1 flock hens 1 roo

Hi - and welcome to BYC!

If you are looking for meat, you want to make sure you have "meaty" birds and not thin birds like Leghorns. (Which lay eggs like crazy though.) Lots of people process their extra cockerels and keep the pullets for layers or to sell.

All depends on what your goals are. I have a more decorative flock, but do process the extra boys - not enough to keep me in chicken though. Serious meat breeders often buy a bunch of cornish cross chicks and process a freezerful a couple months later.

This thread may have ideas for you:


https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/845018/breeding-for-production-eggs-and-or-meat

 

You need to do a search for username Ridgerunner. He does what you're looking at, pretty much. He has great posts about how to manage a flock of birds that provide all your meat. There are also good posts in the Meat Bird section.

You're going to have to determine how many birds you want per year. Your meat bird hens may not go broody, so you'll probably need an incubator. Even using broody hens is a spotty thing if you're depending on them to provide meat.

 

Basics are:
Parent to offspring mating works out fine for 3, 4 or 5 generations....but you want to avoid sibling matings.
New blood cockbird every 3, 4 or 5 years is a good idea.

 

You can probably find free cockerels pretty easily if you want to rotate them in for new blood, particularly from cities with restrictions regarding numbers or roosters.