Stocking Up, Putting Back, Prepping = Paranoia?

[terri9630]

So, here's one for you guys... Are there any areas that you're WAY "over" stocked in, and others that you're way under? Right now, food is the hard part. The garden is limping along like a sick, deformed puppy. The birds are doing fairly well, but I'm not sure how far they will actually go, as it's only white meat foods, and I like my red meat. I have no "renewable" resource for red meats. I am HOPING for venison, but that is a shot in the dark because of finding a sitter for the kids. With my mother changing shifts to second again, maybe she'll watch them in the mornings while I hunt though, plus my brother has 14 acres of farmland that he's counted up to 26 deer at a time on, so hopefully this year I'll have better luck and be able to fill out both my buck and my doe tag (don't really care too much about "trophy" deer, I just want some meat and whatever antler I get I will use for crafting). We might also be able to get beef for a discount price from one place or another. The prison raises beef, and George has mentioned that we can purchase beef through them. I'd RATHER they sell me a steer though, as the place they take them for butcher (for obvious reasons, they cannot have their inmates set up for butchering) takes 50% of the meat for their payment. That DOUBLES the price of the meat, when I can do it for free. My brother also works at a butcher shop once in awhile... Just enough to keep his discount there. Fresh, local meat. Still, I'd rather get my red meat via hunting. It's approximately $40 (I could be way off, but I'm not looking it up right now) for doe tag, the general hunting license (one buck, one spring turkey, one fall turkey and small game) and an archery tag. That's way less than having to pay for the meat... IF I can get at least one deer.

I do think we have about a year's worth of poultry meat though. If the Cx grow out to 5lbs and have a meat content of 3.5lbs each, at 28 cornish x (keeping 10 for breeding), I'll have about 98lbs of meat from them (no bones). That's eating 1lb of chicken every 3-4 days. 1lb feeds our family of four for a meal, depending on how I make it. If I do breasts, chicken gravy or tenderloins in a pasta dish, that is more like 2-3 meals for the family of four. If it's quarters, we eat more, because it turns out, we each eat an entire leg quarter. Count in the turkeys, if we keep two toms and all of the hens (I'm estimating 5 hens from the 11 poults), we should get about 50lbs of straight meat from them. That's about 1lb per week of turkey meat. Ducks, I'm estimating 3 hens, then keeping one drake. The cripple I'm not counting. Should be about 12lbs of straight meat. That's only 1lb per month, but still, any little help and something to change up the meat a smidge will be nice. We also will have about six regular roosters that will make it to the stew pot or be chunked up for canned chicken. Then we've got the hens that should lay eggs, and I'm hoping to supplement their light over winter to keep them in production. I'll eat the first eggs because fertility might be low, but I'm hoping to have hatching birds fairly early in the spring and raise a bunch more birds. I want to really increase my duck production and probably my turkey production, and keep the chicken production about the same.

Soap, is obviously one of the strong points. Even laundry detergent and cleaning stuff (I like to use just soap/water) is well stocked up and would suffice for about seven years with the laundry detergent and 15 years for the soap (with more ingredients to make plenty more, and in a serious SHTF situation, I could use animal fats to make the soap and would have another 200 years worth of soap, lol. As for toothpaste, I have about three years worth of it right now, plus about six years worth of shampoo (only washing every 2-3 days as I do now)

If its the cornish cross your planning to keep for breeding you'd be better off butchering them. They don't breed naturally and die very young.

 

[Bettacreek]

If its the cornish cross your planning to keep for breeding you'd be better off butchering them. They don't breed naturally and die very young.

If they are kept like regular meaties, yes. Production drops in Pekins when they're fed at will as well. A diet and they should be fine. I'll be picking out my breeders next week to start putting them on a diet. Same with the pekins, they'll be on a diet as well to help bolster baby production.

 

[terri9630]

If its the cornish cross your planning to keep for breeding you'd be better off butchering them. They don't breed naturally and die very young.

If they are kept like regular meaties, yes. Production drops in Pekins when they're fed at will as well. A diet and they should be fine. I'll be picking out my breeders next week to start putting them on a diet. Same with the pekins, they'll be on a diet as well to help bolster baby production.

Good luck. I've read on Byc of other people trying and they can get the hens to laying age but they still don't breed. If you do manage it they won't breed true since they are cross breeds of cross breeds.

 

[Bettacreek]

I've tried to explain this on another thread, but I'm being too lazy to look it up, lol. Anyways, people have had them breed successfully with other breeds. These trials, they never even attempted a cornish x roo. Either way, the chicks are mixed breed birds, but still have a good bit of the amazing growth potential of the cornish x blood. I don't necessarily need a bird to dress out at 6lbs or so in 6-7 weeks. I DO want a bird that will dress out to that weight in about two months. Considering that some people have crossed Ameraucanas in with their cornish x birds and still have that super growth rate, I simply don't believe that a cornish x bred to a cornish x is going to produce anything less than a bird with that great growing potential. If it can be done by adding the blood of a scrawny bird, then I have no doubt in my mind that it can be done with another of the same type. I am holding fast to my experiment and won't allow anyone to turn me in another direction. I do have the Ameraucanas if the cornish x roos crap out on me though, but want to experiment with straight up cornish x blood.

 

[Beekissed]

Who cares if they breed "true"? They will still carry the genetics for more muscling in the breast and thigh area...and, frankly, I would rather they didn't breed true. I'd settle for a bird just slightly more meaty and that develops a little sooner than the standard White Rock or Cornish~but I don't particularly care for a bird that grows too quick to have good health.

I had several out of the CX flock this year that would have been great for keeping over into a dual purpose flock....great foragers, perfect health, not as bulky as the standard CX but still very, very meaty and filled out.

I doubt too many people on BYC that held over CX for breeding into their DP flock have taken it seriously and spent years seeing the results. From what I've read it's folks who bought them by mistake and tried to get out of killing them by keeping them with their layer flock ~OR~it's folks who feed them like pigs, let them get too heavy for a true life and then want to breed the heavies so they can make more heavies so they won't have to keep buying new chicks each time they want meat chickens.

The CX hens I would have saved back were more like the WRs I've had....very heavy, dense muscling but still slender enough, agile enough and normal enough to pass for an ugly WR. I think where we often go wrong with developing meat breeds is the thought of "go big or go home". How about just a little more big or heavy...and then a little more, proceeding until it's clearly time to stop. When you have developed a bird that can't function well enough to breed and reproduce, it's time to back it off the heavy genes until you get a bird that's still heavy but can still function with it.

 

[Bettacreek]

One odd thing I've noticed is that my heavier birds seem to be the ones who free-range the best. I weighed everyone out and put blue cosmetic dye on everyone who was under 5oz. I had a few who are white heads that appear so far to be hens, though most look to be roos. Anyways, the white heads seem to be the ones who tend to keep up with the older turkeys and the massive pekin ducklings, while the blue heads seem to stick around their room or the waterer. Yes, some of the blue heads do range out better than others (I'm assuming it's the same few blue heads) but I've noticed that they tend to stick with the Ameraucanas, who tend to stay with the broken legged poult. The older poults and the ducklings are my best squad of rangers out of the group of 70+ birds, tending to stick together and moving fast and sweeping the entire property, while the better Ameraucanas and the broken legged turkey tend to move much slower and don't go to the furthest reaches of the property. The worst of the Ameraucanas stick with the broken legged duckling (who has actually recently started to ditch these lazy birds and range around with the broken legged poult and his band of cronies) and the majority of the blue heads, and they never go far. Usually they're around the room or the garden, which is right by the room, and they only go this far because I've started to move the waterer out of reach, to force them to get off their fat, lazy tuckuses. I plan to hang onto the heavier birds for breeding. Why? Because they have the genes and the means to produce what I want (fast and bulky birds) and they have the highest drive to free-range. Now, I'm pretty positive that their free-ranging habits are due entirely to their massive feed drive, but hey, whatever works, right? I'd work harder if someone promised me a Hershey's chocolate bar too!! Anyways, my plan is to start putting them on a diet next week, when I'm positive about genders. They'll be three weeks old. My plan is to put a final mark on the keepers (which I'll be sorting by weight and habits... I'll be doing another sweep of everyone's weights, then the blue heads that are ranging well, I'll pick out the largest of them throughout the day and if they pass my weight restriction, I'll mark them with a red head. Then, come feeding time, they'll be separated from the rest of the birds. My best bet on this will be to lock the fatties up in their room during feeding, and just let the keepers out until the feeding is complete. I feed everyone at this point three times per day... Once in the morning, once in the middle of the day and at night, the feeder is filled to the top. My main concern will be the night time feeding. Since they have free-access to it, I won't be able to control the amount of feed that the keepers get. I'm hoping that the minimized feedings through the day will be enough to get them by without causing too much gain with free-feed at night. Once the fatties get larger, they'll be better able to push the keepers out of the way until they've had their fill, HOPEFULLY leaving just enough feed for the keepers. Of course, it will take a lot of work, but from my research, this only needs to be done until everything is sexually mature, then amount of feed isn't as big of a problem. So, we'll see. The turkeys will always have free-feed, but I've noticed that they don't really seem to care about feed very much. They'll come in for a few bites of feed, then they're off for foraging again. That makes my life hard at night when I'm trying to get everyone locked up though. The older poults "get it" and will eat, then either settle down under the heat lamp or set up on roost, but the youngest poults will grab a few bites of feed, then they come traipsing back out of the room and have no interest in coming back in to settle down for bed. Anyways, I firmly believe that my experiment will work. I'll obviously keep everyone updated on it as time goes. If it works, awesome, if it doesn't, then I'll just rework my plans and still make it work somehow, even if it means introducing Ameraucana blood.

 

[animalfarm]

Who cares if they breed "true"? They will still carry the genetics for more muscling in the breast and thigh area...and, frankly, I would rather they didn't breed true. I'd settle for a bird just slightly more meaty and that develops a little sooner than the standard White Rock or Cornish~but I don't particularly care for a bird that grows too quick to have good health.

I had several out of the CX flock this year that would have been great for keeping over into a dual purpose flock....great foragers, perfect health, not as bulky as the standard CX but still very, very meaty and filled out.

I doubt too many people on BYC that held over CX for breeding into their DP flock have taken it seriously and spent years seeing the results. From what I've read it's folks who bought them by mistake and tried to get out of killing them by keeping them with their layer flock ~OR~it's folks who feed them like pigs, let them get too heavy for a true life and then want to breed the heavies so they can make more heavies so they won't have to keep buying new chicks each time they want meat chickens.

The CX hens I would have saved back were more like the WRs I've had....very heavy, dense muscling but still slender enough, agile enough and normal enough to pass for an ugly WR. I think where we often go wrong with developing meat breeds is the thought of "go big or go home". How about just a little more big or heavy...and then a little more, proceeding until it's clearly time to stop. When you have developed a bird that can't function well enough to breed and reproduce, it's time to back it off the heavy genes until you get a bird that's still heavy but can still function with it.

I posted on BYC but didn't get any interest so dropped it. I free range all of my chickens. I have been breeding Cx for 3 years. The tricky part is getting started. Out of 25 chicks, 1-3 will make it to breeding age and lay eggs. I don't have Cx roos because they cannot compete with my Chantecler roos and get their butts kicked and on my farm you have to be a "real man and look good " to make the breeding class.

A Cx hen crossed with either a buckeye or Chantelcer roo will procuce some pretty nice hybrids. Big healthy free ranging hens and some very imressive roos. Too impressive. I have a monster sized Cx/buckeye roo which i would like to breed but he has the problem of being too big. He isn't rough, but he tends to break the hens necks when he holds on to their neck feathers. Darned shame.

Next generation the chicks start regressing back to the original breeds. You get black chicks, grey chicks and mottly coloured chicks and only about a third grow to any size and they grow no faster then regular chickens and are no bulkier. I will take the few larger ones regardless of colour and breed them to the chanty/Cx roos and hopefully the biiiiiiggggg guy and see if we can get back to size and growth again.

On a side note, I know people love to hate the Cx, but I really like them. They are regular chickens if they are raised to be. My oldest is now 3 years old and still going strong. Free ranging literally saves their lives. They can be blue in the combs and if you put them out in a field with a little shelter, they will recover to fully red combed active hens. I just bought 5 like that from someone and they are all good now. They would have died of heart congestion with in days if left next to the feed pan.

I also have a 2 yr old Cx broiler hen that disappeared (thought she was coyote food) but came back with 5 chicks in tow and looking like a molting chicken. Don't know what she did to all her feathers, but she is doing a great job teaching her chicks to range and I haven't seen any of them near the chicken tractor or the food pan.

I will keep breeding them to see what how the saga unfolds.

 

[Bettacreek]

You are AWESOME! Thank you very much for responding. Do you have any other tips or tricks to help get these guys to breeding age and actually breed? Mine free range already, and do a damn skippy job of it too. I limit feeding and will be limiting it further next week for the keepers.

 

[the funny farm6]

My friend in illinois has pure dark cornish (not the cornish X) hens and they are covered by 2 americana roos. The cornish hens are excelant at ranging, she only gives them a little feed during the winter when there is snow on the ground. The chicks frome very ealy spring are very large and she already butchered them. I forgot to have her get me weights on them. The hens are also good at setting and hatching. The first chicks are starting to lay also. They lay a mix of blue and pink/brown eggs. They seem very cold and heat hardy also. They don't get as brod as a reg cornishX but they are taller (the americana) and the roos have a nicely filled out chest. The chicks are all colors from black to blue to spotted of all colors.

When I have the funds to do so I am going to order dark cornish pullets. I have already bought 2 americana roos- 1blue, 1splash.

They don't grow out as fast as the reg cornishX either. If I remember next time I talk to her I will ask how old they were at butchering time and how much she thinks they weigh.

 

[animalfarm]

What are you feeding them? I don't feed commercial feed. I feed coursley ground peas and wheat 20%+ protein. In winter they need vitamins in the water but in summer they need to be placed out in areas with lots of clovers, thistle ect...they are also intregrated with the Chantecler so they get braver as the food around the mobile coop gets sparse. Once they learn to go look for something to eat, they will. The feeder is kept about 20 feet away from the coop. There are about 10 Cx hens and 40 Chantecler so they have to compete for the food dish as well. They all grew up having to walk to a feeder.

I also have meat for them in winter; a few tsp./day/per bird makes up for the missing bugs. I only hatch eggs from 2 year old hens. That means I may not get any breeders from a batch but I want longevity. I don't want to promote the suicide gene. I am finding short legs and squat body types die quickly, medium legs and squat bodies have a better chance of living longer. A slowly raised Cx can roost with the best but they are prone to bumble foot if they have to land too heavily. My A-frame tractors have the roosts only a few feet off the ground and they do well with those. Roosts should be wide for all chickens.

I am not a chicken expert. I don't sweat it too much and just learn by doing. The big thing is to cull while you can still eat them or have nothing to show for feeding a boat load of chickens. I also agree with Beekissed. "who cares if they breed true?" I have the same goals she does. I want a decent growing set of drumsticks with breasts with a broad range of genetics to keep them vigorous.

My Chantecler on the other hand, I am trying to breed back to the original type.