Age to butcher dual purpose birds?

[SmallAndDeliciousLife]

Good luck! It can be a fun adventure.

Thank you so much for being so generous with your time and experience.

I am in the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia, north of Washington State's apple country. It is a challenging ecosystem—it is an arid desert environment that can get quite hot in the summer and quite cold in the winter. I found where to add my location and have that there.

Thanks for the summary of the breeding methods, that is very interesting.

We want eggs and meat—I would imagine a larger dual purpose breed, just to maximize the amount of meat per slaughter. I think incubating would be easier to manage timing and flock size over hens that tend broody.

And the eggs should be pretty! I grew up with blues and greens, and love the rainbow baskets of eggs.

And I want to be producing feed and forage on the farm far more than we currently are, but that is probably a few years out. In time I want to reduce the purchased feed.

Thanks again. I will check out the articles and look for the local threads.

 

[Molpet]

In my signature is a link to Bramblewood hill about breeding meat chickens

 

[Ridgerunner]

We want eggs and meat—I would imagine a larger dual purpose breed, just to maximize the amount of meat per slaughter. I think incubating would be easier to manage timing and flock size over hens that tend broody.

And the eggs should be pretty! I grew up with blues and greens, and love the rainbow baskets of eggs.

Most blue egg layers breeds are relatively small, I don't know of any that would be classified as larger dual purpose. So breed your own. One of the risks in your colder climate in winter is frostbite. Pea and rose combs are less vulnerable to frostbite, less than single combed breeds.

Bring in a pea combed blue egg layer breed for part of your original stock. Or select a pea combed or rose combed dual purpose breed for the meat side of this cross. Breed them and only keep blue or green egg laying hens in the future. In short order you will have a flock that almost all lay blue or green eggs.

Each year select your best cockerel to breed. Or cross them back to a pure dual purpose rooster. I keep my pullets until they are about 8 months old so I can evaluate their laying before I select which to keep. I select my best cockerel at the age I typically butcher them. In very few generations you have a flock that is pretty good for meat and lays the color of eggs you want.

 

[SmallAndDeliciousLife]

In very few generations you have a flock that is pretty good for meat and lays the color of eggs you want.

Wow! Thank you so much for this.