Breeding Meat Chickens

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Dark Cornish + Barred Rock = SUPER CHICKEN!

DW and I are always looking for ways to save money on our farm. We started buying meat chickens from a mail order hatchery, but we don't save any money on them vs. buying from the store. We do it anyway because we like being self-sufficient and our chickens are "free range" and "organic" which fetch a higher price than store-bought chicken.

After doing a little research, I may have found a way to save us even more on our meat birds...breed our own. The meat chicks we buy from the hatchery are basically a cross between two breeds of chicken: a White Cornish rooster and a White Rock hen. The result is called a Cornish X. The Cornish have broad breasts, but lack thickness. The Rocks have thick breasts that lack width. Put them together, and you've got the ideal meat bird.

The problem is that no hatcheries sell White Cornish and White Rocks. Why would they? If everyone started their own meat flock, they wouldn't have a market for their own crosses. (By the way, if you're wondering why you can't just breed a couple of Cornish X's, it doesn't work. Cornish X's grow so quickly they likely wouldn't live to egg laying age, and if they did, they don't lay consistently.) So, what do we do?

Well, the hatcheries do sell two very similar chickens: a Dark Cornish and Barred Rock. They don't mind selling these, because many people don't like the dark plummage. It doesn't make for as pretty a dressed bird because some of the dark pin feathers are still visible. These two breeds are almost exactly like their white brethren, so why not breed them here and have our own meat flock? We don't mind the dark plummage because we're not selling them to picky customers.

The next time we order a batch of Cornish X, we'll have them throw in two or three Dark Cornish roosters. We already have the Barred Rocks. Talking to a chicken breeder on-line, he said we'd be "pleasantly surprised" with the results.

I love farming for fun.

This Weekend

This weekend was again busy. There is so much to do outside, but the weather is great this time of year.

Saturday I mowed the rest of the pasture I hadn't gotten to at the end of the summer. It was only about 1 acre, but my lawnmower had gotten flats in both tires. I had them filled with foam so they'll never go flat again. It was a little expensive, but it beats repairing 4-5 flats per year.

I also put a screen door on our back porch. The chickens love to hang out back there and it has been COVERED in chicken poop constantly. Now we can actually keep it clean.

DW and I did a little work in the garden. I've noticed the weeds are beginning their first offensive of the year, and I fully intend on staying ahead of them. Last year they took over the whole garden (mostly because we didn't have a tiller) and it took A LOT of work to get them under control. I don't intend on letting them get a head start on me this year. I'm not going to try to have a weed free garden, I just don't want to let them take over again.

By the way, our chicks hatched on Saturday. We originally set 17, found out 3 were not fertilized and removed them, and hatched 11. I think 11 out of 14 is pretty good. That's a 79% hatch rate. Most cheap incubators can only boast about a 50-60% hatch rate, so we're extremely happy. DW reconfigured the incubator by raising the thermostat a little higher and moving the light bulb higher and to a more central location. The goal was to be able to set more eggs, and have a more even temp throughout the incubator. Hopefully it will improve our hatch rate. She was so excited and hovered over the incubator like a mother hen all day. She couldn't wait, and immediately set 26 more eggs. Her goal is to set three batches and then stop. If you want to see pics of the hatching, check out DW's blog at http://reginaorganizedchoas.blogspot.com/2008/03/chicks-hatching.html

Preggers?

We have had quite the conundrum with finding out whether our cow Chloe is pregnant or not. We have tried to draw blood three times. Only once did we get enough to test her. That test came back as a "Open (meaning not pregnant) with recommendation to retest". That means her hormone levels weren't high enough to indicate pregnancy, but higher than a normal cow's.

This past Friday the AI technician came by to AI Pumpkin, our second Jersey. He agreed to palpate Chloe since it had been about three or four months since she'd been AI'd. We hadn't noticed any heats, but we hadn't noticed any when we thought she was preganant before, so she could have very hard to detect heats. To add to the confusion, the AI guy couldn't tell if she was bred or not when he palpated her. Her uterus is too far decended into her body and he couldn't pull it up to feel it. Luckily, he agreed to come by today with his ultrasound machine on his way back to town from another client.

And the verdict is?.........

NOT BRED!

We're not having good luck with this cow and pregnancies. What makes it worse is that she will not even be remotely marketable until she's close to calving, so this adds another 3 months to the time we're feeding a cow that is giving us nothing. Don't get me wrong. I love Chloe. I wish we could keep her, but we got a cow as an investment and so far she's only given us 4 months of milk in the year we've had her. I've contemplated turning her into hamburger, but just considering her original purchase price of $1800, she'd come out to somewhere in the neighborhood of $3.50 /lb. Not to mention the just plain stupidity of slaughtering a perfectly good milk cow. Oh well. There's nothing for it but to try again. The vet gave her a shot that should bring her into heat on Wednesday, at which time he'll come out and AI her again.

On the bright side, when the vet was using the ultrasound machine he said everything looked healthy in there. At least we know she can be bred.

11. "Thou shall not pollute."

I found this news article this morning that was very interesting.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/03/10/eavatican110.xml

I'm not anti-Catholic, although there are many things about Catholicism that make me scratch my head. I just found this kind of funny. The Vatican has apparently created the "modern 7 deadly sins." The original deadly sins (sloth, envy, gluttony, greed, lust, wrath and pride) are "the sins of yesteryear". The goal is to get people to realize how their sins effect other people. According to the Catholic church (not the Bible, mind you), the "mortal sins" are much more serious than other sins and will land you in Hell if unrepented of before death. Here are the 7 new deadly sins:

1. Genetic modification

2. Carrying out experiments on humans

3. Polluting the environment (Well, driving my car is out so I guess I'm walking home this afternoon)

4. Causing social injustice (that one's a little vague, don't you think?)

5. Causing poverty (Even more vague...how are we defining "poverty"? There are probably quite a few people in India who would LOVE to live just below the poverty line in America)

6. Becoming obscenely wealthy (What is "obscene"? Is there a number involved here? Is $50 million per year obscene or just immodest? Would $200,000 per year be unwholesome? I need more to go off of here.)

7. Taking drugs (I hope they don't mean over the counter drugs, because I took some Motrin when I had the flu)

Seriously though, I'm just poking fun. I know the Catholics mean well, it's just another one of those puzzling things they do. In my mind, it's just man making up more rules. Being rich is never described as a sin in the Bible. Neither is gambling, but both make you vulnerable to greed and materialism, which ARE ACTUAL SINS. Anyway, I couldn't help it. I had to have a little fun with this.

My Favorite President

My mother-in-law sent me some quotes from Ronald Reagan that I had to share. He had his faults like any other president, but so far he has been my favorite. His wit is unmatched.

'The most terrifying word s in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'

'The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so.'

'Of the four wars in my lifetime, none came about because the U.S. was too strong.'

'I have wondered at times about what the Ten Commandments would have looked like if Moses had run them through the U.S. Congress.'

'The taxpayer: That's someone who works for the federal government but doesn't have to take the civil service examination.'

'Government is like a baby: An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.'

'The nearest thing to eternal life we will ever see on this earth is a government program.'

'I've laid down the law, though, to everyone from now on about anything that happens: no matter what time it is, wake me, even if it's in the middle of a Cabinet meeting.'

'It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first.'

'Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.'

'Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed, there are many rewards; if you disgrace yourself, you can always write a book.'

'No arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is as formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women.'

The first words spoken to his wife after being shot by an assassin: 'Honey, I forgot to duck.'

'We're not going to go to war with Iran. They're not that stupid.'

'If we ever forget that we're one nation under God, then we will be a nation goneunder.'

Incubation - Day 11

DW candled our eggs last night. Candling means you turn out all the lights and hold a strong light right up to the egg. You're looking for dark spots inside to indicate the embryo inside is growing like it should. If the egg is completely clear then you know it's a dud.

We saw dark areas in all but 1 egg. We even saw the embryo moving inside the egg. Regina was very excited but it creeped me out a little. Ever seen the movie Aliens? Yeah, it looked like that (to me anyway). So hopefully in 10 days we'll have 16 little chicks added to our brooder.

We also found out we can't get a pig for 7 more weeks. I called the local pig salesman, and he said he didn't have any piglets to sell. His sows usually farrow in January, but he didn't have any this year. He did have some that just farrowed, so their piglets will be weaned and ready to sell in 6-7 weeks.

DW and I also decided to buy a generator. We were thinking the other day that we have probably close to $1000 in food in our refrigerator and freezer. We're coming up on the stormier and warmer months here in out part of Texas when the power goes out the most. A generator is really an insurance policy to protect our investment in food. We'll pick one up next week.

Lesson Learned

We moved our meat birds out to the chicken tractor the other day because they were getting too big for the brooder. We were a little timid about the cold nights, but said if got too cold at night we'd either put them back in the brooder or hang the heat lamp inside the tractor.

Yesterday was very windy but warm. We new there was a chance of rain, but didn't bother to check how cold it would get. I guess we were lulled into a false sense of security. Last night it stormed pretty good and the wind blew like crazy.

I went out this morning to a very chilly wind. I dreaded the worst and went to check on the meat birds. Sure enough, eight had died of exposure during the night. I was hopeful they had all been able to huddle together for warmth behind the plywood wind break a put up, but these were laying out away from it. I'm guessing the combination of being wet and the near freezing wind chill was just too much for them.

So, rather than sulk about only having 13 meat birds left, let's review what I've learned from this:

- If we're going to get meat birds this time of year I need to be a diligent weather checker
- Maybe we should wait until the last average frost to get meat birds. They can't stay in the brooder more than three weeks, and the weather extremes might be too much.
- If it's going to get below 40 degrees at night (or any time), we need to hang the heat lamp out there, at a minimum.

Oh well. Lesson learned.