Bantams as meat birds

[edgarmongold]

I recommend banties for meat, as long as you don't bother with show stock. They tend to be beautiful skeletons. Why stay away from hybrids? The best one so far I have eaten is a pekin silkie hybrid. And any of its derivatives with any other breed, lol... The banty breeds tend to impart juicy, tender, well flavoured, easily fleshing genes, the boys are ready to eat at any age, and they are SO feed efficient you can raise many on the same amount a larger breed would take. They're great foragers and tend to maintain a great weight at all times.

I don't mind stocking up the spit with more birds, they tend to carry a higher ratio of flesh to skeleton than larger birds. I don't know how you'd do with the darker meat of silkies, but even the pure black flesh, bone, organs etc is nicely flavoured and used to be considered medicinal. Derivatives often have dark but not black flesh, and it usually carries much more gelatine, which I am a huge fan of. Don't like the drier, blander white flesh of most other meat breeds.

I raise New Hampshire Bantams as livestock that just happen to do well at shows.
They mature and flesh out and can be dressed out at 16 to 20 weeks old.
Don’t have to worry about leftovers.