Monday, November 14, 2011

How to raise Guinea Fowl

Raising Guinea fowl is not difficult. You can raise the bird as free range bird. Guinea fowl is a peaceful bird so you can care it with chicken, turkey, and others in a backyard. Off course, you cannot put this bird with other birds chicken in a coop.

You need a pair of guinea fowl. Do not put more than one guinea cock in a backyard. The cock will fight each other to lead the territory and the hen. 

Feed them with common poultry food. It also like grain like corn, paddy, oat,

Provide water silo inside the cage or the backyard. Clean it periodically. Do not let the moss make it green.

Clean and disinfectant the cage periodically

Provide the nest box for the hen so it can lay inside the box.

Read Also
Vulturine Guinea Fowl
How to Sex Guinea Fowl
Guinea Fowl
The Benefit Raise of Guinea Fowl
How to Raise Peacock

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Buckeye: The only American Chicken breed that is created by woman

Buckeye is an American chicken breed that has heavy body. The Rooster weighs approximately 9 pounds (4.1 kg); while, the female approximately weighs 6.5 lbs (3 kg). The chicken shape is round, like other American heavy class chicken breed. The breast is wide and it looks handsome like Cornish Chicken. The Feet looks strong and is white or yellow in color.
The feather chicken is mahogany in color; while, the tail is black in color. It has thick feathering. The chick color is buff. The sickle tail is short like other heavy chicken class. The body of the chicken is round.
The performance is almost similar to Rhode Island Red. However, this chicken is different if you can see the difference carefully. The buckeye color is darker than the red. As I mentioned above, this chicken appears very close to Cornish. Of course, the Cornish has wider breast.
The head is proportional with its body. It has small pea comb upside the head and it is the only American chicken breed that has small pea. We know most of American class breed has single comb such as Rhode Island Red, New Hampshire Red, Jersey Giant, and else.
The chicken has been breed by Mrs. Nettie Metcalf. She is the only woman that produce American Chicken breed. She crossed some chicken breed such as Barred Plymouth Rock, Buff Cochins, and black breasted Games. For first trial, he crossed Buff Cochin male to Barred Plymouth Rock Female. The descendant did not satisfy him. Next years, she crossed the descendant to Black breasted Red game that produced the red offspring. She developed the red become the buckeye.
She has bred the chicken in order to make the best dual purpose chicken. It has good meat and laying ability. Unfortunately, I do not know see any reference about the egg production. The hen lays brown medium size eggs. This chicken has been popular before Rhode Island Red founded.
The chicken is rare species. Only few farmers care this chicken.
This chicken is good forager so it is good to control your weed or grass population. This chicken is suitable for your backyard due it is tame and easy to hand. This chicken also tolerate with hot summer and cold winter or extreme weather.
I am afraid this chicken is aggressive like the ancestor black breasted game. There is no reference that the chicken is aggressive. Perhaps Mrs. Metcalf has selected the aggressive chicken from the breed.

Monday, November 7, 2011

Famous Domestic Duck in the world

Indian Runner
If you want fresh egg daily, you can care Indian runner at your backyard.  It can produces egg up to 300 eggs daily. It eggs is light green color and heavier than domesticated hen's egg. The egg fat is higher than chicken. That is why duck eggs is more delicious than chicken eggs. In Philippine, the duck eggs is a favorite food. They hatch the egg up to eighteen days. It eggs is called balut and it sold at Manila street. I think not all people can eat balut because the embryo still there. People eat balut with jalapeno and vinegar.  In Indonesia, people salt the eggs so it becomes more tasty. They can boil and grill the salt duck egg.

Unlike other fowl, Indian runner does not hatch its eggs. The hen let the eggs in the corner of pen after laying. The breeder hatch the eggs with chicken hen or muscovy duck hen. Some rich breeder use hatchery machine. The eggs hatch 28 days or four week. It takes longer time than chicken eggs because the duck egg skin is thicker than the chicken.

The color of the duck is white, roan, barred, brown, black, plaid, blue, and others. The beak is yellow and black color. The feet is yellow, black and khaki. The male has curly tail. It could differentiate male to female. The male voice is also lower than the duck. Some species is raised as pet like Bali duck which is white color and crested.

According scientiest, Indian runnder is wild mallard descent. The ancient farm has domesticated this bird successfully that produce more eggs and more meat. The body of Indian runner is higher than the ancestors. People named it Indian runner because its high.

Indonesia has dozen Indian runner strain like Itik Tegal, Itik Magelang, Itik Bali, Itik Mojosari, Itik Cirebon, and others.The largest Indian runner farm in Indonesia is Alabio district (Kabupaten Alabio), South Borneo. South Borneo people prefer duck meat than chicken meat. They can hatch duck eggs with rice husk. This is a cheaper way than using hatchery machine or incubator machine.


Muscovy Duck
Muscovy duck (Cairana Moschata) is a domesticated duck that produce red meat. Some people like the dark meat that contain much fat. This bird is easy to care and easy eater. The bird is resistance to some fowl disease. It can eat grain, insect, small fish, snail, grass, young leaf and others.

The wing feather is long enough and could reach 25 cm. I use the feather wing as my pen. The white wing feather is for shuttlecock.

The weight of the drake could reach 10 kg or 20 pounds.It almost similar with the small goose. Meanwhile the female is just 5 kilogram. The Drake is bigger two times than the female. The drake is also longer than the female. The drake is about 86 cm length  and  the female is just 64 cm.

The muscovy body is slender like African geese. The neck length is shorter than Goose. It can fly away from your pen even the domesticated. It does not forget to fly like their ancestor.

It has long beak. The drake has red blood face and crest. There is two sharp nails at the edge wing and elbow. It is useful to expel predator. No Eagle is dare to this bird.

The hen is a productive layer too. It can lay up to 14 eggs per breeding. The hen hatch the eggs up to 28 days or four week. The egg color is light brown. In my country, farmer often use chicken hen to hatch the duck eggs.

The origin of this water fowl is Texas, Mexico, Central America and Brazil. The color of the muscovy is black. After domesticated there are some variety color like : pied, barred, white, blue, chocolate, bronze. lavender, and many pastel color.

Like other waterfowl, the bird like swimming. If you want care it, you need to provide a pool for them. The diet of this bird is corn, pollard, paddy, and others. They need grit too like other fowls.

Cayuga Duck

Cayuga duck is almost similar with Indian runner he weight is double Indian Runner. The drake weight could reach seven pounds and the hen could reach six pounds. It is black blue color. The beak is black color.Cayuga origin is Cayuga Lake in New York State. That is why this duck is tolerate bad winter in North America.

This domesticated is raised for its meat. like other dark, this fowl produce red dark meat which is delicious and full nutrient. Unfortunately, the black dark feather is very difficult to remove. The duck cannot lay many eggs as Indian runner does.The cayuga hen can lay 100 -150 eggs a year. The color of eggs is light white.
Peking Duck

Hence with its name, the duck come from Peking, the capital city of China. United States imported first in 1870. This is the most famous duck in the world. Peking duck is most delicious cuisine and the. It is white color. the beak and the feet is yellow color. The body of the duck is slender like Cayuga duck. The drake is  4.5 kg and the hen is 4 kg. Both drake and hen is not difference in weight.


The farm raise the bird in small cage so the duck cannot move so the fat meat is high. The high meat meat, the more delicious. I think I am pity with this kind duck. Some breeder cross breed this duck with Aylesbury to get juicy meat.
The hen can lay up to 100 egss in a year. Therefore, this duck is not good for layer.

Read Also:
Bali Crested Duck
Ancona: The English Duck
Campbell Duck
Anatomy of Duck
Cayuga Duck: The Native American Duck

Friday, November 4, 2011

Norfolk Grey : The Rare Chicken Breed from English

Norfolk Grey is a chicken breed from United Kingdom. The breed was created at the time of the world war by Fred Myhill. The bird was called Black Maria due its black feather color.
The chicken is heavy enough. A rooster weighs 6-7 pounds while the female weighs 5-6 pounds. The Chicken is beautiful with the silver plumage. Either Roosters or hen has silver feather in neck. Surely the Rooster has shimmering color. The Silver feather of rooster is also in its shoulder, back, and saddle. The color of the rooster is silver duckwing. The small chicken has not yet had the silver color or birchen. It just has black soft feather.
No one sure the ancestor about this breed but Wikipedia say that the chicken is the descendant of birchen English Game and Partridge Wyandotte.
The Grey is good to produce meat and carcass due it is also the descendant of game fowl. Surely, this leghorn descendant also lays so many eggs. Unfortunately, I have no reference the egg production of the hens. This chicken population is rare. Only few farmers raise the chicken
This chicken breed is also good for backyard. It is a good forager that can eat the weed and grass in backyard. There is also bantam version of the chicken with one color variation only.
Read Also
American Game Fowl
Redcap Derbyshire