barred rocks?

[lorihadams]

Has anyone ever raised barred rocks for meat? How long before butchering? I recently lost some of my flock and was considering raising some for meat/egg production. What about flavor/texture?

 

[cassie]

Before the Cornish X, people would buy straight run dual purpose chicks and keep the pullets for eggs and eat the cockerels. They are good meat birds, but it takes about five months to get them to butchering size and they will never have the meat yield of the Cornish X. Nothing wrong with flavor or texture. They may be a little firmer than the Cornish because they are older, but there is nothing wrong with that.

 

[Sunny Side Up]

I once ordered McMurray's All Heavies Special, 25 heavy-breed cockerel chicks, it came out to about 50 cents a chick. I didn't notice any difference in taste/texture between the breeds. The main concern is how soon you can get them big enough to butcher. I processed those birds between 16-22 weeks, a few each week. Each time I'd chose the biggest-looking/feeling birds. There was an assortment of breeds ready each week, I didn't really notice a big difference as to which breed was ready first. You could try an order like that to see which breeds you like best.

The benefits to raising standard breeds for meat is that they don't have the health issues many Cornish Xs can have, they don't eat as much per day (although you do have to feed them for a longer duration, the amount may almost even out), they don't poop as much, and they don't have to be butchered all at once, but will wait for you to have time.

 

[saddina]

I just made tamales from a spare BR Roo, they well, taste like chicken. Since the meat's firmer, use it in a wet cooking, like simmering, boiling or poaching, so that the meat doesn't dry out. Personally in the summer we have loads of tamales in the fall they're pot pies.

 

[rizq]

I am about to find out as, once again, out of 10 chicks I think I have 8 roosters. Gonna try my hand with them because my dad can't do it anymore, it hurts his neck ... either that or the chicken sale on Monday

 

[pdpatch]

We are this year, last year we had a broiler assortment, we had problems with the different variaties, as they did not always get along. The lady who buys our eggs got an assortment of broilers this year and has the same problem of not all of them getting along.

This year we got a Strait run of Barbed rocks they are around 18 weeks old, and still skinny but growing. They are like little angles compared to the other rosters we have raise, except Cornish Cross.

We don't even plan on doing them for sometime, since we don't fry and don't need then really young birds. The older Rooster we butchered a couple of years ago was still good at one year old.

We will keep two or thee roosters, and all the layers, which will leave about 3 to4 that will be Butcherd for meat this year. Since we did Cornish cross earlier this year we don't need the meat yet.

For Haritage Chickens I usually check the breast to see how much meat they have. It seems like going by a certain age never works around here.

Tom

 

[Steve_of_sandspoultry]

We had BR's before and I wasn't impressed with them at all. From the birds we raise here is a general break down

RIR - Size wise they are the largest and have the largest breasts 3rd in taste.
Dark Cornish - 2nd in taste, the meat is fine grained, you get alot of meat from each bird
Marans - #1 in taste, large birds but slow growing
Buff Orps - if you like leg 1/4's the bird for you, they are huge. 4th in taste, only because they have subtle taste and most sauces cover it up.

Steve in NC

 

[danielbrown]

Not long ago I butchered A Buff Orpington roo.
He was 10-11 months old
6lbs live
3.5 lbs dressed whole in the skin on.(super easy to pluck, no pin feathers)
I picked 1lb of meat off him after stewing.
Leg 1/4 was huge on him, not much breast meat.
He had much more flavor than store bought, I wish I had more of them.

 

[lorihadams]

With the dark cornish, how long until processing, how many weeks old?