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2018 Poultry Projects

3K views 37 replies 15 participants last post by  barnbilder 
#1 ·
Anybody have any projects coming up in 2018?

I plan on continuing to improve my New Hampshire flock for meat/egg production and sop.

I am also going to add a new leghorn flock to increase egg production as well as work on them over the years for fast growing fryers.

Also starting a breeding project with some Blue Andalusians (hopefully). Tracking down some good birds is harder than I thought. I thought I had a lead on some but the breeder no longer has them. I expect this project to take a few years if not 5 minimum. Hoping to have a neat blue bird when done that will be a good dual purpose white egg layer.

Hopefully this will get me to become a better record keeper. I hate doing the paper work, but i"m gonna have to to keep things straight over the years. Also I've just been using colored leg bands for identification. I'll probably start using a toe punch and leg bands.
 
#4 ·
Yes, Olive Eggers.
Mostly for fun, been using Welsummer over blue laying EE's,
got some nice ones but it's a crap shoot with the EE,
often 50% brown layer offspring.
I did sell a group of those hens in spring of 2017, 3 OE and 2 brn.


Now that I have the BCM over CCL, should be guaranteed OE and I may sell some chicks.
Yes, tabletop Incuview, my foamy kinda crapped out so I splurged during a sale.
Hoping it works great...if so, may hatch more BCMxCCL for sale.
 
#6 ·
I culled the bourbon red turkeys hard this fall, and kept only 5 back for breeding in 2018. Toying with the idea of a batch of poults to add new blood, it's needed in my flock.
Breeding for SOP (including size) with an emphasis on hens brooding their own eggs. The brooding trait seems largely bred out of domestic turkeys. I have been working with my flock 4 years now towards retaining hatching ability in hens.
 
#13 ·
Turkey's are neat. I was thinking of getting some Bourbons for meat purposes.

Is it a longer road with turkey's than it is with chickens when breeding up a strain? I'd imagine you have a lot less to work with. Less eggs, less chicks to pick from, and less birds to work with.

Good luck with Bourbons. I'm not sure how related this may be, but I worked with a lot of Bobwhites, Quail forever biologists, and some discussions with our state biologists. Wild Bobwhites are dying out all over the country and are gone from my state here in PA. The wild Bobwhite's can lose their nesting instincts in as little as 2 generations in captivity. Pen raised birds would not brood chicks when released into the wild. Hopefully the turkey's have retained some of those instincts.
 
#7 ·
Nothing fancy here planned.
Will cull some of the older hens. Just coming out of molt so everybody gets cut slack now :)
Going to try to get a few new birds crossing big hens with bantam roosters.
And or maybe get lucky and find a few pullets on CL that somebody overbought chicks.
Hatching more bantams. All clean legs. Extra roosters will get sold.
Ducks. I want to hatch some Cayugas. I have 2 male, 5 females in this group.
so hopefully they oblige me. First got to get some eggs out of them. Maybe they
should take some lessons from the Khaki girls.
 
#8 ·
Sounds like a fun project, good luck with it. How's the temperament on the Legbars?
Thanks.
They are nice little birds, they reminded me of roadrunners when younger,
with that crest and dashing around like young chickens do.
Not real 'friendly', but I didn't handle or hand feed them much as chicks.
Got 2 as day olds(they were actually only about 18 hours old) locally in late May.
They merged right in with the 1 and 2wk older chicks.
#1 seems to be struggling with the cold and went semi-broody in Nov.
#2 seems to love going out in the snow.
Both probably middle/low in the pecking order.
Their eggs are not gaining size as quickly as I'd like.
 
#9 ·
We need a new chicken coup this year. Bigger, hardened, and to suit my geek streak, more automated. It will also have a hardened, covered run (we get lots of rain), and provision of adding new hens to the flock.
 
#16 ·
Sorry to hear this. Any chance of getting a replacement soon?

This cold and wind has been brutal on my flocks. I lost a few birds from my laying flock and my New Hampshires have some frostbite issues. Gonna have to wait for a warm up to see how bad the damage is. I've never had an issue with frostbite in my flock before. Maybe a little bit on one tip or something, but this looks like almost whole combs.
Eh, probably not, don't think the place where I got the chicks would sell a hen or pullet, they breed, hatch and ship chicks. They wouldn't sell me hatching eggs. Not to mention it would probably be too rich for my budget. The pullet chicks were 15 each, I should really splurged and got 3 of them. Also the space, quarantine, and integration aspects of adding birds at this time of year would be chaos.
I'll just have to work with what I have and maybe get a couple more pullet chicks when I hatch in late winter.

The cold has been rough, we've had a couple weeks where it didn't get out of the teens.....and we've gotten 2-3 feet of snow. Thaw started last night with ice then a couple more inches of snow. BCM cockerel had some nasty FB on his huge wattle(one of his wattles is withered and very small) from noshing on the snow banks, it was actually bleeding a bit, but not swollen, and looks OK now. He'll lose part of it. His very tips are nipped too. I've found the worst FB happens when the temps get closer to 32F and the humidity rises. Plus that snow eating thing eventually gets even the hens wattles. SMH.
 
#17 ·
Where are you located? I will be purchasing CL and BC Marans in the spring and will keep a
BCM roo. I have never had FB in my chicks but then I live in NC
Thanks.
They are nice little birds, they reminded me of roadrunners when younger,
with that crest and dashing around like young chickens do.
Not real 'friendly', but I didn't handle or hand feed them much as chicks.
Got 2 as day olds(they were actually only about 18 hours old) locally in late May.
They merged right in with the 1 and 2wk older chicks.
#1 seems to be struggling with the cold and went semi-broody in Nov.
#2 seems to love going out in the snow.
Both probably middle/low in the pecking order.
Their eggs are not gaining size as quickly as I'd like.
Sorry to hear this. Any chance of getting a replacement soon?

This cold and wind has been brutal on my flocks. I lost a few birds from my laying flock and my New Hampshires have some frostbite issues. Gonna have to wait for a warm up to see how bad the damage is. I've never had an issue with frostbite in my flock before. Maybe a little bit on one tip or something, but this looks like almost whole combs.
 
#19 ·
I have wanted to get into raising SQ Silkies for awhile but I just keep losing the prettiest ones to one thing or another and the ones that live are the lessor quality. I often lose a chicken here and there to something stupid like a dish overturned for too long. I am great at looking for that kind of thing but my children are not. I just lost the most amazing Wheaten Silkie Rooster to a feed dish this morning :( I had 20 silkies last fall before some neighbors dog came in, lost a couple in cold snap and today i have 3. I have lost A LOT of birds over the years. Far more than I want to admit. I want to stop buying birds and just be able to keep amazing birds year around. I have lots of experience on what NOT to do lol!!

But anyways I want 2018 to be the year I finally do it all "right" I am struggling between trying again with Silkies or trying another bantam breed to raise for 4H. i love the gray silkies the most! I just get some Tractor Supply chicks for my egg layers.
 
#20 ·
When I went off the grid nearly 4 years ago I had to ditch the incubators, because the solar system was too small to run incubators. Since upgrading the system I think incubators could be done, but at the end of the day, what is the purpose of keeping a heritage breed that wont reproduce on its own? I want to retain some semblance of self sufficiency which has evidently been bred right out of them.

Yes, they are trickier to raise. My own hens lay ok during breeding season and fertility is good but turkeys can be just plain dumb. Two years back, I had a tom who would try to sit on eggs and broke them all, no kidding!!!
My brood hens break lots of eggs, and don't wait until their clutch is fully laid to commence brooding their eggs. That means at hatch time, you have one or maybe two poults hatching a day, and the hens wont get off the nest to feed or water the first ones to hatch as the later chicks are hatching. On the other side of this coin, they will sit on bad eggs for literally months, and even after my breaking up the nest and breaking the bad eggs they will sometimes continue to try and set.
I do find it necessary to take the poults away from Mom to give them at least a chance. Turkeys are horrible mamas, they lose chicks constantly.
I take the poults and brood them off the ground which reduces pathogen exposure while very young. The mom hens are devoted to be sure, and will hang around the brooding hutch to be near their young. Just, too stupid to be trusted with the poults until they get some size to them. After a month or 6 weeks it is usually OK to give them back to Mama, who in my experience has no problems accepting them.

My numbers haven't been increasing, mostly because I cull hard every November but I keep two toms (show winners, don't even bother with less than the best) and my biggest most faithful setter hens back every year for the next generation of freezer turkey and replacement breeders. I have a total of 7 years in with the breed and still retain brood from my original stock.

Did I mention I need some new blood?

Turkey's are neat. I was thinking of getting some Bourbons for meat purposes.

Is it a longer road with turkey's than it is with chickens when breeding up a strain? I'd imagine you have a lot less to work with. Less eggs, less chicks to pick from, and less birds to work with.

Good luck with Bourbons. I'm not sure how related this may be, but I worked with a lot of Bobwhites, Quail forever biologists, and some discussions with our state biologists. Wild Bobwhites are dying out all over the country and are gone from my state here in PA. The wild Bobwhite's can lose their nesting instincts in as little as 2 generations in captivity. Pen raised birds would not brood chicks when released into the wild. Hopefully the turkey's have retained some of those instincts.
 
#21 ·
My projects: cull my rooster, get a new one... I'm not sure what breed yet. But one without feather feet. Get my new coop and pen built. I'll probably get more chicks but later in the year, and then butcher my jersey giants since they're not great layers anyhow.

I'm deciding if I should continue doing the dual purpose route or if I should get some hens that are better for egg production. I feel like the dual purpose is getting too expensive feed wise.
 
#22 ·
Ordered a hundred Cornish Cross chicks from a local hatchery. They'll be housed in two or three (depending on how heavy I feel like making them) mobile broiler coops and moved daily to fresh pasture grass. Mixed species pasture, the chickens get to add nitrogen. I'd like to do more: with the right inputs grass explodes here in the spring weather in Western Oregon. But I would need to find a market for more chickens.

Also ordered 50 straight run Speckled Sussex. I'll cull all but a few males and keep the females as a pasture-based laying flock. The existing backyard chicken flock -- a mix of laying breeds that look pretty :) -- will get to enjoy their relative privacy for the next season, but then we'll see...might try use that space for hens that are broody.
 
#30 ·
Yep I'm a big believer in a good safe setup. Chicks stay inside so i can hear them they will let you know if they are happy campers or not. Safe easy to clean coop and run is a must. Free range here means they are on the porch knocking on the door. Or in my flower beds pooping every were. So runs are a must for me. I have elecrtic incase its needed for heat or to keep water from freezing. Good feedmakes good birds. Start small and see how you like it.
 
#27 ·
Rooster was culled. My friend from China showed us how she kills chickens, it was very easy and quick, no mess. He was a good rooster. Then she chopped him up, bones n all, and stewed him. It was an experience... but I don't think I'll cook a chicken like that again. I'm not one of those people that likes eating the weird bone parts. Hubby loved it, though.
 
#29 ·
Well, there were 3 people holding, but really could be done with 2, or even one strong person. Person 1 held the rooster behind the upper wing, person 2 pulled the head back and slit throat over a bucket lined with a garbage bag, and person 3 held the legs. After slicing throat, rooster was held over the bucket for about 5 minutes, and then directly into big pot of boiling water for maybe 3 minutes? Maybe longer, just until feathers started schluffing off. We defeathered him, cleaned him up, and then cut into like 2 inch chunks, bone included. We used a hatchet that's intended for deer carcasses. I have a heavy bone knife around here somewhere, but couldn't find it.

Also!! My ameraucana hens are laying finally!! 9 eggs in 2 days (from 10 altogether). I'm stoked! Egg mania!!!
 
#34 ·
I'm debating on my next project. I had almost a total loss of birds in my last batch of Cornish X... I don't think it was from normal Cornish X death reasons, I think my layers were beating them up because my second year of layers aren't very friendly (first year got handled a lot more since they were new -- only 2 of them left and they are past their prime but the wife doesn't want to eat them because they are the friendliest (and broodiest)) second year we had a newborn kid that kept us pretty busy, this past year I saw how much of a pain the girls that didn't get handled much were so I made a better effort of handling the batch from last year so they would be friendlier.

I've wanted to put a second coop up for a couple of years now to keep meat birds in one coop and layers in the other but I don't really have the money to build my second coop just yet, so I'm debating about building a small tractor or two to put the meat birds in a tractor so they are still separated from the layers and use them to help clean up some overgrown field that I want to add on to our garden this year.

Either that or put the grumpy old girls in the stock pot... I think I know which ones are the problem but I might have to take out a few more than necessary to make sure I eliminate the mean ones because they all act so innocent when I'm around (but there are a couple that are on my list just because I don't like their personalities... one that isn't friendly and is very annoying cussing at me anytime I'm close, another that is more daring than others and tests me to get out the door when I don't want them outside (and has made it out a couple of times to the point that I just quit caring, if she's outside and gets eaten by a predator....good that'll teach her! she was looking pretty hungry and afraid after she got out before we left for a 3 day weekend that she spent out roaming alone). I'm finding that selling eggs isn't all it's cracked up to be anyways... can't even break even when people see eggs in the store for under $1 a dozen so thinking we might just scale back to provide eggs for ourselves like we started in our first year and call it good.
 
#36 ·
Build a stationary coop for winter housing. I went in innocent and thought they could stay in a mobile coop in winter. I've been in Illinois only 4 years now and this is the first year I've seen serious snow and cold this long term. Soooo, yeah. Lost a whole lot of chickens this year.
 
#37 ·
I'm a week past when I was supposed to butcher my first batch of 30 Cornish x for the season but so far I've only managed to butcher 10 of them so I decided yesterday it was time for an upgrade and bought a yard bird plucker to speed the process up. Had been skinning the birds then cutting the meat off the carcass, may still cut some off but hoping the plucker will be a whole lot faster than skinning so I can hopefully process the rest of them in a couple hours or less.
 

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#38 ·
My poultry plans, as far as harvesting meat are concerned, is to throw some scratch grains in the general direction of the woods beside the house where I stocked a few hens and a rooster earlier this spring. Maybe once every few days. More often as the first and second broods get kicked out for their mom's second and third broods to be incubated.

In the fall, if something catches my eye, it might be captured for a breeding pen, otherwise I will wait for the leaves to fall and shoot a few out as needed, around roosting time, making sure to leave a few hens for next year's crop. I managed to catch a glimpse of a hen the other day, looked like she had at least a dozen babies. Another has deposited her brood up near the barn, they are half grown, she has gone back to set again. Those young are hanging out with a couple broods of replacement layers that I managed to hatch out under a couple of hens that went broody early, back when the vegetation was more sparse and possible to find them in it. There are some roosters in that bunch that will be eaten as well, if they manage to take cues from their wilder cousins and survive predation. Four or five laying hen replacements is all I need, and should get that out of those two broods, plus another I managed to find the other day and swap out the eggs.

The layers, mostly wyandotte, don't fly high enough, early enough to suit their foster moms, and they usually deposit them at the barn, and go off to find a rooster to raise some proper chicks with. The layer pullets will be pulled out as soon as they can be differentiated, and finished out in the layer coop and attached pen that is predator proof, which is where dumb chickens live. Thinking of ditching the wyandottes and the few red stars altogether, and switching to leghorns, to see how they would fare under my management system. I think they might have better survival skills that would mesh better with the foster moms, allowing less freeloading, hanging out at the barn waiting on grain spills instead of out catching bugs, that the wyandotte mixes are prone to. The only thing that worries me is that I might not be able to differentiate as easily, and could allow leghorn genetics to creep into my chick raisers, and that wouldn't be good.
 
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