Ch. 9 POULTRY TESTERS *** New Thread***

Carla,
I've PM'd you with the other two choices I've made plus some other info.
Heather

 

Carla,

I know that many links have the shelf life of a fruit fly, but I think the following are at sites that should be here for awhile. It would be really handy to have a section of each page dedicated to a "link box".

For poultry I recommend ATTRA's article on how to slaughter chickens. See http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/PDF/poultryprocess.pdf

For a "pastured poultry" discussion see ATTRA's http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/PDF/pasturedpoultry.pdf

 

Hi all: Can ya'll handle another newbie? I'd like to sign up for the Poultry chapter. Do I use the 9th edition or wait for Carla to send me the copy from the 10th edition? Thanks!
Heather

 

just testing...after not being able to get on the website for quite some time...if this works, I will post a gob of stuff I have been writing down tommoorrow or Monday. (it is 1:00 am now...and I really HAVE to get some sleep) I hope this works..and sorry I havn't been able to post lately!!

 

Congratulations on saving the chick's life, Lisa A. The best chicken moms are ones who were raised by a chicken mom. Ones that come from hatcheries may have instincts, but they have zero experience.

Marchwind, I'm missing the News. How about a PM?

Narita, do PM me and let me know how your husband is.

 

Our chickens are doing great. They are so fun. We pick vegies and give them household scraps. They are laying between 6 and 8 eggs a day (9 hens). We sell eggs as we can't use that many. We clean out the pen with a rake. As we are in the hot desert, we water down their pen every day. I feed them my garden insects, half eaten vegies, etc. We have barred rocks and highly recommend them. Privett Hatchery in NM is where we purchased them and are very happy with them.

 

Thanks for that update on your chickens! That is a nice idea to update on how everyone is doing!

My chickens are doing really well! I have no idea where they are laying their eggs though :x That is one of the down sides of free range! Lately I have had a fox, I think, come and help him/herself to some of the chickens. It has saved me the work of having to do in one of my roos He would have been a tough old bird anyway!

I rearranged the coop yesterday. Put in some nest boxes, and moved the roosts. Now the girls are too scared to go in at night cause things are different. So strange! I got them all rounded up and in last night and left them in for awhile this morning. I had one of them checking out the new nest boxes too! It isn't dark yet but they are still milling around outside the coop. You would think I moved the whole coop and gave them a new house, sheesh! They will get it all figured out in a day or so I'm not too worried!

My DS#2 came up with an idea for the nest boxes so we tried it. I was putting up two shelves wide enought to sit orange creats, dish pans, 5 gallon buckets on for nest boxes. One set of brackets my son wanted to use had holders for a dowel to hook onto. He thought it would amke a good roost infront of the nest boxes. In practice it didn't work as the shelf was too wide and covered the roost. Then he had a thought! The bracket is a metal L-shaped bracket with another support so it is actually shaped like a right triangle. He put the shelf through the triangle so it was resting on the slanted side of the triangle. The shelf was at an angle to the wall with the roost infront of it. At first I thought no way that's dumb! Then I though about it and through it might actually be brilliant I filled the trough (the board at the angle to the wall) with hay. I fugure the hens can either sit on the roost or in the trough and lay eggs. Seems like it could work and the eggs would be really accessible. I'll let you know how it works!

So with the new set up in the coop I have all the nest boxes and the roosts in the back of the coop (old barn). There is a makeshift wall with a door that seperates the front from the back. So I figure the chieckens with hang out in the back on the roosts at night. The ducks and geese will hang out in front. I can close the door and the chickens will be fine there during the day while I am at work and I"ll have the eggs no problem. Once the snow flys I can let them out again! The fox only sems to come around in the spring through summer months. Family time I guess!

 

Heather don't apologize for repeat testing that is a plus to all of us.

For catching chickens during the day time we have great success using a LARGE landing net. Sometimes you can catch more than one at a time

 

9th Edition: Freezing Whole Eggs
I've looked through this entire forum and haven't found where this has been tested yet, but if it has I apologize for posting repeat information.

My Barred Rocks and Dominickers (sp?) have just started laying about 3 weeks ago and are already producing enough eggs to preserve . I have about 14 hens and 12 roos left (we sent 8 roos to the freezer a couple weeks ago and will send another 9 or 10 next week). I'm getting on average of 10 eggs a day. One day we found 18...assuming we missed a few from the night before. Anyway, I chose the above way of preserving them and have found that it works very well. I was wondering what the addition of salt to the eggs is for though. Does it help preserve them or just for taste? I do not cook with salt, except for a very few exceptions in canning. If I could leave the salt out and have them last the same amount of time in the freezer, that would be wonderful! Guess I could test this, but do not really want to take the chance of harming the eggs...I'm so proud of my chickens .
Heather

 

Hi Heather! Welcome to TESTERS!!! I will immediately put you on the list for a copy of the 10th edition Poultry Chapter. Please PM or e-mail me your snail mail addy and phone number. And do be thinking about which other two 10th chapters you want. In the meantime (sometimes I'm slooooow ), it's fine to work out of the 9th edition. When you have the 10th, you'll have some recipes that aren't in the 9th but, actually, most of them are the same. Our Fearless Leader of the Poultry people, Marchwind, has made a list of all the 9th edition and new 10th edition recipes left to be tested. And it doesn't hurt a bit if one gets tested more than once--gives me another opinion to weigh in!
Gratefully,
Carla

 

Has anyone ever tried building the hen house and/or nesting boxes out of cedar? Would that add any benefit to controling mites or fleas and would the hens stay in such a place?

 

This is the new thread for all poultry testers as of May 4th, 2003!! PLEASE post HERE on this thread.



10th Edition Recipes that need testing

Chicken

Eggs

Meringue

Bud Jones Breakfast

Shirred eggs 4

Deviled eggs 5

Custard Pie

Basic Custard Pie

Huevos Rancheros

Dumpling Soup

Instant breakfast 4

Quick Eggy Ice Cream

Dyes

Onion Skin Package 5

Dandelion and Pine Needle Eggs
___________________________
Spiced Pickled Eggs

Clove Pickled Eggs

Beet Red Eggs

Soy Eggs

Dilly Eggs

Freezing Whites and Yolks Seperately

Modern Home Dried Eggs ?

Lime/Salt Preserved Eggs

Tropical Salt Solution

Waterglass Method

Mineral Oil Eggs
______________________

Fried Livers and Hearts

Plain Pate

Gourmet Seasoned Pate

Chicken-Foot Stock or Soup

Barb-B-Qued Bird 4

Halved Broiler

Quartered Bird

Canned Giblets and Broth

Curried Chicken

Hungarian Paprika Chicken

Chinese Sweet/Sour Chicken

"Cream" of Chicken Soup 2

Chicken, Wheat, Veggie Stew

Chicken and Dressing

Ivey's Chicken Loaf

Gertrude's Chicken Spread

Feather Stuffed Clothing

Old-Time Quill Pens

Turkeys


Canned Turkey, Rabbit, Small Game or Poultry

Turkey Broiler

Pan-Fried Turkey

Leftover Turkey and Rice

Ducks


Garden-Stuffed Ducks

Basic Roast Duck

Roast Duck with Orange Juice

Fried Duck

Geese


Trussing a Goose

Testing a Bird for Doneness

Braised Gosling

Warmed-over Goose in Gravy

Potato-Stuffed Goose

Goose Stuffed with Sauerkraut

Prune-Apple Stuffed Goose

***********************************************
Broiled Samll Bird

Roasted Samll Bird

Pigeon and Squab Recipes


Jellied Pigeon

Roasted Pigeon

Peas 'n Pigeon

Brioled Squab

Pigeon Roasted in Grape Leaves

Pigeon Pot Pie

Roasted Squab

Elegant Pigeon

Baked Pigeon

Squab and Rice Soup

 

I HAD to play in the egg dye section for Easter!!!!!!!!Dorothy

p. 656
Homemade E.E. dyes #5
onion skin #5 onion skins one of my favorites
food coloring & vinegar #5
precooked dyes #5
flower pattern eggs #5 we only had a couple flowers here in Colo. but I did use the flower from my shamrock plant & then we cut some designs from wax paper...that was cool.

Here are some other natural combos/info. to cook the dye first use 1qt. water w/2 TBL white vinegar.

4Tbl. tumeric w/water vinegar combo. above = yellow
you can use coffee, red cabbage=blue, beets, onion skins. Instead of tying with string use various widths of rubberbands.

 

Chicken Diet Options
page 630, 9th Edition

I disagree greatly with the fact that grit is not needed right away. Chick grit sprinkled on the feed, as you would salt your own food, provides the right amount for young chicks with no real danger of over-gorging on grit. Later on you can provide it free choice. Pasting up of vents can cause loss of life quickly and unnecessarily. Should a chick paste up from lack of grit, offer grit of course, but gently clean its bum with a warm damp cloth. Work the dried poop off gently. Then use an over the counter antibiotic cream on the vent for protection of the sore place.

Anne
BCR

 

though I do most of the butchering at our house. my loving wife, Heather knows just about as much as i do when it comes to the cutting up of the animals.
and yes it was me who posted last night.
thanks,
Brett

 

9th ed. pg. 660 -
to get the neck and head into the right position and keep it there - we put two long nails in the chopping block (aka tree stump) a little smaller than the wideth of the chicken's head. Place the head infront of the nails and pull the body back. This stretches out the neck and holds the chicken in place. Works good with rabbits, too, only replace the nails for the size of the rabbit head.
Debbie

 

9th ed. pg. 660 - We've tried most all of the ways of killing the chickens. This one is time consuming when doing more than a couple of birds but works in a pinch.
Debbie

 

We really did not like doing this one and didn't find it any easier to remove the feathers.
Debbie