american game fowl for near self sustaining meat and egg production? or is this crazy?

[MrSmokey]

You can get what you want. You can do what you want. It will just take some time to sort out how and with what. Games and their mixes was a common farm bird in the past for the very reasons that you mentioned. Most of our breeds had some game in them at some point.

Don't compromise your ideals based on our opinions. Stick to your guns and figure it out. Just do not figure running more than one male together at a time. Nothing wrong with a game mix either. What you are asking is for the bird to rustle up much of their own feed and be good mothers.

I have seen a few game mixed flocks raised just how you are describing. The mixes are often colorful and delightful birds. You can't beat them for toughness and durability.

Just do not expect anything to rustle up too much in the winter.

thankyou for the encouragement.
its actually looking like it may just be half games half icelandics, which are not going to be up there on the scale, but they should be hardy and proliferate... probably use a game cock as the one cock. for now that seems to be the plan. i know i can get EE, and buckeyes and a couple others from friends of mine, and they have opinions based on experience to share on them, but i almost want to try something else because i feel i already have an opinion i can trust on those and feel like there might be something better out there... at least better for my model...
and yup, not much to rustle up here in the winter, other that what i can rustle up as scrap from the grocery store etc

 

[Gardenlady2]

Hi MrSmokey, I just sent you a private message.

 

[MrSmokey]

Hi MrSmokey, I just sent you a private message.

Pm'd back

 

[Broodyhenry]

I have raised at least 12 breeds of Chickens with the same intebt for 4 years now. I live deep in the woods and my chickens free range and let me tell you Chickens will fall prey to all kinds of predators! If you are looking for a self sustaining flock in this type of hostile environment with little feed you are going to want very good foragers and birds that are fast, smart, wily and able to fly very well and perch high at night. You want birds with small frames and large wings. The very best birds I have raised for this are game and Icelandics. Game are wild by nature and very fast. Icelandics are docile (my pets I adore them! They coo to me!) by nature but like game are very good flyers and smart. They like to perch and yes even nest in the highest places in the coup. I build nesting boxes up in the rafters of my hen house and even nail apple baskets 5 ft off the ground for this purpose! They are less likely to be killed way up high. In my opinion the most important characteristic for survival. If you have 30 hens you are going to want at least 3 (4 is even better) roosters for protection and ones that will trully fight to the death for their protection!
This leads me to dark cornish. Although they are not great flyers they are fierce, determined, protective parents, great foragers and like game and icelandic extremely broody! I had a dark cornish hen hatch a clutch of eggs in the coldest month of January here in Michigan! She died fighting a weasel to protect her young. My rooster is mean as heck protecting his hens and I love him for that and so should you. So let me make this very easy for all you survivalist. Get yourself a flock of ten game, 10 Icelandic and 10 Dark Cornish with at least 4 roosters (Raise them together from the time they are young with the rest of the flock of hens and they will not kill each other). Do not vaccinate them or medicate them. . Let them cross. They will be beautiful! Let nature run its course were only the strong, smart, survive and perpetuate and you my friend will have one fine bird!

 

[MrSmokey]

Thankyou for your comment! That is exactly the kind of experience i am looking to hear about!

its funny you mention the Icies, because since my last post i had gone ahead and reserved 15 of them from a somewhat local fellow over in VT, i also reserved some swedish flowers, and was planning to get some american game or OEG and java, just to try basically a pretty broad spectrum of birds that are said to forage well.
then...,
i gave up for now on american game because the prices were just crazy, especially since i dont plan on breeding anything true right now, i could not do it, the money i would have spend on chicks will pay for a good part of a pair of highland crosses i am picking up for milk etc.

it seemed where they existed OEGs were cheapers, and based on Harvey Usserys comments regarding them at least the ones he had seemed a better bet than the american game i was looking at, as the fellow he got them from bred them as a farm utility breed, not show etc...

so, i contacted Harvey to get the contact for those birds explaining my situation and needs. He informed me that his choice of the OEG for self sustainability had changed in favor of another breed... icelandic. basically noting that they had what he found good about the OEG, but without cocks that are "murderously competitive" to each other, and with better laying that lasts longer into the winter.

so, at least for now, i am signed up for swedish flower and icelandic, and i just upped my order of the icelandic and will most likely scratch the java off the list. it seems the swedish flower will have what i was looking for in the java and a slightly lighter package, while large meat birds are tempting in terms of the table, the javas are seeming a bit heavy for meeting my goals.

Henry, thanks again for that good bit of information, exactly what i was looking for with this thread! maybe i will look for some dark cornish to throw into the mix.

 

[junglechicken25]

It seems as though not much of the advice youve been given here are from people that actually have american games or jungle fowl. Most of all this is speculation. Now from a breeder of american games for many years ill tell you that if you have a game cock that "looks like a scrawny buzzard" you need to rethink the chicken buisness because you dont know how to properly house and feed fowl, or youve gotten ripped off by someone selling trash and you need to cull every last one and start again with a different bloodline. Also if your hen raises two sets of biddies and cant keep producing eggs throughout the year you need to cull her and the chicks because they are junk and that bloodline needs to be replaced with something good. These are a few reasons why good fowl are 1500$ a trio, you get what you pay for. I take pride in my breeding programs selecting only the best of the best to carry on and make all other chickens look what they are, inferior. Also some advice given above is just flat out wrong, Do Not get more than one rooster, or you will be very upset after about 45 seconds when you only have one left, this type of fowl has been bred for over 1000 years to have power speed and smarts, they have been bred to have better ability in fighting. These are honorable birds with heart and pride and will not allow another rooster on his turf. I have taken gamefowl and had successful crosses with meat egg production types and these are reasons, bigger eggs, bigger cocks, but retaining the predator evasion flight and movements, and toning down the gameness for backyard breeders just starting that cant handle real gamefowl, i hope this helps.

 

[sdm111]

X2 backyard breeders often don't realize the time, and responsibility it takes to raise and maintain quality fowl then it's always the birds fault. I have for the most part quit selling to layer type people altogether

 

[chickengeorgeto]

I knew a man who smeared a mixture of honey and strychnine on 12 runty pullets and set them loose in a 10,000 acre track of timber that was harboring a predatory bobcat. When the time came and she was ready to lay, one of these pullets followed the crowing of my friends' roosters and showed back up at his house 6 months later in great shape.

I moved my yard in April of 1971 and at Christmas time the same year I returned to go rabbet hunting. The hounds jumped an Blue Arkansas Traveler hen from a briar patch. She must have been sitting on a stolen nest when I moved all the other chickens. The last time I saw her she was 40 feet high and rising.

So you can see that American Game Fowl can definitely make a living in the wild and survive, but they will be unable to procreate or survive in large numbers without having a human keeper on hand to feed and protect them from the dangers in the wild. The "wild" chickens in Key West, Florida or Hawaii are Red Jungle fowl looking birds, living in an environment not unlike the environment where the Red Jungle Fowl evolved.

A Leghorn type chicken, maybe a Brown Leghorn is as close to your idea of a self tending chicken as you'll find.

 

[centrarchid]

We did American Games sustainability in for tri-purpose use for many decades. Pullets serving as backups to breeding hens where either housed in henhouses for egg collection where you could get about 120 eggs annually per female or allowed to run free-range in barnyards with other animals and dogs about for protection. A group of 6 hens with one cock / bullstag could provide in excess of 100 juveniles suitable for use as fryers when they where harvested about 16 weeks old. Harvest was staggered but when predator management good results where consistent.


The city boys with cockyard keeping systems only could not do such. We did both but had to keep the cockyard component on separate farm from the free-range setups OP is interested in. Additionally with many groups we kept quality hens, usually only a couple and a quality cock on walks where all chicks hatched after June 1 where used for food/fiber while earlier hatched where scrutinized for use as games. Feed cost are high and free-range reared juveniles superior so walk system was employed a lot and practical when you have the acreage with suitable barnyards on it.