My Attempt at a Dual Purpose Heritage Flock

[Tre3hugger]

The topic of dual purpose birds and sustainability come up a lot on this forum. After raising about 50 cornish x, and learning a few things about meat birds and processing, and reading threads by people like @U_Stormcrow I decided I am ready to sacrifice their quick growth for an option a little more sustainable AKA I DO NOT want to have to order meat chicks every year from a hatchery. So after having chickens on this property for 18 months and really evaluating my poultry needs and goals, I've come up with a rough plan for my IDEAL homestead flock.

The theory is: to raise New Hampshire Reds and Delawares. The NHs are Henry Noll line heritage "meat" birds selected for quick growth and favorable carcass. The Delawares are a Heritage line coming from a small hatchery, Art's hatchery, selected for STANDARD and egg production. A pure line of each of these will be kept. I will be selecting to the standard and for mothering abilities/egg production in the Delawares, and keeping mainly hens. For the New Hampshires I will select to the standard and for fast growth and favorable carcass. Keeping mostly roos. Now for the cool part...

When crossing these birds, a heritage cross, dual purpose sex link is born! I will keep the males as meat birds and sell the females as red sex link layers. I think people in my area, who are pretty conscious and local minded, will much appreciate having access to a guaranteed female laying machine that was produced from heritage birds in their area. I may even call them New England Homestead Hereos. This is my grand idea.

The Practice: So on 7/14/ 21 my birds hatched and I got them a few days later. I got 13 NHs and 13 Delawares, planning to keep about 12 for the breeding project and process the rest at 16 weeksish.

Fast forward almost six weeks and they are growing fast! The NHs are already very easy to sex. I separated out my NH roosters today so I can better observe them and make my selection for keepers based on how they grow out. I have 6 or 7 apparent roos and think I will keep 2 to start. Here are the biggest 3 as of now. I will likely weigh them at 6 weeks (Sept. 1st).

Look at those comb/wattles for 5 weeks old!

The Delawares are not so easily sexable yet. I grabbed what I think is 5 girls and a boy, but it is 50/50 right now. I'm sure I will shuffle them around a few more times before we are thru. Here is I think the male.

And the possible ladies.

You can really see the size difference in these. The NHs sure mature fast.

If you have read this far you deserve a medal! I will be sharing my experiences with these birds and what I learn from them in this thread.

Anyone else doing something similar and want to share results?

Any one else want to share how they set up breeding pens to keep groups separate for a project like this, I would REALLY appreciate it. That is what had been racking my brain lately.

Thanks for reading!

 

[Tre3hugger]

This is an update I did not want to make. A few weeks ago around dinner time a fox got into my chicken yard. They took out about 22 birds in no time, most of them the heritage birds I have been breeding and documenting in this thread. It was really hard to see all my hard work and ideas strewn in pieces across the yard. I have 11 birds left in my flock, and a few sex-link meaties left. A few of them are heritage. I also ordered another batch of NHs from freedom ranger to grow out and start breeding again next year.

I also just bought 200ft of hardware cloth and am in the process of skirting the entire yard. Hopefully that will fix the problem.

 

[Tre3hugger]

Chicks are about 5 weeks old. Growing nicely and officially off heat. I was able to sell my 5 sex link girls as soon as the heat went off for 50 bucks. Aweosme! I have another 22 eggs in the bator due in a week. At that point these sex link boys (white) will be moved to the meat grow out tractor and the NHs will begin a see but no touch integration into the flock. Looks like I got 3 NH pullets and 1 cockerel. Perfect! I will keep this new cockerel. The larger of my 2 current breeder boys is bottom of the pecking order and starting to look real delicious. As always I am utterly failing with record keeping but my plan is to get some weights at the 6 week mark.
And without further ado.

The NH cockerel in the center's sex has been obvious for weeks. Super thick legs and very quick comb/wattle development

This looks like a hip hop album cover. Lil peep and the Fowl Gang

Boys are startin to beef up

 

[Tre3hugger]

 

[SheaLoner]

Supper. Butchered at 14 weeks. 7lbs dressed.

 

[Tre3hugger]

Well, I just put some food coloring in some cloacas. Not a sentence this Brooklyn boy ever expected to say

 

[Tre3hugger]

Have some updates and pics!

Most notably, generation 2, which consists of 4 NH pullets and 1 cockerel, have reached maturity at a stunningly early 3.5 months. These birds hatched April 12th, and have just started laying/crowing! That is a great trait to have when the males will be meaties and the girls sold as started pullets. Here are some (poor) pics of those birds.

the pics aren't terrible, but the angle of the sun really washed put the more mahogany color of their feathers. They are much darker. Their butts are very floofy. I think I will be processing this cockerel as he just started to crow and I have no more chicken breeding plans until spring. He is quite chunky.

Next we have birds hatched 5/22. A mix of heritage NHs and Delawares. I actually moved this group right from the brooder to an integration/grow out pen. They have been mingling with the rest of my layer flock during the day and choosing to go back to the little pen at night. That ends today though, when I shut the little pen at dusk. I will be keeping all of these females and the best male of each breed over winter, to be breeders in the spring.

Look at all the chicken love in this photo

And lastly I have some chicks that hatched on July 12th. All sex links, I think I will sell the girls, and eat all the boys. Can't believe they all stood still for the pic

I also over the last week have finally built a brooder to put in my main coop. Thus increasing chick security and making chores easier. This also frees up the current brooder coop to be a breeder coop, which frees up the guinea coop for...well...guineas! I am pretty happy with this project cause it cost me nothing

It is somehow almost august already and in the northeast that means winter is comin! It has been an extremely informative and fun first year breeding heritage birds with a purpose, and I am proud of and hopeful about who I am putting in the big barn over winter to breed next spring. Thanks for takin the journey with me! I will continue to update as these birds grow and I process more of them.

 

[Tre3hugger]

I made a post yesterday after doing work all day and had to delete it cause I mixed a bunch of stuff up due to exhaustion! So anyway here is attempt number two.

Last week we had a big melt with some decent weather so I decided to start separating my heritage birds for spring breeding, and I got some pics. Right now I am using my old 8x4 guinea coop inside an electric fence for breeding.
I have some demand, through the Livestock Conservancy, for New Hampshire hatching eggs. So my first group is a NH cockerel, my only 2 NH pullets, and 4 delaware pullets. In 3 weeks (everyone has been mixed all winter) I will remove the new hampshire pullets and isolate them and collect a cpl dozen eggs for sale. At the same time I will start coillecting eggs from the delawares which will be my F1 homestead heroes. AKA true dual purpose, sex linked birds with regional history.
Some pics of the NHs

and the Delawares

 

[Tre3hugger]

The new generation of heritage chicks is 2 weeks old today. They are all growing well with zero failure to thrive. It is CRAZY the difference in size between the Delawares and the NHs. The NHs seem twice as large at the same age. I am going to have to start keeping only the largest Delawares now that I have swelled my numbers a bit. Heading to work now but will get some pics in the next day or so

 

[Tre3hugger]

Processed a few of my sex link males yesterday. They averaged about 6lbs live at 12 weeks. Not bad! I also processed a 16 month NH cock. Havent got a weight on him yet but he was easily the biggest animal I have ever dispatched and processed. The difference between processing the young uns and the 1+ year old was interesting. Overall harder for the older bird. Way tougher skin, but looking forward to pressure cooking him,. The SLs have been butchered, but the NH is still resting in the fridge and will be pressure canned.

Here are some pics of the sex links before I processed. Will add some pics of the NH carcass and weight later this evening after work!

Wife snuck this pic of me hard at work

For me this was a momentous day. These are my first closed loop, homestead bred and grown meaties. Hurray!