Looking for my best rooster

[lukkyseven]

Egghead - Thank you for this. This is kind of what I have been doing.

My first cull has been at the 12 week mark. It was not a large cull, but strictly the weakest of the birds. Size was very much taken into consideration as well as comb and any other genetic weaknesses (I had one bird with a foot deformity).

You are not the first person to mention the barn analogy and I have seen and heard it enough to take it into serious consideration. Moving into my 2nd to last cull I will take specific measurements that you suggested to be much more consistent.

Question about the keel. I know that you do not want boney keels simply because you're trying to raise for meat, but I'm not familiar with length of keel on dual purpose. Is it just so there's a larger breast and therefore more overall meat on the birds?

 

[Egghead_Jr]

http://albc-usa.org/documents/ALBCchicken_assessment-1.pdf

Save that article link above. It seems basic at first glance but you tend to forget the basics when looking at feathered birds walking around. You start to asses color rather than the body type and you really need to get the body type first.

All the organs are above the keel. A long keel with depth of bird back to keel provides ample space for organs and eggs.

 

[lukkyseven]

Saved and read. I will be sure to re-read the entire thing before I do my inpsections.

 

[RoostersAreAwesome]

A quick back story. I fell in love with the history of Speckled Sussex as a dual purpose breed for the homesteader. A good laying breed that's hardy, good at foraging and friendly to boot. I always like to keep a rooster and do a sustainable flock. Well these girls go broody as well so I can keep the age of the flock down. Well this means you always end up with some extra roosters and this breed gets big enough to eat them when they're still young.

What I found is that the standards are just not there and finding a breeder of them was not easy or I was just looking in the wrong places. So I went with about 30 chickens. My main goal is egg production (body type and size), table fare (again size quickly), friendliness (basically I wont tolerate a mean rooster) and in conjunction with that the SOP. This last one I would like to prioritize more, but without good stock it's going to be hard

This is why I'm here. These are what I believe are my 4 best roosters. I don't know that there are two that are good enough, but if possible I'd like to keep 2. Ultimately if the genetics are just so terrible then I will just use one and potentially look for better stock down the road.

I forgot to save my general walking around photos, so I will try to get them when it stops raining. Pictures to follow in the comments

With hatchery birds, they’ll all be equally far from the SOP. Trying to breed hatchery birds to show/breeder quality level is an unnecessarily difficult process. If you really want to go that direction, get chickens from a breeder. If you just want some nice looking dual purpose chickens, breed the ones who you think will fit your needs the best.

 

[HaikuHeritageFarm]

As the birds mature you will have a better idea of which to keep. They are still too young to make a final decision.

I hear this a lot but I tend to disagree with it when you're breeding with production quality (meat) as a rather high priority.

Evaluate as often as possible and take photos and weights at all kinds of ages, but generally "heritage" meat birds are butchered at 16 or 20 weeks so size and muscling at those crucial ages should be high in priority.

What they look like or weigh in at at a year is pretty darn irrelevant if you're wanting to eat excess males at 4 or 5 months.