Rare chicken breeds desired for their meat qualities?

[Double Kindness]

That's a pretty good size on your malines, are they very difficult to find a good source of that breed?

I'm excited about the white bresse and more ayam cemani chicks in the next week or two, then no more until spring.

In another thread on byc there was a member that wrote about auto sexing a fm roo over non fm hens to get pullets all fm (black) meat to a degree and a higher % of female to male ratio, this is incredibly appealing to me in many ways, auto sexing, a bigger fm meat chicken, and as the ayam cemani seem to not be super cold hardy, better cold hardiness in the progeny depending on the non fm breeds used, if I understand correctly.

I'm very much looking forward to seeing the possibility of what kind of meat/size etc the bresse with a big cemani rooster over them produce.

Dc- the ccl x bresse sound very interesting! Maybe in the spring when I add the svart honas, smithies from your lines to mine I can add a few of the crested bresse blue egg laying do chickens too. Are they dressing out at a nice weight? What about their personality?

 

[Our Roost]

Listen up people! A whole lot of bird brainy thoughts on projects to crossbreed chickens seem to be cropping up looking for answers on what the results will be. The simplest answer to that is a chicken! The more complex answer is a little more difficult to explain through heredity and genetics. Its the more scientific approach and a never ending battle to make the super chicken!
Its all good to have thoughts like Thomas Edison or Henry Ford but most of the creations for chicken soup are already in the pot so to speak. What we are now doing is adding features and characteristics from one breed to another in hopes of strengthening the assets of a particular breed and not so much to create a new one. Add too much salt and you spoil the recipe! Not to say a new breed is out of the question by any means.

It is very important for you to understand this next step as to how I understand it all.

Knowing the background of your rooster and his history along with the same of the hen you use is critical and very important. Why? Because both pass on their gentic traits and characteristics to the offspring of new chicks. Most Heritage breeds have already been crossed with several other different breeds over decades of time to create all the established breeds we now have. And there are hundreds out there! Which came first and where from? Ha! It really matters because thats whats inside your chickens body but in an evolved state from what was created.
Tinkering as I call it, is trying to change the recipe and make it better than your average chicken soup! Getting back to the basics, 2 genes come from the male and 1 from the female that she only passes on to her male offspring. I am quoting an article from someone of a more educated level through reading. Taking that into perspective, the rooster is the dominant factor plus what mama contributes to the sons only? I dont even want to get into the color spectrum because thats a whole other ball game. More scientific terms the average back yard chicken farmer knows little or nothing about including myself! Some colors are a given and others are not. The possibilites are endless.
So, regardless if your Rooster is a combo of 3 different breeds, he will pass on his inherited traits, or a high level of them, to his offspring. The mothers used will pass on some of their features as well to the males. Read up on culling practices and breeding techniques.
Heres the kicker! You really dont know what you will get because of all the hidden factors inside the chemical and genetic makeup from the beginning of time that could show up at any time in the offspring. Almost impossible to control whats inside pandoras box!
Experimentaion is the only way you will find out if your project is a successful adventure or not. If you want a bird with more breast meat, start with one that already has it and see what you can do to improve it. Keep in mind that a 3 legged chicken is out of the question!

 

[Double Kindness]

The last of my chicks arrived late last night, 8 white bresse, and a total of 8 ac & 4 haffies

This will be an interesting project for me to work on. We're going to be getting muscovy ducks this weekend to add to all my meat projects, which includes bunnies too now lol.

We're picking up 5-6 muscovy ducks that are 8-9 week old, and the idea is to process a couple/few drakes in a month or so in time for Thanksgiving while these grow out etc.

 

[PineTopFarm]

When I got started with DP meat birds I tried several different breeds for flavor and texture. Of the breeds I’ve tried (Australorp, Dark Cornish, Barnevelders, Ameracauna, easter egger, Barred Rock) the Dorking is my chosen breed. I find the Dorking to have a generous amount of breast meat and flavorful dark meat. Unlike some of the other breeds the texture is significantly more palatable. All my birds free range dawn to dusk and the Dorking ranks right up there with the best of the foragers. Unfortunately my strain has been poor layers of medium sized eggs and I am hoping to improve that in the future. To meet my egg needs I am beginning a flock of Marans which I hope will also have good meat quality. All I’ve heard of the Marans is that it is considered “gourmet” in France… whatever that means. One poster on this thread mentioned flavorful dark meat; dark meat is not what my family desires so I’m curious to see if they balance out with both dark and light meat.
Currently I spatchcock my excess cockerels at 12 weeks and these make for good BBQ. All others are processed at 18-20 weeks. They are great for smoking, roasting and making into a variety of soups. I am in the process of building fattening pens as I would like to try fattening on a wet mash several weeks before processing. If anyone else is using a fattening mash I would like to hear what they are using.

 

[rannug]

The ones first caught.

 

[Our Roost]

I have a good friend who had used wet mash and wasnt too keen on the ressults. In other words she didnt feel it was worth the effort for little to no weight gain among other projected things. Most recently at our small homeland farm we purchased some blue orpingtons. A much bigger bird than thir sister the buff colored orp. Of the 6 we butchered 3 were 4 1/2 lbs dressed weight. Barely fit in our medium sized electric roaster filled with potatoes and carrots along with. Good amount of breast meat and I was truly impressed with how moist and palletable the bird was. I fed them on layer crumbles and scratch blend from our local grainery. I have to tell you that these were hatchery birds and I hadnt expected much.

 

[littleboots]

We grow Black Austrolorps and they taste amazingly better than most.
I've also heard great things about Icelandics (rare).

 

[Our Roost]

I have a handfull of mechel malines and the same of some golden cuckoo marans. I hope to expand on both their numbers this spring. Maybe mid summer I will finally be able to sample these tasty birds.

 

[PineTopFarm]

I've read one of the threads on the Malines as I found them tempting. I'll look forward to your updates on them on this thread in the future.

 

[Double Kindness]

I have found the white bresse and the ayam cemani both to have impressive weight at their age especially going on 3 months old (11 weeks atm).

We processed speckled sussex, production reds, barred rock, silver laced wyandottes and white star roos so far. I think a plucker would make things far easier for us in the processing stage. Particularly with the muscovy ducks.

The white bresse I think I need an unrelated line to improve this line with fresh blood in the spring. I have 3 white bresse roos, so we are looking to process one in 3 more months, which I plan on fattening up a bresse, ayam cemani and a haffie (ac x orpington) roo on oats soaked in goats milk and do a comparison. We did get caponizing equipment and didn't kill any that we attempted to make into capons, but only 1 was successful.
We need to caponize the 3 roos for me to fatten up, as the crowing contest began at 430 this morning. Not good.

I was hoping that we could hold off sending anything to freezer camp for 3 more months.