Wisconsin "Cheeseheads"

[Debbie292d]

I cant tell the difference in a standard, show, hatchery chicken. They all look the same in the freezer........just kidding, but really I dont know the difference if I stood there and looked at them.

Getting eggs, have 6 new hens. lost 4 of 9 chicks I bought this early summer, predators I imagine. Really wanted the faverolle hens those 3 are among the missing. Lost 3 chicks from hen hatching eggs 1 predator and the other 2 I think the rooster.

Might have lost a hen or 2, lost count of them from last winter. I will have to ask wife.
Guess thats free ranging.

We lost a couple of chickens our first year from free-ranging. Our property borders a forest on one side and farmers' fields on the other sides. We got a bunch of motion solar lights that don't do anything for them during the day, but it must scare them enough at night to just keep them away. We got the border collie that helps too, and now a corgi who thinks she's the guard dog.

All we raise is silkies. We have backyard silkies and fancy silkies. The fancy ones have beards and vaults, so they're easy to spot as they can't see where they're going.

 

[jvls1942]

I can't tell a champion chicken from a buny
I used to hatch and sell chickens and guineas. for a few years I sold as many as 300 guineas. I also did custom hatching for people. lots of time spent for minimal profit. I had over 1000 eggs in the incubators for almost the whole summer.
once I hatched 65 turkey eggs for a guy.
besides all of that we butchered up to 200 chickens and ducks and turkeys and geese for ourself.
the only thing I made any money on was building whizbang type pluckers,
we would use the one I built, and when I sold it, I would build another one. I sold 5 of them for $1200.oo/each.

 

[Amer]

I cant tell the difference in a standard, show, hatchery chicken. They all look the same in the freezer........just kidding, but really I dont know the difference if I stood there and looked at them.

Getting eggs, have 6 new hens. lost 4 of 9 chicks I bought this early summer, predators I imagine. Really wanted the faverolle hens those 3 are among the missing. Lost 3 chicks from hen hatching eggs 1 predator and the other 2 I think the rooster.

Might have lost a hen or 2, lost count of them from last winter. I will have to ask wife.
Guess thats free ranging.

There is a night and day difference, lol
Especially in size. Hatchery large fowl are much smaller than show quality. And show quality bantams tend to be smaller than hatchery.

I don’t like when they say “utility” are better at producing meat though. I don’t know the last time a hatchery has taken meat production into consideration. Meanwhile, standard breeders of dual purpose breeds commonly do breed for meat production (though hatchery birds do tend to be bred to lay more.)
But calling them utility because they are better at laying eggs even though they have sorry carcasses is just silly.
Mostly, breeders don’t want any more eggs than they have, with the number of birds we raise we often have more than we can do with.

 

[Amer]

We lost a couple of chickens our first year from free-ranging. Our property borders a forest on one side and farmers' fields on the other sides. We got a bunch of motion solar lights that don't do anything for them during the day, but it must scare them enough at night to just keep them away. We got the border collie that helps too, and now a corgi who thinks she's the guard dog.

All we raise is silkies. We have backyard silkies and fancy silkies. The fancy ones have beards and vaults, so they're easy to spot as they can't see where they're going.

True, lol.
I actually kinda preferred when we had the hatchery Silkies. They were more useful.

 

[jvls1942]

I don't claim to be a breeder,
I always had good luck with the hatchery variety of meat birds.
however there is a wide variety of quality in the same breed of meat birds of the same variety from the hatchery.
when it came down to just my wife and me, we ordered only 50 meaties.
after 8 weeks, we would butcher about a dozen. However, we picked out the smallest ones. those are the ones that weren't converting food to meat as well as the larger ones. each week we would do the same procedure. we always ordered pullets for the freezer. at the end of the month at the last processing, it was not uncommon to have 8 pound hens dressed out.
back when I raised roosters, one Thanksgiving we had an 8 pound turkey from the store and a ten pound rooster from our flock..
If you hatch your own eggs and select the best chickens, you can develope your own select birds. it takes a couple of years.
it took me 3 years to go from a mixture of colored guineas to develope a flock of pure white guineas. and they bred true to color.
personally, I think show birds is a waste of time.

 

[Amer]

I don't claim to be a breeder,
I always had good luck with the hatchery variety of meat birds.
however there is a wide variety of quality in the same breed of meat birds of the same variety from the hatchery.
when it came down to just my wife and me, we ordered only 50 meaties.
after 8 weeks, we would butcher about a dozen. However, we picked out the smallest ones. those are the ones that weren't converting food to meat as well as the larger ones. each week we would do the same procedure. we always ordered pullets for the freezer. at the end of the month at the last processing, it was not uncommon to have 8 pound hens dressed out.
back when I raised roosters, one Thanksgiving we had an 8 pound turkey from the store and a ten pound rooster from our flock..
If you hatch your own eggs and select the best chickens, you can develope your own select birds. it takes a couple of years.
it took me 3 years to go from a mixture of colored guineas to develope a flock of pure white guineas. and they bred true to color.
personally, I think show birds is a waste of time.

What breed were these big ones?
For the record I mean utility “Barred Rocks” “Marans” and “Rhode Island Reds” when I am talking about poor meat quality.
I don’t think they’re a waste of time. It preserves breed type and genetics for future generations and produces a bird with a combination of beauty and utility, which used to be what people bred chickens for.
All I breed are d’Anvers bantams, personally, so they aren’t very productive but it would be a sadder world without their good looks and personality.

Hatchery birds are good if you want variety and some eggs, imo. Or some birds specifically for meat.
But if you want really beautiful birds with meat and eggs (or just meat, or just eggs, or whatever you want them for) and great personality, if you want to raise a line of fowl to be proud of then standard bred is the way to go.
It costs almost the same to feed a really good bird and a crappy bird. (I say almost because rarely are they the same size.)
Also, show birds don’t cost that much more.

 

[jvls1942]

I agree show birds cost the same to feed.
but go try to purchase one.
I can buy a whole flock of birds for what a pair of show birds cost.
I let the hatchery do the work and I buy cornishX pullets for meat. I never have trouble with them getting crippled or dying from heart attacks because I treat them like chickens and they roam all over my nine acres and get the exercise they need. they seem happy and are quite sociable.
my favorite common breed is buff orpingtons. good layers, roosters are large enough for butchering, and the hens make good mothers. as a whole, they are quite docile. not flighty like some other breeds.

 

[EagleEyes]

WOW, lots of great comments on me looking for standard breed chickens.
Well, after talking with Amer, I realized that i really only want a flock of varied good looking, winter hardy chickens. Hatchery will be just fine. I have a number of breeds that i would prefer though.
The price for standards is way over my head, and after all it's just my backyard flock.

I cant tell the difference in a standard, show, hatchery chicken. They all look the same in the freezer........just kidding, but really I dont know the difference if I stood there and looked at them.

But after going to the Portage poultry show and seeing what those standard breed chickens looked like, that is what had me thinking about them.
The standards are night and day different birds from the hatchery birds from what I saw.

 

[TOR]

WOW, lots of great comments on me looking for standard breed chickens.
Well, after talking with Amer, I realized that i really only want a flock of varied good looking, winter hardy chickens. Hatchery will be just fine. I have a number of breeds that i would prefer though.
The price for standards is way over my head, and after all it's just my backyard flock.


But after going to the Portage poultry show and seeing what those standard breed chickens looked like, that is what had me thinking about them.
The standards are night and day different birds from the hatchery birds from what I saw.

If you have a incubator you could do a little breeding of your own.

 

[Amer]

I agree show birds cost the same to feed.
but go try to purchase one.
I can buy a whole flock of birds for what a pair of show birds cost.
I let the hatchery do the work and I buy cornishX pullets for meat. I never have trouble with them getting crippled or dying from heart attacks because I treat them like chickens and they roam all over my nine acres and get the exercise they need. they seem happy and are quite sociable.
my favorite common breed is buff orpingtons. good layers, roosters are large enough for butchering, and the hens make good mothers. as a whole, they are quite docile. not flighty like some other breeds.

My Grandpa free ranged his Cornish cross and they barely stepped outside. Yours must be a different strain.
But think about the cost of raising, feeding, housing those birds from chicks, and then look at the price of a pair.
Hatchery started pullets cost 25-40. Mine cost 35 for d’Anvers females regardless of quality, and 50 a pair.
Prices: well, it’s all over the board. Depends upon the breeder. I’ve gotten a lot of really nice birds for free and I’ve paid up to about 35 per bird. I only buy adults, of course. But of course there will be birds that will go for 100 or more.
My recent acquisition. Yes, I paid 75 for the shipping from Oregon, but she was actually free, the only thing the owner got from the deal was testing to see if shipping worked from his area. (Thankfully it did and she was only in the mail for 2 days.)

Meanwhile this one was literally free. She has very good type for her variety

A lot of people will sell birds for way less than they are worth just to get rid of them. There is no money in exhibition poultry, that is true. Even the people who sell them for 100 are underselling for the hours and all of the birds that they didn’t get to sell because they weren’t good enough.