Which meat bird - no crow?

[Ridgerunner]

I initially wanted to avoid cornish X as I want a dual purpose bird that will lay plenty of eggs and go broody. I wanted to use the cockerels for meat and keep the hens for eggs. It just feels more self sustaining to me. But now that I'm looking into all the different heritage breeds I'm realising I might have to prioritise their cull date due to crowing.

Does this mean you have given up on the idea of breeding your own due to crowing so you will be buying chicks after all? In that case just go with Cornish X.

We have neighbours close enough to us that they could potentially complain if we have a dozen cockerels welcoming the dawn. I don't want to cause issues or be forced to cull early.
So are there any heritage breeds or cornish X alternatives that will reach their table weight before crowing?

But this makes me think you still want to breed your own, just butcher early.

Should just add, ideally we want a large carcass. We have a big family so would like each bird to carry a food amount of meat.

This makes it a whole lot harder.

There is no set age when a cockerel of any breed will start crowing. Some of the same breed start really early, some pretty late. Having a dominant rooster in the flock will sometimes suppress the others from crowing, sometimes it seems to start a competition. When dealing with living animals there are no set rules as to how they will behave. Each one is an individual and will do their own thing. That presents some challenges.

Another problem with breed is that not every Sussex, Delaware, or any breed is exactly like every other chicken of the same breed. Some breeders may breed for show, some for eggs, some for meat. Some don't know what they are doing. What you get with a specific breed depends on what the breeder is breeding for as well as how talented a breeder they are.

What I think you are looking for is a flock of chickens where the boys mature at a pretty young age as that is related to how fast they grow at a young age. But that early maturity means they are likely to crow at a younger age. Like I said, this isn't easy.

Other than Cornish X or the Ranger types I don't know what breeds might be currently bred and raised for meat in Northern Ireland. My first thoughts are probably Sussex or Orpington but could be another breed. If you can find someone breeding for your goals then that is the way to go to get your initial stock. How you do that I don't know. There are a few people on this forum that can make those recommendations for Delaware, New Hampshire, or White Rock here in the States, but there are very few in the whole country breeding for that. They are rare. You may be better off looking for someone that shows dual purpose birds. They aren't necessarily looking for early maturity but size is usually important when showing chickens.

My main thought is to try it and see how you like it. Things often don't work out the way we plan. You may find that the crowing isn't as big of a problem as you think, especially if you give the neighbors a dozen eggs every now and then. Bribery works, that's why it's been around so long. I typically raise one to two dozen cockerels with the flock every year, maybe to 23 weeks of age. Crowing is almost never a problem, but every now and then you can hear a lot of crowing.

 

[Heffalump]

Thank you.

Sorry if my posts were a little confusing. We already have a 3 roosters (buff orp, swedish flower and a tiny little sablepoot) and that noise level is tolerated okay by the neighbours. But I was thinking a dozen or more roos crowing would be something else. So my plan was to keep a couple of roos back from cull to breed on the next generation and hopefully that way I wouldn't have to continue to buy eggs.

I am going to look into the ranger equivalents in the UK a previous poster linked. But they are in England so I would need them shipped over. I'm hoping they'll agree to post me some matching eggs.

 

[Acre4Me]

Dorkings are known for both laying, broodiness, and meat carcass. One of the oldest breeds, and of European origin, so I would imagine they are easy enough to find where you are. They have distinctly short legs. They tend to have more dark meat than other birds. I’ve raised and butchered some, and they were tasty. Search my name during Dec 2020 (or only search my name in meat bird forum) -I wrote a detailed post about butchering BJG and Dorking side by side, with pics.