Best egg chicken

[rascal66]

My kids actually PREFER to eat the older tougher birds. They claim they like the “chew factor”.
They’re weird

I actually like it too! It reminds me of stew beef, but chicken flavored!!!!

 

[Dfarago]

Thank you everyone for your advice. You’ve all given me a lot of good information to consider. And I appreciate you all taking your time to provide your wisdom.

 

[Lizzy733]

Just keep in mind cornish cross and sex links aren't a breed of chicken - they are hybrids. If you plan on breeding your own, you'll need to maintain parent stock for both if you intend to keep certain traits such as being able to sex your reds at hatch and the hybrid vigor that leads to the exceptional growth you see in broilers. The broilers themselves were never meant to last longer than 8 weeks - they really are unlikely to be physically capable of being bred if they survive that long.
Particularly, a red male over a female carrying the 'silver' gene will make a sexlinked red. Something like a RIR rooster over a white leghorn would be an example pairing. Big hybrid hatcheries will have their own parent lines they've bred to enhance the egg laying and food conversion ratios of the offspring, so they may end up quite far removed from the breed standard themselves.
Typically, farms that stock for egg production raise sexed female chicks from hatch through to their first molt (when they take a break from laying), and then cull and replace with upcoming pullets to keep production high. It's generally not considered cost effective to keep them after this. Sex links will generally produce an egg a day, but are also prone to reproductive and egg quality issues. Their egg volume will drastically decline after their first molt.
I'm not too familiar with meat birds myself to know what parentage they have, but you're likely to get better flavor from a heritage breed.