January 13-17 Happy Hen Farms Weekly Newsletter: Chicken Breeds Part 2 of 3
Good Evening,
Everyday this week is open for delivery! If you pickup at my grandparent's store in Nampa, they are open Tuesday and Thursday (10-3) and Friday (10-5).
Eggs:
I have about 25 Medium dozen available, and about 4 Large dozen available to start the week off. As a reminder, all medium dozen's are $3.
Total egg production has remained unchanged at 5 dozen a day.
Newsletter:
Last week, I talked briefly about one of the "breeds" of chickens that are used in American egg production, as well as around the world. However, that chicken is not the one you have for dinner.
If you would like to view previous Newsletters, you can browse from updates and newsletters from August 1, 2019 on my blog:
Starting in the early 50's (even before that, actually), after WWII, there was a "falling away" from everybody having backyard chickens. People started to leave the family farm, and go to the city for work. This meant that there were less people that had backyard chickens, which produced eggs and meat for the family. At that time, all the chickens that people had were "dual purpose," meaning that they could produce eggs, and also have enough meat on them for dinner. One of the drawbacks to these birds was that they were not efficient (growth rate & egg numbers) to economically support the rising populations in cities.
So, for a few years in the 50's (1950,1951,1952 in particular) there was a national contest held called the "Chicken of Tomorrow Contest." Poultry breeders, farms, ect... could enter in to win money, based on how good their chicken performed. The Chicken of Tomorrow Contest was for developing efficient egg and meat chickens, which has led to where we are today. There is no such thing as a dual purpose chicken in the egg or meat industry, simply because they are not efficient. Today, we will look at the chicken that was created in the contest that became the "American Standard" for chicken dinners.
In short, the Chicken of Tomorrow contest created the prototype of what we now call the "Cornish Cross Broiler."
As you can see, this is a pretty husky looking chicken. They have been "genetically improved" (not GMO-ed, but selectively bred) since the 1950's, into a short, stout, and fast growing chicken. Their feed to meat ratio is impressive. On average, their conversion ratio is 1 pound of feed makes 2 pounds of chicken. That is why the Cornish Cross are ready to be eaten at 6-10 weeks old; that is a lot faster than 5 months for dual purpose chickens! Cornish crosses usually are around 4-6 lbs when they are harvested at 8 weeks, and they cost a fraction of what it would be to raise a dual purpose chicken to maturity.
Some of their drawbacks are:
Dirty & Smelly
Highly Susceptible to Leg problems/deformations- since they are bred to make more meat, they are still lacking in the structural-and-organ development department. Most of this is caused by eating too much, which leads to crippling, and heart attacks. Preventative measures can be taken, such as feeding an extra Riboflavin supplement, as well as rationing a daily allotment of feed. One way that I found to prevent problems, was to feed a whole grain diet for half of the birds' life (4 wks), then switching to a fine-ground feed to maximize energy, protein, and digestibility. By doing so, I only lost 2 out of 67 Cornish X last year (2% mortality rate). The whole grain feed did end up sacrificing some weight on the finished birds, but I would rather have healthier chickens, than having a high mortality rate.
Some of their Pro's are:
Inexpensive- at a certain scale, they can be a very profitable venture, but, less than 150 is more of a loss than a win.
Easy to Pluck- they don't spend much time growing much else but meat (not that they have much time anyway), but they have enough feathers to be classified as a "normal" chicken. Less feathers means that there is less feathers to pluck at harvest time. Plus, the feathers aren't stuck in the chicken, like in dual purpose chickens.
Lots of Meat- as has been restated over and over again, they become huge chickens in no time at all. When it comes to taste, I believe that some form of green material (hay, weeds, grass), along with peas, contributes to meat with texture, and exceptional taste (not dry and bland, but somewhat fatty and 'chicken-ey').
So, now you have some basic information about the chicken that is most likely your dinner. While I wish that I could continue to provide chickens this year, it honestly is not worth the time and money spent, to still provide it at a reasonable price to you the consumer.
If you would like to know more about egg laying chickens, Cornish Crosses, or dual purpose chickens (they seem to be coming up quite a bit), feel free to ask any question!
Next week's newsletter will be on a second breed of egg laying chicken that is extremely popular around the world. Below is a link to a documentary on the Chicken of Tomorrow Contest.
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