Sustainable Meat / Standard Bred Dual Purpose Bird Thread.

[AnthNDacula]

I recently got New Hampshires from Jeremy Woeppel of XW Poultry Ranch in Nebraska. He doesn't track data on them because Barred Rocks and White Dorkings are his main breeds, but he does have good, production bloodlines. His New Hamps are a blend of Good Shepherd and German strains. I'll be recording data on mine at monthly intervals starting when they are one month old (in another week). Just from looking at them so far they are very good chicks with a better growth rate than my White and Silver Gray Dorkings and probably better than my Marans. So far I just don't have hard data to compare. Jeremy can take quite a while to fill orders but if you are patient he has top notch birds.

 

[Egghead_Jr]

Awesome. I'm very interested in what folks will get from the current New Hampshire stock. Matt1616 here on BYC also has a line he's been working on that he crossed with German. Very few pure American or German lines left. Most have been crossed for improvement of American Standard. Breeder in Florida has pure German. Eight Acres Farm. http://eightacresfarm.weebly.com/new-hampshires.html

 

[Egghead_Jr]

I recently read a thread here on BYC where a person is raising layers, Jersey and two meat hybrids. Weighing each type in week intervals and taking average. This is great. I mean, right there in one area is perspective of three very different types of birds. I asked them to see if they'd join us here.

It got me to thinking about reporting. As my birds are newly hatched have yet to put a lot of thought into it. Though every week is inspiring weigh ins for me that's a bit daunting. Weighing every bird, every week. Yeah, I'm lazy. In being so one aspires for efficiency so there is redemption. My fear is that much work and so early will tire and lead to abandoning right when the data is most useful. I've come up with a lose plan for myself and am throwing it out here as an idea.

Other places other than the Buckeye conservancy have stated that at 6 weeks it's definitive your largest birds of both sexes will stay your fastest maturing birds. Alright then, right there I can not bother weighing until 6 weeks. Perfect. Also in this fact we can pull out that the fastest maturing birds (not largest final year weight birds) will continue to be the largest at good butchering ages. Excellent. I'll only weigh all the birds once at 6 weeks and band X number of them of both sexes. These are the potential breeders of the future, no other bird of the group should be considered.

Weigh all at 6 weeks and band 5-10 of each sex.
Only weigh those banded weekly there after.
On butchering an average dress weight of all birds butchered is nice and also easy to do. Your best birds won't be in that number as they are still breeder candidates.

Weighing from 7 to 10 weeks may or may not be something I'll do. Reason being is I'll already know the fastest to mature. With my birds being used that is nowhere near a time consideration to butcher. People with hybrids would carry on likely but end sooner. Probably start to weigh in again at 10 or 11 weeks. Once all at 6 then maybe all again at 10-11 to confirm the "fact" of fastest maturing stay largest. Each week after this on largest birds will produce a graph. With estimates or actual weights of feed used it will clearly scribe out an optimal butcher time for offspring of those breeders in future years.

Weigh in weekly from 10 or 11 weeks to 16 weeks of age.
Track weekly feed use during this time.
Create a graph to pinpoint optimal butchering age of offspring in future years.

That's about it. Depending on how many roaster one wants dictates how many to butcher at broiler/grilling age. I'll band enough birds so cockerels that don't make the cut for breeding will be roasters. Seems it will give all the info I need with least effort. Did I mention I'm lazy?

 

[Egghead_Jr]

Forgot to say earlier why making a graph around the proposed butcher age is useful. The birds grow exponentially then start to plateau out in growth. The weekly feed intake will continue to grow. Feed to meat conversion goes down the toilet every week over an optimal butcher time. With a graph of growth that time to butcher will be plain as day.

To elaborate on feed conversion and dismal results dual purpose birds are reported to have. That and procrastinating as today I've got to finish cleaning the sap buckets from sugaring. Everywhere I've looked for good info the conversion rates are exaggerated. Not that they fudge the numbers but are keeping the birds far too long to even expect a decent conversion rate. Roasting age of dual purpose is tasty for sure but wouldn't try to get conversion rate of feed to meat as it would be depressing. One university study used hatchery stock Delaware and CornishX for comparison. Nice graphs on growth and did ratios of dressed birds to live weights of each and dark to white meat ratios. The part where they goofed is thought it would be useful to have the birds weigh the same for final results. Off top of my head- CornishX butchered at 8 weeks and kept the Delaware for 16 weeks (something like that). Though the Delaware at twice the age were near the weight of CornishX at butcher time the feed intake was overwhelming. Near three times the feed. Using their wight data and ratios and doing some interpolation it was easy to see 12 weeks for that particular strain of bird was about optimal. Coincidentally that age compares to traditional butcher ages from the 50's. Feed conversion is optimal and you've the most tender bird of good size. Is it going to compete with CornishX? Certainly not but people are looking for alternative meat birds. Sustainable flocks and wanting the most that venue can provide. The hope is this threads data will aid in finding the answers to all this.

Alright, one more coffee and then bucket scrubbing time. Yay...

 

[OrganicFarmWife]

Hello, this looks like a great, informative thread.
I am currently raising a mix of red ranger, Rainbow Dixie, and Jersey Giant chicks mostly for meat production. The plan is to keep a Jersey for a Rooster and a female from the Cross breeds for breeders next year. I am planning on getting a final batch of birds to get me up to my goal of 50 meat birds (thinking this way we would have about one chicken a week) Does anyone have a good recommendation to add to this Mix? I have been strongly considering the Dark Cornish, and the New Hampshire.

 

[Egghead_Jr]

New Hampshire! As if anyone couldn't guess what I'd suggest. Seriously though, that's a good choice. If your going the route of hatchery most of them may say New Hampshire but in reality their RIR and NH are the same and basically production reds. Cackle hatchery seems to actually have distinction of those three types so that may be an option. First and foremost breeder stock would be the best choice though.

Another good choice would be Buckeye. Due to the recent conservancy effort then hatcheries jumping on the band wagon and obtaining this stock not so long ago (suddenly in vogue) makes for fair chance they haven't had enough time to really mess them up. From the conservancy reports cockerels were reaching 6 lbs live weight in 15 weeks I think? Can't remember but that's about 4 lbs dressed.

Glad you joined us!

 

[OrganicFarmWife]

I will look up Buckeye. I saw someone on here talking about a guy in NE that sells New Hampshire, that would definitely be an option, assuming he has males to sell cheaply, otherwise I am mostly sticking with the Hatchery Stock until I get experienced enough that I can hatch my own and raise everything. Then I will start looking at quality breeder breeds.

 

[Egghead_Jr]

Look up a few posts. Post 81, Jeremy of XW Poultry Ranch in NE has New Hampshire. If you could get a few pullets that would be a good dam to the Jersey Sire to make meat hybrids each year. Of course if you get some getting a cockerel to continue them would be ideal. Being local you may actually be able to get chicks from him. Jeremy is on BYC but can't remember his handle. The Ranch has it's own webpage though.

 

[OrganicFarmWife]

Look up a few posts. Post 81, Jeremy of XW Poultry Ranch in NE has New Hampshire. If you could get a few pullets that would be a good dam to the Jersey Sire to make meat hybrids each year.  Of course if you get some getting a cockerel to continue them would be ideal. Being local you may actually be able to get chicks from him. Jeremy is on BYC but can't remember his handle. The Ranch has it's own webpage though. 

Thank you I will have to look him up

 

[walkonwatereh]

I have new Hampshires and while they are fast growing unfortunately they can't handle the cold here. This winter was mild with only -35 but still the roosters combs froze. I am raising Partridge Chantecler currently to replace them and hoping to breed a good line of dual purpose egg/meat birds. Has anyone had experience with Partridge Chantecler. They love to free range and are growing at about the same rate as the NH chicks?