black meat projects

[Double Kindness]

I have 6 little chicks that are ayam cemani x paint orpington cross. Some are more cemani leaning in appearance than their orpington fathers.

And this is one of the hens that are the mothers of my chicks.

I am getting svart honas and other pure breed ayam cemani to add onto this project, which should go on for a bit.

FM meat and it's health/medical benefits are a part of the motivation behind this project, as well as creating a sustainable flock of meat chicken both pure breed and hybrid.

What has everyone else experienced so far with black meat chickens and hybrids as well as purebreed? What does everyone feed? How long to raise until time to go to freezer camp and what have the weights been? Feed to weight ratios? Fermented feed? Caponizing? Finishing the chickens on a specific regimine similar to the bresse? Other variations?

 

[smitty1135]

Is there any other breeds that carrys the FM gene that are in the price range of a silky but is a larger bird just asking lol there's no way I could swing the 2 breeds from greenfire

 

[Double Kindness]

Not that I know of. DCchicken here on BYC has some ayam cemani that he's dubbing the "smithies" that he's possibly offering for $5 each straight run chick. They were carried by the same breeder of my friends ayam cemani that are NOT the Smithsonian line.

If these carry fm genes/meat, and I get enough of the haffies and the ayam cemani, then I can forsee an affordable silkie cost but bigger bird project, which is where this ayam cemani x orpington project might lead to.

I have 6 chicks atm, 2 with distinguished face masks and yellow feet/legs, others are much more black with a little yellow leakage on their feet and bottoms.

More hatched, idk if I'll still be getting the haffies and/or chicks since it looks like the svart honas stopped moving and incubator issues
I was geared up for those, but now maybe whichever chicks my friend hatches she doesn't want will create my fm meat flock base for now (I'm very excited to see the progression happen!).

My 26 itty bitty peep peeps are getting so big so fast! Yesterday my bf hung up the bucket waterer nipple thing I made with his metal equipment to raise and lower the bucket as they grow, we add new ones.

Tomorrow I'm hoping we will make lots of progress hanging gates and enclosing the rest of the raised garden bed and build a little coop for these chicks to move into after the other garden bed gets enclosed.

I don't mind adding more chickens from my friend's hatching atm, as her cemani are gorgeous!!

The orpington cross with cemani seems to create a bigger chick from the ones with more black saturated features I noticed, which is something to take into consideration while raising these.

I was at the Asian supermarket yesterday and silkie chicken meat sells for $6.99 a lb plucked etc. The average carcass weight was 1.5 lbs, about $11 a chicken.

 

[Double Kindness]

I just took pictures of my 6 chicks I have so far as part of the black meat project.

this has the eyeliner look and yellow feet/legs, but black eyes.

 

[Double Kindness]

It seems I am having some issues posting pictures. Hmm.

Anyway, there are 2 with the eyeliner look and yellow feet/legs. Others are dark black, black eyes, yellow leakage and white leakage, but it's early and these are part haffies and part cemani leaning.

 

[Double Kindness]

There's one that I think is a cockrel.

 

[Double Kindness]

Today I'm putting pine shavings in a brooder box in the barn and move them into there. The older ones are feathering in nicely. A couple have a bit of white/silver leakage in coloring, but they all have black eyes, 1 has a black tongue.

Today much scratching on the cloths was going on, which made me think, bet they would love to scratch around in some shavings. The purple brooder box is cleaned out, my bf will be home for lunch soon and I can get the pine shavings out of the trunk of the car.

Hardware cloth will be delivered shortly after then, and I will start to clear off any debris off the raised garden bed area and get another nipple waterer put together for the larger enclosed run being built for my current meatie project, and see if my wonderful bf will help me build a coop for 20 or so haffies/cemani and possibly bresse. But these chicks need to go outside to get hardened off soon, so a little temporary coop in the current enclosed run where the meaties is at is needed I think.

 

[Double Kindness]

Instead of putting pine shavings in, after talking to my friend who recommended that I put a small pan of dirt from my garden in the brooder box and they went wild!

 

[Double Kindness]

The chicks just love their new dustbathing area.

They all try to fit in there! It's chicken tv at its finest imho.

 

[Double Kindness]

The teensy weensies are getting very big!! Time to build a way bigger brooder box for them in the barn, they have so much energy!

They want to fly out of the brooder box! I named the older "haffie" Oreo. Idk about naming all of them, one big one doesn't have much tail feathers and a big comb, pretty sure it's a roo. He's pretty big! So caponizing looks like it's right up his street soon! Possibly he will be ready in time for gracing my Christmas dinner table?