Best breed combinations for a flock

[brummie]

I have more or less given up on the idea of the "perfect" breed or dual purpose breed that does everything I need it to for me. I realise I need atleast 2 or maximum 3 different breeds in my flock if I want to achieve my flock objectives in the most cost effective manner.

My flock objectives are:

To provide a regular supply of a lot of eggs.
To provide a regular supply of meat (but no super fast growing chickens. Meat chickens older than 12 weeks (I know it will cost a bit more) which I can breed myself, I do not want to constantly order hatchings eggs or baby chicks).
To be broody enough so I do not have to bother with incubators.
To stick with (ideally) pure breeds
No extra stuff that can cause more problems e.g no feathered feet or beards or crests.
Winter hardy

Some dual purpose breeds like Sussex come close, but I realise they are not as cost effective. The price per egg is more than say for example the cost of an egg from leghorns as these dual purpose breeds eat more.

But then to manage 2 or 3 different breeds might become costly also as there will probably need to be more replacements?

So I was thinking in a flock of 10 (excluding the meat birds which will be regualrly coming and going in batches of about 12) which has the following breeds may fulfill my requirements in the most cost effective manner:

7 Leghorns for eggs
3 Dorkings for broodies
Dorking x Leghorns for a reasonably fast maturing relatively decent meat bird at about 14 weeks (I'm not too fussed about white or dark meat)

Any thoughts/ideas/opinions/suggestions? I'd love to hear of combinations that are working for people with similar objectives.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I have a few thoughts. While you can eat any chicken of any size or age, a leghorn cross is not a good idea for a meat bird. They were created to efficiently lay a lot of eggs. That means there is not a lot to their bodies. They use most of what they eat to make eggs, not maintain a large body. You are not going to get much meat off that cross even if you let them go a month or two longer. You can eat old leghorn hens, but even then you won’t get much meat.

How many chicks do you plan to hatch a year? Hatchery dual purpose hens usually lay pretty well. They are not as cost efficient as the smaller leghorns or hybrid commercial layers, but they still lay a lot of eggs. What do you plan to do with the eggs from them you don’t hatch for meat? Will that be enough to satisfy your need for eggs? It’s something to consider.

If you are into cost efficient, you cannot beat the specialists; Leghorns or commercial hybrids for laying eggs or commercial broiler chicks for meat. I understand you desire to not use the broilers, I don’t either, but dual purpose are just not going to be as efficient as them.

Just because a breed is known for going broody does not mean any individual hen will go broody and they certainly don’t do it on demand. If you can get your stock from a flock where the hens often go broody, you are in a much better situation than depending on a hatchery hen from that breed. But even then, there are no guarantees. I normally have a laying/breeding flock of 7 to 8 hens that I overwinter. I hatch about 40 to 45 chicks a year to eat and for replacements. While I much prefer to use a broody for that, I still have to use an incubator once or twice a year to hatch enough chicks. I’m trying to save replacements from hens that do go broody to increase broodiness in my flock and I’m making progress, but I still have to use an incubator.

The flip side to that is that if they are broody, they are not laying eggs. If you get hens that are continuously going broody even more than you need, they are inefficient as egg layers because of the egg laying time lost if you need to break them. There are balances and trade-offs with this.

If you are into efficiency of laying, you will need to regularly replace your layers as they age. I eat my older hens and hatch replacements. But I have a barnyard mix of a flock, several different breeds mixed together, pretty good at laying and reasonable for meat. Your desire to maintain pure breeds creates another inefficiency, especially if you want to hatch your own replacements. You will need to keep a rooster for each breed and segregate them by breed during breeding season to keep the eggs pure. The inefficiency is partly that you need to feed different roosters, partly your management time managing that, and partly the cost of increased facilities to allow you to separate them. There is a reason the dual purpose chickens were developed. They may not be as efficient at laying eggs as the pure egg layers or as efficient for meat as the meat bids, but that are decent for both and are much simpler to manage.

I don’t have any recommendations for breeds. I think there are several that will work for you but that just comes down to personal choice. Good luck!

 

[donrae]

I agree on the leghorn crossed being poor for butchering. Instead of a leghorn, I'd go with pretty much any hatchery dual purpose hen, say a barred Rock (cause I like them

). Get a few hens and a rooster, and get a few dark Cornish hens. The Cornish don't lay well, but they do lay some, and you could hatch out barred Rock/dark Cornish chicks for meat birds. The Cornish are supposed to be great meat birds, and crossed with a Rock rooster, even a hatchery Rock, will give you a nice carcass. You can also hatch out the pure Rock eggs for replacement layers and use the cockerels for meat.

I think this would work well with most hatchery dual purpose/heavy breeds...Rocks, Reds of any type, Wyandottes, Australorps, etc.

 

[brummie]

I acknowledge a leghorn cross will not be as good as a dual purpose breed cross with a dorking. However, dorkings are great meat birds (arguably as good as the cornish if your not fussed about breast meat) and crossed with a leghorn, can potentailly give a decent enough meat bird . The thing is, to try and get everything out of 2 or 3 pure breeds some sacrifices have to be made somewhere, and as eggs are probably more important, and in the long term more costly, i'm thinking it may be better to make the sacrifice on a bit of carcass size?

If i'm saving even $10 per leghorn per year in feed cost (as compared to a dual purpose), then that's $70 saved per year for 7 leghorns, not to mention more eggs.

so is that $70 plus more eggs worth a slightly smaller carcass for every meat bird (a dorking cross should still give a failry decent carcass size, even when crossed with a leghorn)? Or would it be better to have a 3rd breed and all the managment hassle that bcomes with it to maintain flock, for meat?

As for relying on going broody, I know they may not, but dorkings are amongst the best if not the best large fowl broodies. I would say only silkies are better than them. And becasue dorkings are large fowl, I can easily hatch 12 meat chickens at a time under them, so each hatch should keep me going for a couple of months for meat, and with 3 dorkings bred for broodiness over time........but yes I know there is not guarnatee relying on a broody, that's just something I'll have to work on as I am really not keen on using an incubator. But i certainly don't mind them being permanently broody, they are not for eggs the leghorns are for the eggs. I can hatch all year long if need be.

It's hard enough maintaing a 2 breed flock, with all the repalcement and rooster cahnges, but 3 breeds just makes it more difficult. But realistically I think that 3 breeds is the only way to meet all my needs. So perhaps in a flock of 10

5 Leghorns for eggs
3 Dorkings for broodies and meat crosses
2 Light Sussex for meat crosses with dorkings, eggs and occasional broodies.

but then if i went for 3 breeds i have a lot more options. I could go for

2 RIR (for eggs, crossed with LS for layers, crossed with Dorking for meat)
2 LS (for eggs, crossed with RIR for layers, crossed with dorking for meat and occasional broodies)
3 dorkings for broodies and meat crosses
3 of the RIR x LS layers

but maintaing 3 breeds is just difficult wihtout the space. I just can't figure out if or which 2 breeds could do it all.
The combination of leghorn and dorking is about the closest I can think of. Any DP breed with dorking or cornish just makes the eggs more expensive.

(sorry if this sounds like mumbling, i guess i'm just thinking aloud).

 

[lazy gardener]

Are you in a cold climate? If so, you might want to explore your options in pea or rose combs. How big a family do you need to feed (translation: how big a carcass do you need to make you/your family happy?) Luckily, chickens are not a one time decision. Why don't you try the breeds you're looking at, and see if they work for you. If you don't like it, you can change it up next year. You might look at the Buckeye instead of RIR. If you maintain 3 breeds, that means 3 breeding pens, and that means 3 roosters. If you use barred hens, you can produce sex-links in your F1 generation. I can tell you that my EE x RIR chicks are almost as big as my Pioneer meat birds that were hatched on the same day. Personally, I am enamored with the idea of creating my own barnyard mix that will provide meat/eggs, and have small combs and lots of hybrid vigor. My starting mix includes RIR, EE, Dominique, rose comb brown Leghorn, and Pioneer. Good luck with your choices! Enjoy.

 

[donrae]

I guess I don't see 2 breeds as that difficult to maintain, and I'm not sure why you're tossing the Sussex in there? You've got Leghorns for eggs, and Dorkings for meat and broodies...I'm not seeing the purpose of the Sussex?

 

[machina]

I know a guy that has a dual purpose flock of Light Sussex. He has about twenty birds that are the mainstay of his flock. These include two roosters, about half a dozen layers, about half a dozen layers of eggs to reproduce the flock, and about half a dozen Light Sussex bantams as broodies. Then he has developing chicks, pullets and cockerels, so about 40-50 birds in the flock overall. The point being that even with a fairly simple flock he requires a fair number of birds and four reasonable sized pens to have a flock that produces eggs and meat, and reproduces itself.

 

[brummie]

I'm not in an extremely cold climate here in England. we only have a few days where it goes just below 0 celcius. I can't get Buckeyes here either, as far as I'm aware they are non-existent in the UK. The EE x RIR sounds interesting, but I'd probably replace the EE with another DP bird.

I'm only throwing Light sussex in there to get a better meat bird than a leghorn when crossed with the dorking. But 3 breeds is too much. 2 breeds with their crosses has to be enough.

Good idea machina, to use LF DP birds as layers and meat, and use banties as broodies. I guess the feeding cost will be saved on the broodies in this case istead of the layers. That's definetly something i'm going to have to consider. But that's a large flock he has, surely it can be maintained with about 12 birds as the mainstay of the flock?

 

[lazy gardener]

Brummie, I'd hope that a base flock of 12 would meet your needs quite nicely. How many birds would you plan to eating over the course of a year? It wouldn't be too difficult to keep one pure rooster to put over your pure hens. You could use him to cover your other breed as well for a few years, then bring in some fresh stock. Seeing what kind of chicks my EE x RIR produced, I'm looking forward to the future of my mixes. I intend to keep a few hens that will produce sex linked chicks, thinking that they would sell well in my area, especially with the pea or rose comb, as the only sex links available from the hatcheries have the straight comb, which does not do well in our winters of 10 - 20 below 0F. Please keep us posted re: what you decide to use, and how it works out for you. There is a mixed breed thread that you might want to read. It's pretty interesting.

 

[brummie]

i'm looking for atleast one meat chicken per week, but ideally 2.

Could you link me to that mixed breed thread, I've looked around but not sure which one you are referring to. Thanks.