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livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] chicken breeds

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Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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  • From: "John D'hondt" <dhondt@eircom.net>
  • To: "Healthy soil and sustainable growing" <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] chicken breeds
  • Date: Mon, 2 May 2011 20:51:40 +0100


I would say your best choice depends on what is available locally Barbara especially with worsening economic conditions in mind. I know for a fact that rabbits or even guinea pigs are much more economical to keep than chickens. If you have nothing but free greens available then I would go for one of these. They are what kept my great grand parents, grandparents and parents alive during two world wars in Flanders.
Chickens do need grain of some sort and unless you can grow what you need yourself I would think twice and ideally they need some protein under the form of fish or loads of insects to do well. I am just a few miles away from free sea fish and sea weed and sea shells that are needed to keep egg shells sound. Without that I would not have as many free range chckens as I do.

I think these questions are much more important than what breed to go for. I have a mixture of 8-9 different ones interbreeding. No problem and quite a qeautiful variety. There are good and less good chickens in any breed and of any color and to my mind it is useless to waste energy on deciding what color you would prefer.

There is only one choice to make as far as I can see and that is whether you want to pamper modern commercial breeds that are slaughter ready in about 40 days but need high quality care every day OR you want birds that can more or less take care of themselves free range, that will survive harsh winters but that will take a minimum of 8-9 months before they have put on enough weight to make it worth stoking up the oven. The first variety have huge gobs of white breast meat and can hardly walk and the second will have so much dark meat that people here hardly recognise it has chicken any more. We let our chickens get on with their own breeding and never use an incubator and that in itself is very rare these days. There is hardly a chicken left that can hatch out her eggs succesfully in most of the world today.

Another aspect I was thinking about is that it is imperative in a survival situation that you can do the deed yourself without having to pay a processor to do it for you. You will find that this is more expensive than buying a chicken oven ready. I can kill, pluck (by hand, we use as few machines as possible) and dress a chicken in less than 20 minutes as can all of my children. I have a three year old grand daughter who likes to get involved in plucking. I mean it is no rocket science and it is stress free for the victim for they have no time to worry and the actual killing is over in a fraction of a second with a flick of the wrist so there is no pain involved.

John


Still debating raising my own chickens. I get my eggs from a neighbor
that free-ranges them, but they do get some commercial feed. But, I am
finding it next to impossible to locate a good source of pasture-raised
meat (any kind) that will sell small cuts/packages that I don't need a
huge freezer for. So I'm thinking meat birds, that I can cull on an
as-needed basis. What are good breeds for:
1. greater percentage of dark meat (so many meat birds boast huge
gobs of breast meat which I end up feeding the cats--hmm, not a bad idea
save on cat food--but they have skinny little thighs),
2. hardy for New England winters,
3. disease resistant/easy care in general
4. can pack on the pounds with free-range/minimal protein feed

And would it be efficient enough to slaughter one or 2 birds at a time,
or would it be better to have a processor do a bunch of them? But then I
am back to needing a big freezer...

...or, meat rabbits?

thanks,
Barbara M, Foster, RI

--
"Animals Are A Gift"

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