best meat breed

[Island Roo]

The 'best' meat bird depends on the person.

If your primary goal is dollars and cents or meat on the table as fast as possible, then CX may be best for you.

I have tried CX, and several heritage breeds. I also have 5 week old mistral gris.

My favorite meat bird so far is Brahma - I get a 5 pound carcass in 20 weeks.

I'm very impressed with my 5 weeks old mistral. A bit slower than a CX but with less smell and they act more like heritage breed. I also prefer a bird that has is not dependent on the factory poultry industry (breeding stock is owned by the big players).

 

[SJ]

Culinary skills can make a pig colon edible. I know I'm a chef. The CX will always lack the succulence and depth of flavor that an older, free ranged bird. Time equals flavor. Really when it comes to the CX it has no peer. Mostly all of us have eaten a CX in our lives. Too few have had the oppurtunity to do a blind side by side judging of the end product, meat. I have, and again I say CX has no peer. The CX is not tender but mushy, bland, drier, lacks a meaty texture, and plainly is desperately needing flavor. Why else does every package of boneless skinless breast you buy at the store have 15% "solution"(salts, sugars, other preservatives, and flavorings) injected into them? The answer is logical, the meat is as described above and therefore needs additional doctoring.
Free Range birds that get to 6 lbs in about 16weeks have a higher quality meat product. It takes longer to get it and it costs more too but as the saying goes you get what you pay for.

Truly many of the issues you hear that arise from raising CX(broken legs, heart failures, high mortality rates, ect.) are mostly from the lack of expierence with the breed. Knowing when and just how to adjust feed rations goes a long way in avoiding the forementioned problems. Which is why this site such a great resource. The person that wants to raise CX has so many people to engage in constructive dialog with that they are sure to find the knowledge they need to produce great meat birds and avoid so many issues. And at the same time the person that wants to raise something other than CX but still want a good meat animal(i think that was the original posters query) will find the knowledge to guide them right here.

 

[Island Roo]

Free Range birds that get to 6 lbs in about 16weeks have a higher quality meat product. It takes longer to get it and it costs more too but as the saying goes you get what you pay for.

That is your delawares?

I assume you mean a 6 lb bird that yields about 4 pounds of meat?

What do you get if you keep them longer - maybe 20 weeks (other than more noise LOL)

I find my brahmas fill in a lot between 16 and 20 weeks. But they are known to be a bit slower growing.

 

[SJ]

Yes, 6 lbs would be live weight and you are correct that cleaned meat yield is around a 4lbs per bird on average but, it is not just my Delawares that I can get respectable broilers out of at this age.
(16 weeks)
The Plymouth Rock, the Orpington, the New Hampshire Red, and the Chanteclers are all similar performers. Other breeds maybe too. This is just MPE. The Rhode Island Whites, the Dominiques, the Wyandottes, and the Buckeyes are just smaller birds so I had to adjust expectations of the overall size. More like 5.25lbs. I loved how meaty(meat to bone ratio) my Dominiques were at 16 weeks last year but only after I had my doubts when they were weighing only 5.25 lbs alive. The Dominiques had the same proportion of meat as the Delawares. Doms are just smaller birds. Pure standard Cornishes are proportioned so differently than these that here too expectations should be altered. Extra cornish pullets can be processed at 14 weeks or 4.25 lbs where the cockerels if allowed 22 weeks can get 7.5lbs, live weight and still be tender.
The Delawares are the above average birds consistently, which is why I like them so much. My Delawares are around 6 lbs at 14 weeks. My hybrids of several personal choice crosses (F1Delaware/Orpington X F1WLRCornish/NHR) can reach 6 lbs before that. Consistency and uniformity is not there yet. Go figure. If i grow my Delawares out to 24 weeks I can get(besides more noise...lol) some birds over 8.5 lbs live weight. 20 weeks I expect +6.75lbs birds out of my Delawares.
All the above mentioned breeds absolutely fill in somewhere in the 16-22 week range. They also are eating ALOT more during this time.
IF mother nature favors me 16 weeks is also the harvest so they get to fatten up on waste grain lying in the field. So a couple extra weeks for some of them doesn't really affect the feed bill, IF there is free feed.

 

[kfacres]

time might be flavor, but time also equals a tougher, stringier eating experience. Its a proven fact that younger is more tender. Rubber might have flavor, but I've never ate it.

chicken is chicken, and cooking methods will far better determine eating experience more times than age of animal will. We are taking a mear matter of weeks- check out other species, and it might be years in differences!

 

[ChocolateMouse]

I see. And beef is beef so there is no flavor difference in grass fed beef VS not? And eggs are eggs, no flavor change between grocery eggs and free-range? It's all about how it's cooked...?

And yet I bet while I make a mouth-watering paprikash with just grocery chicken, I'll bet you $10 that the chickens in my back yard will make an even tastier one with the same recipe!

And capons... Well, they just must be the stringiest things ever, right? That's why they're a luxury food.

What nonsense. It's mostly the male animals that get stringier and tougher as they age, until they all hit a certain point (something like 28 weeks or thereabouts or so I've heard) when they all get tougher at once. I'd eat a 20 week old flavor-filled bird over a 6wk grocery bird any day!

And to use your own argument against you; if it really JUST comes down to how it's cooked, why not brine an old, stringy bird and roast it in a crock pot and have a bird that's no stringy?

In any case, I have heard that Freedom Rangers produce a great bird carcass, right up there with CX, a 5lb carcass within12-20 weeks and fewer of the issues that CX's have. Plus more delicious grass-fed flavor!

 

[Bullitt]

What about these Red Broilers?
http://www.cacklehatchery.com/cornishcrosspage.html#red

 

[SJ]

Those red broilers sound like what I'm breeding for with my flock.

 

[SJ]

I wonder if they lay decent?

 

[Bullitt]

I wonder if they lay decent?

Are you asking about the Red Broilers? If so, it states, "Egg Production - Poor."

It states that the Red Broilers are intended to be butchered at 9 to 10 weeks old.

If you want meat and eggs, you need a dual-purpose breed like White Plymouth Rock.