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How are wyandottes as far as brooding goes? I was thinking Jersey Giants but was kinda concerned about the heavier body contributing to breakage.
Which other breeds make good broodys? We only had Road Island Reds, Plymouth Barred Rocks, and Cornish crosses when I was growing up. I always liked the first two, but the Cornish were disgusting birds. I'm finally starting my flock and I'm encountering breed choice overload right now. There are so many breeds that I want and the possibilities of crossing them are even more exciting. We never breed our chickens, if we needed more we ordered more and it always used to bug me. I'm really looking forward to running the show.
.Welcome to "chicken math" Lol! Sounds like your encountering the same I did. Grew up with RIR, real one's not today's hatchery birds, they always hatched their own. Only breed I knew of besides barred rocks. Dad also acquired one time a japanese black bantam that probably hatched out a majority of his birds for many yrs. I'll never forget the time she hatched out a large clutch of RIR and dad threw them in with another fresh hatch mama red, and then put turkey eggs under her and she hatched them out too. Super funny watching them turkey poults twice her size following mamma banty around learning how to free range Lol!
Fast forward to my own bought fifteen 'RIR' from our local feed mill, was definitely hatchery production reds, laid non-stop for over a yr and then took turns molting so had way too many eggs but that's better than too few. Second yr not bad, third not worth having. Had bought a rooster also from a local farm so eggs were fertile. Had one go broody and set. Month later (keep in mind this was pre-BYC days, pre-internet for us actually anyway Lol) I checked the eggs, first one I cracked exploded like a bomb!, actually hurt like a firecracker between the fingers, all were rotten. Had a chicken guy at work tell me, they might set but they will not do it right, lost the instinct.
You say "breed choice overload" yup, encountered that about five yrs ago when I started looking for 'something else' and saw how many breeds were out there, and discovered BYC. WOW! so many choices. Went with hatchery mix batch of different colored egg layers and such. Really wish I had got focused early on on what I wanted to do, wasted time IMHO. Takes time to grow them out. Then you decide to breed and realize those hatchery birds are not so good. There is so many here on BYC that have awesome stock and also some breeders, websites that also have good quality birds. Really love the white jersey giants I have now and will likely keep a line going of them. Newest addition, never wanted the ugly things before but now am super excited on them and they are awesome, naked necks. Have two groups of them right now, culled down to small groups, one colored and one white birds. Plan on adding some (I don't like them either) cornishX to the white naked necks and start some crosses for sustainable broiler birds.
You should check out the https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/845018/breeding-for-production-eggs-and-or-meat
thread, skip to the end to say 'hello' and then read, lots of crossing breeds for better performance info there.