Poultry

While we've been taking care of the neighbors' farm I've been making mental notes about their poultry.

Guineas: Why?

Runner ducks: Funny, active, good layers

Ornamental chickens: The Houdans have a top knot of long feathers that look like a fright wig, or Phyllis Diller, if you remember her. They are high strung and flighty and will get the others going. The golden Wyandottes are pretty, with bronzy feathers accented with black, but they also seem tempermental. They fight a lot and have pulled out lots of hte others' tail feathers. That might be from being crowded in the barn due to bad weather.

Green-egg layers: These are a mixed breed called Americanas, I think. They are all colors with ear muffs of extra feathers around their faces. Some are even smoky gray and very pretty. They don't seem to lay well, though.

Brown-egg layers: These are the old fashioned breeds that I like the best, including Plymouth Rocks and cross-breds. She has ISA Browns which are a production-oriented red breed with some Rhode Island Red background, I think. These chicks are color coded when they hatch -- males are almost all yellow and females are brown and yellow. (THat's called sex-linkedBTW) Another sex-linked type are black with brown on their heads and necks. These are also color coded at hatching. I think the females are solid black and the males and black and gray. She also has white Rocks and barred Rocks. The latter have a tweedy look of gray with black barring. They are pretty variable, though. Some look almost solid black with gray speckling. Closely related are the white Rocks. They are an ancestor of modern broiler (meat type) chickens. Their white color means they are easier to dress and pin feathers don't show up very well.

Our neighbor said she did not like the ISA Browns for stewing hens since they had no extra flesh and did not taste good. I can't speak to taste, but I picked up a white Rock and an ISA Brown today and found the white Rock hen compact and well-fleshed, not angular like the other one.

So ... maybe my next batch of layers ought to be white Rocks. They are not the heavy layers like ISA Browns but probably have better salvage value.