B.Y.C. Dorking Club!

[zach N houdan]

what color are you looking for? IMO there are very few dorkings that meet the SOP, but some come closer than others...

I'm breeding primarily silver grey, but also have a few reds i'm working with. can't say they'll produce show quality. my goal is to maintain/improve the type i have now, increase the size and perfect some of the finer points. size and type will be the hard part, once that's solid then we'll worry about the fine tuning.

i like the grays but any color really but whites

 

[ki4got]

At what age should I weigh the birds before a cull or breeding?

that's up to you, depending how long you want to keep feeding them. LOL but i personally have decided that culling prior to 6 months old was stupid on my part... between 4 and 6 months old there was a LOT of improvement on the girls i kept. the roos i think take a bit longer. "thing" (red dorking) is about 6 months old now, and still developing. 'new guy' my youngest sg roo is younger still and right now looks like a feathered walking cadaver justabout. all angles, no meat. yet. but the frame is almost full sized now. so hopefully it will start filling in soon.

 

[greenhorn]

At what age should I weigh the birds before a cull or breeding?

If you are keeping a bunch of roosters they start fighting at about 6 months. We had to get ours butchered at that point. The birds eat pretty well at 6 months too.

 

[ki4got]

Quote: i think that depends on the room you allow them... the fighting IMO doesn't tend to last near as long as it would with game breeds. mine have all gotten along great. i've got 5 that are between 6 & 18 months +, plus 5 cochin, 2 wyandotte and 1 easter egger roo. i have more sparring issues between the girls it seems.

then again they're only penned now and again, and free ranged the majority of the time.

 

[greenhorn]

i think that depends on the room you allow them... the fighting IMO doesn't tend to last near as long as it would with game breeds. mine have all gotten along great. i've got 5 that are between 6 & 18 months +, plus 5 cochin, 2 wyandotte and 1 easter egger roo. i have more sparring issues between the girls it seems.

then again they're only penned now and again, and free ranged the majority of the time.

Yes, i think it's worse when they are penned but wow the feed bill sure has dropped. I also think you can get a good idea about whats going to happen. If you want to keep them longer there sure is going to be a hefty feed bill. Feed usage has dropped big time since we took the 25 roosters to the butcher.

Will probably keep a few more next year just to see how efficient it is to keep some for larger roasters. Sure don't need 25 though. Next year it will probably be closer to 50 roosters, maybe more. No way would we need to raise that many roosters to full size for food or breeding. I don't think it's that difficult to see which birds have the most potential at 6 months.

Would be very costly to raise 50 or even 25 roosters all winter to find out..........

 

[Yellow House Farm]

So much of this is going to depend on the strain. There are certain faults that allow one to cull early, but I have found that, with the whites, six months is the safe(er) point. By then one has a pretty strong sense of where the bird is going. Of course, surprises will continue to unfold, but they tend to be in line with the general development of the fowl by that point.

Dorkings are generally rough enough at this point that there tend to be some pretty clear winners and losers. Over the years, as they improve, it will like become more and more difficult, as uniformity and high quality are achieved.

We'll be holding about 30 pullets into the winter. I don't like to select them until late January. By that point, they're showing you their productivity and more mature frame and weight. The cull females are great stewing fowl come spring.

 

[Yellow House Farm]

Yes, i think it's worse when they are penned but wow the feed bill sure has dropped. I also think you can get a good idea about whats going to happen. If you want to keep them longer there sure is going to be a hefty feed bill. Feed usage has dropped big time since we took the 25 roosters to the butcher.

Will probably keep a few more next year just to see how efficient it is to keep some for larger roasters. Sure don't need 25 though. Next year it will probably be closer to 50 roosters, maybe more. No way would we need to raise that many roosters to full size for food or breeding. I don't think it's that difficult to see which birds have the most potential at 6 months.

Would be very costly to raise 50 or even 25 roosters all winter to find out..........

I agree. If one is hatching out in March and April, one should be able to emty everything out by Thanksgiving, leaving only those birds that show good promise.

I don't think there's any sense in hatching Dorkings after mid-May unless there's been some sort of tragedy or they're strictly for broilers. Trying to mature birds out in the cold just doesn't end well. Caveat, of course, I'm talking about NH. I've talking to folk in the South that are raising chicks at all sorts of times of year.

 

[ki4got]

Quote: lol yeah i'm one of 'them'... raising chicks all year round. the benefit for me, is that they'll be laying by spring, so i can get another generation started sooner.

 

[DaveK]

So much of this is going to depend on the strain. There are certain faults that allow one to cull early, but I have found that, with the whites, six months is the safe(er) point. By then one has a pretty strong sense of where the bird is going. Of course, surprises will continue to unfold, but they tend to be in line with the general development of the fowl by that point.

Dorkings are generally rough enough at this point that there tend to be some pretty clear winners and losers. Over the years, as they improve, it will like become more and more difficult, as uniformity and high quality are achieved.

We'll be holding about 30 pullets into the winter. I don't like to select them until late January. By that point, they're showing you their productivity and more mature frame and weight. The cull females are great stewing fowl come spring.

This was our own experience as well. It helps tremendously to have some experience with the line at hand or being developed. Things tend to seem much more clear than the somewhat floundering beginning years. I will say those birds that seemed completely finished out and the most impressive looking early on were not the birds that eventually proved to be the best specimens or the type that we should be basing our future breeding on. Dorkings do need a degree of patience.

 

[alisar]

In case people are searching for pictures... 5 week old Ideal Poultry Dorkings

Black barred breast ended up being males. Culled them, so I don't have pictures of them. One was nice and one was mean and both were smaller than the girls.







Two of these are giant. They were the first to develop out of 15 both in size and feathering. The last picture is the small dorking, the size of the cornish bantam of the same age.

Edit: Forgot to say, these girls are super mega deluxe nice personality wise. Even as chicks, except for one that ended up being a rooster. Very calm, easy to catch. Also obsessed with eating slugs.