maple sap again this year, after several years of not gathering it. I am thinking of getting honey bees. I am going to try grafting my own fruit trees this year. I raise a huge garden.

Toads are just an extension of all that. I am worried they will go extinct. But I am getting older, a lot older fast, and need others like you to help with this project.

I will surely let you and everyone that has asked for toads know when I have enough to spread around. I might even have to employ AI.....if I can talk Holm's into doing it again to increase the toad numbers then try to go back to natural breeding. I see nothing wrong philosophically with AI.....I just hate to do it myself or get involved in a chickens sexlife...it should remain between the two chickens involved and maybe @holm25 .....

 

[duluthralphie]

Here are the adult Toads out "free Ranging" this afternoon.

For size those are 2x4's the bird is roosting on. Pretty active for a big bird. One of my layer hens got close to one of the toad roosters today.

He chased her around and around. I thought he would have a heart attack trying to catch her. She did out run him, and screamed a lot. I a guessing she is a prima Dona and wants nothing to do with the fat boys. She is so shallow.

 

[aart]

OK, I'll bite....what is the parentage of a 'toad' meat bird?

 

[duluthralphie]

We are having a rough winter here. So not many eggs getting to the incubators.

There are three of us now breeding toads. One has had some limited success this spring.

We might have exceeded the limits of what a bird should weigh. One of the breeders picked up an 18 week old rooster from me for breeding. We found it to be pushing or over 20 pounds. He seems healthy and all, but we are now worried about the ability to breed naturally without hurting the hens.

I have one in my barn that is pushing 25-30 pounds. He is 3 years old. I keep him for an oddity as he was no longer able to breed the hens. We tried to AI him but found we can not get our hands around his back to successfully AI him.

(yes, they are turkey sized chickens)..

We are making toads 2.0 this year to try and increase the frame height and remove the single comb that is detrimental to us in the north. Between the three of us we should be able to get chicks out this spring to others. Shipping toad eggs is not a good idea.

They are very sensitive and precious at this stage in the development.

AS ALWAYS WE ARE NOT DISCUSSING WHAT WE ARE ADDING IN TO THE MIXTURE...

I will tag the other two breeders so they can give their views @MNChickMom @holm25

A few hours separate all of us but we get together some to make the trades needed.