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Cock a doodle errrrrr. Ahh pubescent roosters in their first crow. Like human boys when their voices crack, the roosters just don't get it right at the beginning. It sounds like someone decided to choke them half way through a crow. That is what we heard when we first entered the barn this morning. Cock a doodle errr.
We purchased day old Partridge Chantecler chickens at the end of September and they finally have moulted into their adult plumage. The five hens are a beautiful liver chestnut with black partridge marking on their feathers; the roosters have a glossy chestnut head and mane and irredescent black/green tail and wing feathers - stunning birds and Canadian winter hardy.
I am teaching them to come to a foil pan with cooled oatmeal, a trick I learned over 20 years ago with my first flock of layers. I teach them to come to the banging on the bottom of a pie plate full of oatmeal and then entice them into the coop for the night. They love the oatmeal and come running. Once the spring comes and they are outside I will post a video. Actually somewhere in the archives of CBC television is a video of my first flock doing just that. Thankfully the footage of me crowing at my rooster to get him to crow for the camera ended up on the cutting room floor.
During the transition to laying eggs in the spring you often get very odd sized eggs from tiny to huge. When I got one of the huge eggs (probably a triple or quadruple yolker) I entered it in the Rural Delivery Great Canadian Big Egg Contest. The egg won and was shipped to the World competition (or more accurately the eastern seaboard of North America) where it came second. As a result of that success I was on television once, the radio at least three times and in the press a couple of times. I figured that I deserved a seat in the Senate after that (seems to be all the qualifications required). By the way, the chicken died.
Now I have to enter the strange and wonderful world of poultry fanciers to find a Chantecler rooster from an unrelated line. Then in the summer I will start breeding and hatching chicks for sale.
It's cock a doodle dooo Stupid rooster, get it right!
TTFN
Laurie
I was reorganizing my recipe books (and updating my new recipe page on our website) and I started to read through some of my old recipe books. I was reading a 1950 edition of the Fannie Farmer's Boston Cooking School Cook Book. It was very interesting to see what they had to say about beef and chicken. Here are a few quotes.
"The quality of beef depends on the age of the animal and its feeding. The best beef is from a steer 4 to 5 years old."
and Chicken:
"Broilers or spring chickens or squab chickens are young, tender birds (8-14 weeks old). Allow 1/2 small broiler to a person.
Fryers weigh 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 pound (14-20 weeks old). One fryer serves 2 to 4.
Roasters weigh 3 1/2 pounds and over (5-9 months). A 4 pound bird serves 4 to 6.
Capon (unsexed male) usually weigh 7 to 8 pounds and serve 8 generously."
Oh have times changed. Most beef is processed between 12-20 months of age. And with current chicken breeds it is easily possible to have a 9 week old bird dress out at an average of 6 lbs. I have done that myself numerous times. It brings up what we have gained and what we have lost.
I think that one thing we have lost is flavor. A beef animal takes time to develop the marbling throughout the meat and as I mentioned in an earlier post, most of the flavor is in the fat. The gains are obviously quicker turnaround times and reduced feed costs... maybe. To bring an animal to market faster required more concentrated feeds -- grains, higher protein concentrates etc. These feeds cost more than a forage based diet. You can go back and forth on the cost, time argument and much of that depends on location, market etc. A pasture based diet is only inexpensive on cheap farm land. Land prices around much of southwestern Ontario could make a pasture based system very expensive indeed. What it should come down to is what the client wants in their meat and what they are willing to pay for it. We will always be a pasture based management system supplemented with grains to start and then finish the animals. We will process at 2 years of age at the earliest. However we are small enough to allow us the flexibility of breaking from the norm. We will play with our management to make the best flavor and quality in the beef.
Another unexpected loss is quality of leather. A number of years ago, I apprenticed with a harness maker. He bemoaned the fact that it was getting increasingly difficult to get good quality leather. And the reason is that cattle are slaughtered much younger. The hide thickens as the animal ages. (You sure notice this come vaccination time.) Younger animals means thinner hides.
As I mentioned I can raise a roaster sized chicken in 9 weeks. However to do so we give them free access to high protein feed. This year we will reduce the protein level in the feed, and allow them access to pasture. bugs etc. We will see what difference that makes in the flavor of the meat. I know the young roasters were tender and tasty. Lets see what we get with the pasture penned poultry.
TTFN
Laurie
