Breed question for dual purpose

[Chinchilla2]

If I was looking for a good dual purpose bird and looking for one that lays any other color but brown or white, what would be a good breed to get? Something that is fairly consistent with egg laying, can handle warm weather (I'm in Texas, so read "warm weather" as "hotter than Hades at noon on a summer day"), and has a good disposition since I have a 8y/o kiddo and a 4y/o grandkiddo that would be messing with them on a regular basis.

A real bonus would be if they are willing to eat ants, grasshoppers, mice, snakes, leftovers, etc. and give a good stinkeye to the dog when needed

 

[Illia]

Araucanas and Marans. (preferably the French type)


Both are super at free ranging/eating bugs, both are heat and cold tolerant, both lay a different color of egg (blue and dark brown) both have a really nice amount of meat on their bones, surpassing any "dual purpose" chicken you'd get from the feedstore, both are good, consistent layers when not broody, and both are very friendly breeds.

Also, both come in some neat colors too, and both are some pretty different looking birds, the Araucanas especially.

 

[Whitney13]

I had two EE hens. I am not sure how they would be for eating but they laid one egg a day even during the winter. They both handled the Arkansas heat and humidity well, they would sometimes pull their beards out in the middle of summer but I don't know if that was heat related. They also played in the mud to keep cool, it was adorable to go outside and see two hens covered in mud. Also they were great with children and non-chicken people alike. My oldest one named Kip put my dog in place from the very beginning. He went to stick his head in her bird cage(long story) when she was 4 months old and she tore into his face and actually made him bleed. He tends to avoid chickens now. When it came to leftovers these two hens would take out a rooster to get the food first. When mine got to old to lay anymore they got to move to the free range chicken retirement facility down the road also know as the neighbor with 50 acres and cows who needs bug control. I went up there the other day and I seen my two hens arguing with another game hen over a grasshopper they had caught.
They were great chickens compared to the other breeds I have raised including games, sumatras, and RIR.

 

[Chinchilla2]

I'll look into Araucanas and Marans. Thanks for the suggestion. Marans are on the auction board on a regular basis, perhaps I can do a con job on my hubby

Beats having an empty incubator any day.

 

[saladin]

Excepting the egg color, I'd suggest Cubalayas. They are extremely intelligent, heat tolerant (from Cuba), good winter layers, excellent on free-range and some of them lay a tinted pink egg (but mostly a slightly brownish color.

What they have over the two breeds Illia mentioned (good breeds by the way), is their beauty. Personally, I don't think there is a breed out their that can match the beauty of a Cubalaya.

One of the best Cubalaya breeders in the country is in Texas: Sam Brush.

 

[Chinchilla2]

Quote:
The Cubalaya looks very pretty. Are they really spurless like the information I came across says? I found a local breeder of Marans and I'm going to give those a whirl first but I do have this big pile of lumber . . . hmmmmm

 

[Illia]

To each their own Saladin

Love their tails but they're more refined than Asils in my opinion.

The spurless thing, at least to me, goes for most Oriental-type gamefowl and the likes. It isn't that they do not have spurs, they just grow REALLY slow and don't get very big at all. I don't know about Cubalayas in particular but most if not nearly all Orientals have hardly a "spur." My Shamo is over a year old and his spurs are still as if he was 7 months old.

 

[Chinchilla2]

Illia,

I'm going to write that down for future reference (re: Oriental-types and spurs). I picked up 17 Maran eggs this a.m. from a fellow BYC'er and more or less just popped them into the incubator. They may technically be a brown egg but WAY darker than the ones my Sussex and Orpingtons came out of.

Now to find someone local who has BOs and is willing to trade me a few eggs or a pullet or two for one of my cockerels LOL.

 

[saladin]

The spur thing:

On Cubalayas: the best strains have multiple spurs which are very short and tend to be somewhat dome like.

As to other Orientals it really depends on the strain. The Manuel Reynolds' Shamos have spurs as thick as an average (whatever that is) man's thumb and are just huge. This strain of Shamo was imported into Washinton State by Earl Ashby right after WWII; thus, it is one of the older strains of Shamo in the States. At two years of age my main cock bird has spurs that are around 2 1/2" in length and blunt. I have not cut them.

The reason most seem to have no spurs or small spurs when viewed online (as mature cocks which is 2 years old or older) is because they have been cutoff because of the tape match, out of tradition or to keep them from injuring the hen during treading. They get huge in size.

As Illia stated the spurs tend to grow slowly, but Orientals grow slower in general. However, at maturity their spurs are generally quite large. The larger the breed the larger the spurs. Malays, Shamos, Ga Noi all have huge spurs.

The real difference is in the shape. Oriental spurs are straight and should not show a curve as Bankivoid fowl do.

By the way, the multiple dome-shaped spur of the Cubalaya is known on the Island as a Rosary spur.

They are rather refined looking, I agree. However, if you ever see pictures of the old Gamefowl of the Phillipines or of the Ga Cua (Vietnam) they look nearly identical to them.

 

[Lordofchickens 86]

ameracaunas,and aracaunas