Breeding for meat qualities in a sustainable dual purpose breed

[catfish/okie]

Try a NHR or RIR rooster and white rock hen. Or a White wyandotte rooster and a WR hen, Or a buff or white orpington rooster and a WR hen, Or just pure white rocks. If I was going to raise eating chickens and could just go one way I would use new hampshire roosters (early maturity) with white rock hens (big bird) and caponize the male offspring. I would want the older strain New Hampshires not the production strains.

 

[Davaroo]

I meant "some evidence" to apply to an F1 generation. Reading some of the old books suggests that a cross between Breed A and Breed B will produce a hybrid that is larger in average size than either Breed A or Breed B. But, successive generations may revert to the average size of Breed A and Breed B. Similarly with egg production.

This is generally held to be true, as well.

I am currently wondering if roasting a chicken was common 150 years ago. Maybe stuffing a chicken and putting it in the oven is something of a modern phenomenon largely made possible by the giants produced by industrial crosses? Maybe in the past this was primarily reserved for larger birds like geese and turkeys?

Not as common as now, but not unheard of. The Romans wrote of it.

For the ultimate table bird, you may wish to consider becoming a caponizer, and grow capons to 22-24 weeks. You would then be rightly called a true artisan, practicing an arcane - but highly useful - practice.
I don't think so...but you could be right.

There isn't much doubt that the capon is a delish table bird - that has been proven in the market place as well as the village square for centuries. The weight of evidence supports that. Whether you approve of the practice is your choice I suppose.
The greater point is that it can be done with ANY chicken, including the dual purpose breeds (and indeed it was, since inception of the practice.)

"Genetics of the Fowl" by Hutt (1949) is also available free online through Cornell's Core Historical Literature of Agriculture series. From what I have read, it basically comes down to: produce lots of chickens, select the best, repeat.

As it inevitably does, in any case of selective breeding. Its how we got to where we are.

Thanks for your comments, even though I only responded to a few, I did read them all and found just about everything useful.

My pleasure​

 

[Smokin Silkies]

This is actually very interesting! So what breeds did you decide to go with? I know this post is old, but I'm hoping you can post updates?

 

[TimG]

I have decided to try to breed Freedom Rangers this year. I know they are hybrids and thus won't breed true, but I hope to see what a couple of generations look like and see how far they are from the original.

I would like very much to find some old-timey (good meat quality) New Hampshires, but thus far the search hasn't been fruitful.

What I'd really like is to use the New Hampshires to help stabilize the Freedom Rangers lines that I end up with or to cross with the lines I end up with to produce production birds that take advantage of the hybrid vigor associated with crossing the two lines.

If I had to pick a breed to use for meat and eggs it would probably be the Delaware -- I butchered a Delaware cockerel earlier this year and while I wouldn't exactly call it a roaster, it was very good and larger than I expected (4 lbs 2 oz dressed) at 18 weeks -- or Buckeye (which I have no experience with, but about which I have heard many favorable things). I pick these two breeds over the New Hampshire simply because they are readily available.

I'm more and more open to the idea of a meat bird that is processed at 16-20 weeks, but I haven't given up the idea of a home bred chicken that grows to market weight in closer to 12 weeks.

Tim

 

[hcammack]

I have to say from what I have heard Faverolles are amazing meat birds you should try them even with there beards and feathered feet they don't have problems and do mature very quickly.

Henry

 

[TimG]

I have an irrational bias against feathered legs.

 

[Davaroo]

Me too. Just like puffy top knots, frizzled feathers or naked necks, feathery feetses just aint right.

 

[Davaroo]

Quote:
Sounds like youre getting it!

 

[Smokin Silkies]

I'm doing my own meat bird project this year. I haven't figured out which breeds I'm going to use, since they suggest 3-4. I have White Rocks and Dark Cornish to start and they are about 1 month old. Now I need to decide the other 2 breeds. I've heard several different suggestions on how to breed what with what and I'm still a little confused. I heard before this post that you should start with 4 breeds. Breed A with Breed B and get C (not sure if I'm "terming" this the correct way...I'm genetically stupid..lol) Then you breed D with Breed E and get F.....THEN you would take Breed C and breed it with Breed F to get the finished result??? Confusing. Then I read differently on here, and I heard to take 3 Breeds.....Breed A with Breed B and get F1, then take F1 and breed it back to Breed A or B. So anyways, I'm still debating which other breeds I should use. I also don't care if I get a gigantic table bird. I'm just looking for a meaty bird that will feed my family for a meal and then maybe a bit left over. I also don't mind waiting a few weeks longer to get that result. I've found that different sites have different information on how fast breeds mature, etc. One may say that a certain breed matures fast while another site says thats its a 'medium' growing breed. I still have alot of reading to do and fast because I want to get these other breeds soon. At first I was only going to try and breed the Dark Cornish roo over my White Rock hens...so for the first time ever, I ordered from a hatchery. They shorted my order by half and sent their apologies. I wanted to see what I'd get by using hatchery stock and didn't want to invest a whole lot if I didn't somewhat like the end result. Now I wish I would've just got them from a good breeder. My White Rocks don't look all the same and neither does my Cornish. So I'll be buying all good stock from reputable breeders soon here.

 

[TimG]

Quote:
I think there is a lot of variation from line to line within a breed which leads to this sort of contradictory information. Same with size information. When the standard says that a cockerel of a certain breed should reach eight pounds, that doesn't mean that any old example of this breed with reach that weight. I think this is especially true for hatchery stock and meat qualities because there has been little emphasis on meat qualities in dual purpose breeds for many generations. Why bother when everyone uses Cornish Crosses for meat (that the same hatcheries also sell)?