Miscellaneous information

Chicken care tidbits

Caring for chickens--a complete primer by My Pet Chicken
On buying "sexed" birds
Salmonella in chickens
Oops we got a rooster!
Easier chicken poo cleanup

Delaware chickens

I keep a couple of breeds of chickens, and this is one of my favorites. I started keeping them when I lived on a 50x100 lot in the middle of Portland. I wanted a quieter, more docile breed and they fit the bill! They are an excellent dual purpose bird, as they lay 4-5 eggs a week and grow very meaty in a relatively short amount of time. When we came out to the country, I decided I wanted a large flock of the birds. I thought they were all sexed girls but ended up with a rooster. Perfect setup for fertile eggs! I sell them locally and can ship as well. I have had many very happy purchasers which you can read about here.

The eggs vary from pinkish to brown.

My stud roo

The flock crowding the door. They are excited to see me!

Typical markings

This is a funny Easter video, in which my son Guy decides his "Peep" candy is gross and feeds it to the chickens. But the video shows off the Delawares well.

Here's what the American livestock breeds conservancy has to say on this breed: http://albc-usa.org/cpl/delaware.html
And a writeup through slow foods international: http://www.slowfoodusa.org/index.php/programs/ark_product_detail/delaware_chicken/

One of my Delawares likes to give me double yolkers. Look at the size difference!

Chicken hatching eggs for sale

Hatching eggs

Delaware egg

This page is dedicated to individuals that I've sold hatching eggs to and their feedback. Thanks everyone!

Australorp eggs (coming soon!)

Salmonella in chickens

I got a newsletter from My Pet Chicken, who I have bought most of my birds from. They've updated their section on salmonella which I read and thought was very interesting. http://www.mypetchicken.com/backyard-chickens/chicken-help/search.aspx?helpSearchWord=salmonella&utm_source=MPC&utm_medium=eNewsletter&utm_content=TopSale&utm_campaign=eNewsletter-1007

Harvest time for the meat birds is drawing near--update

We decided to put two of these birds out of their misery today. It wasn't a pretty job but we did it. Ed did the chopping block method, which I didn't care for as the blood got all over the bird. Also, the blood pooled in the wings, and I don't know if it was because they weren't hanging upside down when they were uh... slaughtered.

Anyway, I did the rest. The worst part for me was that there is still shit stuck all over the front of them, as all they do is lie around and eat eat eat. So I cleaned off all the poop in the scalding water. It smelled gross. I rinsed it out and cleaned it again but it still smelled funky.

Anyway, the first bird I scalded I couldn't completely get all the feathers to come off. We used a propane torch to try to singe the rest of the hairs off, which worked only a little. And it cooked the skin.

So for the next bird I did a little more research. A site recommended 150 degree water, and you dunk them until the largest feathers on the wing come off easily. This worked better, but it did cook the outer meat a bit. Which wasn't a problem, really, as we had planned on eating them for dinner.

But there were still plenty of little feathers. I didn't feel like dealing with them, so I decided to just skin the birds. Plus I was horrified of the poop that had been previously stuck on the chicken's skin. Gross. I could still smell it and I was terrified of my little boy getting sick.

Gutting them was relatively simple. I was able to find the gall bladder very easily. But I never did find the crop. I did starve them for the twelve hours prior, so maybe they were just completely emptied out. I butchered the hell out of those chickens, so I'm sure it wasn't left on. I don't know if that is a big deal or not.

So I cooked them up. Roasted and plain. I really wanted to see what home grown birds tasted like without any flavoring. I find that with most chicken it seems that you have to add tons of flavoring to get the meat to even be palatable. So I wanted to see if it was true that the flavor would be superior.

It was not. They were dry as a bone too. This probably had something to do with the fact that the skin was removed prior to cooking. And the fact that I checked the birds one minute, blood spurted out of the breast and the meat barely registered at 140. And then 20 minutes later, which was later than I had intended, they were overcooked.

Bleck. I couldn't get the smell of poop out of my palate. I swear the poop flavor infused into the meat. And I know I've tasted it before in most other birds... I just didn't know what the "off" flavor was that I was perceiving. Now I know. Factory farmed birds, too heavy to prop themselves up off the ground, swimming around in their own shit, just as I've seen in these birds.

But there are times when I've had chicken that is just right. There is an old fashioned flavor that comes through occasionally and I wonder just what it is that tastes right about them.

I thought that these birds would at least forage a little, and that perhaps it would influence the flavor of the bird. But they didn't eat anything green nor did they eat anything I'd offered them. I remember trying to give them apples that all my other birds go crazy over (especially my turkeys) and they just looked at me as if I was trying to give them something entirely inedible... what the hell is this? they seemed to say. And so I'm sure their flavor was largely influenced by whatever is in that stupid bag of feed that the feed store sold me in order to get "free" birds. Most likely a lot of soy, corn, some more soy, fishmeal, animal byproduct. From China. GM.

Ugh. I'm dreading the day when we have to process the other ones. Maybe I'll just post them on craigslist.

My first chicken hatching!

I got a "pip" this morning! The chick has been pecking at it all day and was just born a little while ago. It's been wobbling around inside the incubator. I am waiting for it to completely dry off before I put it into the brooder that I have set up.

In the meantime, another of my chicken eggs has pipped and a duck egg! Cool. The following are some videos of the hatching.

Candling eggs

Well, hatch time for my eggs is coming up. I candled them again last night just to see what was up inside those little mysteries. They still look like dark cloudy masses with bright red veins. In one, I saw a beating heart! How cool. Some of them you can see moving around inside the little eggs.

I've learned quite a bit about egg incubating, which I am glad I learned on my homegrown eggs versus the expensive turkey eggs I have coming. It does seem to be going well though. About 30% of the eggs I've put into the incubator have been infertile. One was rotten. I caught it just before it was about to explode. Yucko.

Last night I found a really cool 4-H website that shows very detailed photos of candling eggs. It shows what exactly you should be looking for. There are also some neat videos of chicks hatching.

Guy watched one of them about 50 times. He sure loves baby chickens. Unfortunately he tends to love them a little too much... yesterday he managed to pick up one of my buff orpingtons by the head. Lucky he didn't kill it.

http://lancaster.unl.edu/4h/Embryology/candling.shtml

Breeding and/or selling poultry

I bought an egg incubator a few weeks ago. I tried to make my own, but had a hard time getting the temperature consistent. Evidently poultry needs a very specific temperature to hatch. I would love it if my ducks/chickens would lay their own eggs, but after finding a huuuge nest of eggs in my duck run and realizing that my hen was never going to sit on them, I decided I should incubate.

Many poultry breeds have had their broodiness (their instinct to nest) bred out of them. This is because they stop laying when they are broody and it is hard to get eggs away from them.

I have about 25 Cayuga duck eggs in the incubator. All but one so far has appeared to be developing. I posted an ad up on craigslist a week or so ago that said I had duck eggs in the incubator I think the majority are spoken for omce they hatch! I guess it helps that I have a jillion eggs just before Easter.

I also have about 15 of my Delaware chickens in the incubator. No one has spoken for the chickens yet but am not worried about that. I sold 4 laying hens about three weeks ago for $20 each.

Evidently people really want the hatching eggs for themselves. I posted an ad up on craigslist a week-ish ago and sold a dozen eggs for $9 and the next few dozens are spoken for. I also sold three started Araucana pullets.

Poultry is a hot commodity around Portland. I never intended to do any sort of side biz with eggs/chickens but thought I would just offer any extra for sale. Except that right now I don't have any extras! And three of my Delaware hens are my mom's christmas presents.

So I've decided to expand a little and add three additional breeding chicken flocks. They are all different breeds with differing characteristics. Australorps, which are supposed to be very big and heavy layers. Easter eggers, which are docile and will lay all sort of different colors from blue/green to pink. And Stars, which are sex-linked, meaning the males and females are different colors when they are born.

Also, I have ordered a batch of Blue Slate turkey eggs. They are a rare, heritage breed that is supposed to have very good flavor. They breed naturally unlike most commercial turkey strains, which have to be artificially inseminated because their breasts are bred to be huge and are too large for them to hold themselves upright. I've read that turkeys can be a pain to rear, but I really like turkey and would think it would be nice to maintain my own breeding flock and sell any extras.

So that will end up being a lot of birds. But, I will need the fertilizer they create. Not to mention they have been eating the sod that refused to die after Ed tilled it three times last fall. And eating cutworms and whatever bugs. And if people still want the hatching eggs or just eggs for eating I could have a bit of extra cash.