BREEDING FOR PRODUCTION...EGGS AND OR MEAT.

[neopolitancrazy]

This has probably been addressed in this thread but I'm not going to read the whole thing to find it....so forgive my laziness.

Experience with - and opinion of - Dorkings.  Like/don't like?  Good for meat or not?  Eggs?

I haven't said much about my trial of Dorkings.

My experience is with Silver Gray Dorkings, from McMurray and from Urch. Actually, I had a few from Sandhill, now that I think about it. I can't recommend Sandhills' Dorkings, they were too far off. McMurray's were recognizable as Dorkings, but about half the standard size, with lots of weirdness with toes and combs and oddly shaped small eggs. I got day old chicks from those two hatcheries. I got a young adult trio from Mr. Urch, didn't care for the personality of one hen, (she had what I refer to as the stupid-crazy gene,) but she tasted great. I loved the remaining pair, but could only get about 20% hatch rate the first year, and had a lot of duck feet and side sprigs on combs. The second year, I couldn't get any fertile eggs, so I moved on to another breed. I re-homed the cock, put the hen in the layer flock, and let her raise the last 14 Wyandotte chicks this year.

Hope this helped.

Angela

 

[Beer can]

I have non hatchery Speckled Sussex. They take longer to grow out because they're roasters, but they're about the best tasting chicken I've ever had. I don't know if the other varieties have a faster growth rate or not. Originally, I wanted red, buff or browns, but I couldn't find any. So I settled for SS. Come to find out, finding good SS is just as hard.

Heck, I don't have a problem with the long grow out, I've picked j giants as my focus breed Lol! Just didn't expect the Sussex, didn't order them. DW thinks we have too many chickens? Huh?
Right now I'm not to happy with what I got for white j giants, only half of them look like they are supposed to, four of them are white, they are not supposed to be white until they get older. I ordered 15 langshans, they said on the phone they couldn't fill it and I wasn't getting them. Paperwork on arrival said I had 25 chicks 4 langshans, I only count one...and only 22 chicks? The single langshan is definitely the biggest one, huge head and body. Guess they can't count? What am I supposed to do with one langshan? The red Sussex are the most active, I want to keep them...wife says no....Maybe I can hide them?

I even offered to butcher the laying hens we have now!

I just counted, I think five out of twelve look like what white j giants are supposed to look like, pretty sad when you can see that as chicks....

 

[hellbender]

Heck, I don't have a problem with the long grow out, I've picked j giants as my focus breed Lol! Just didn't expect the Sussex, didn't order them. DW thinks we have too many chickens? Huh?
Right now I'm not to happy with what I got for white j giants, only half of them look like they are supposed to, four of them are white, they are not supposed to be white until they get older. I ordered 15 langshans, they said on the phone they couldn't fill it and I wasn't getting them. Paperwork on arrival said I had 25 chicks 4 langshans, I only count one...and only 22 chicks? The single langshan is definitely the biggest one, huge head and body. Guess they can't count? What am I supposed to do with one langshan? The red Sussex are the most active, I want to keep them...wife says no....Maybe I can hide them?

I even offered to butcher the laying hens we have now!

I just counted, I think five out of twelve look like what white j giants are supposed to look like, pretty sad when you can see that as chicks....

Just curious....where did you get them?

Never mind...I just looked back one page.

 

[GhettoRoo]

I have non hatchery Speckled Sussex. They take longer to grow out because they're roasters, but they're about the best tasting chicken I've ever had. I don't know if the other varieties have a faster growth rate or not. Originally, I wanted red, buff or browns, but I couldn't find any. So I settled for SS. Come to find out, finding good SS is just as hard.

There is like 'strains' where egg + meat birds have differences, ya?
I've heard for esample Jersey Giants, that I guess black ones grow faster than whites, or reverse.
Probably offspring growing speed selection and breeding further, ya?
P.S, sorry for not 100% correct language.

 

[GhettoRoo]

Supposed to do with one langshan? The red Sussex are the most active, I want to keep them...wife says no....Maybe I can hide them?

I even offered to butcher the laying hens we have now!.

Hi. One of this I havent got information and knowledge is about chicken colourings. For example Sussex have 4 kind of colours, wiandottes too, brahmas etc...
The bramas and sussex how one colour type equal, brown and white. Brahmas have that wiandottes silver colouring too. It speciallly I dont like barred wiandottes, cause barred colouring own barred rocks, u know.. and etc etc, barreds even are white... I would never take white barreds or barred wiandottes.. I believe each breed should his own colouring... What changes they colouring? Is the same breed, for example now Sussex, all four colouring chickens are the same blood? Same charestericks?
I find speckleds even look different in faces..
P.S, talkin about sussex If im gonna incubate more, I probably gonna take few sussex, I have white ''Dominant sussex'es', Appearance difference is that pure Sussex'es are bigger and with white legs, mines have yellow, if healthy..
P.S, someone can send me just to talk someone smarter about those colourings. I guess its aint just pellet colored elexiris, But mixing with somebreed who just give offspring his coloiring, aint something like this?
Thanks for reading folks, and waiting opinions. Hope yall understand..
Strains and how to mix breeds is one of my main interests in chickens..

 

[neopolitancrazy]

Hi. One of this I havent got information and knowledge is about chicken colourings. For example Sussex have 4 kind of colours, wiandottes too, brahmas etc...
The bramas and sussex how one colour type equal, brown and white. Brahmas have that wiandottes silver colouring too. It speciallly I dont like barred wiandottes, cause barred colouring own barred rocks, u know.. and etc etc, barreds even are white... I would never take white barreds or barred wiandottes.. I believe each breed should his own colouring... What changes they colouring? Is the same breed, for example now Sussex, all four colouring chickens are the same blood? Same charestericks?
I find speckleds even look different in faces..
P.S, talkin about sussex If im gonna incubate more, I probably gonna take few sussex, I have white ''Dominant sussex'es', Appearance difference is that pure Sussex'es are bigger and with white legs, mines have yellow, if healthy..
P.S, someone can send me just to talk someone smarter about those colourings. I guess its aint just pellet colored elexiris, But mixing with somebreed who just give offspring his coloiring, aint something like this?

Thanks for reading folks, and waiting opinions. Hope yall understand..
Strains and how to mix breeds is one of my main interests in chickens..

I am going to try to explain this, I may not get it right, it is something I have been studying for a bit now.

Breed=shape. Chickens of the same breed should have the same shape, as well as skin color, egg color and comb type.

Variety=feather color and pattern.

Strain=family, sorta. Each breeder develops their own family/strain of whichever breed/variety with its own specific traits such as egg size, age to maturity, heartiness, feed efficiency and so on.

Each country has its own breed club which decides to recognize the various breeds and different varieties within each breed. I believe Brahmas are recognized in Light, Dark and Buff in the USA. Wyandottes are recognized in white, black, buff, blue, silver laced, gold laced, silver pencilled, partridge, and Columbian, (in the USA.) of course, at any given time, you may run across people working with varieties that are not yet officially recognized, as well as people who are crossing strains within recognized varieties.

That is my best explanation, someone with more "chicken smarts" will have to post about crossing strains and breeds.

Best wishes,
Angela

P.S. I do not care for the barred or cuckoo patterns, either.

 

[LindaB220]

Dorkings are in terrible shape as a breed. The best are the white dorkings that Joseph has:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/u/35052/yellow-house-farm

They do not get as big as they should for the rest--and take a long time getting there. They lay a low number of medium white eggs.

I have had experience with Silver gray dorkings.

But, at the same time they were Queen Victoria's favorite eating bird. That says a lot.

 

[ronott1]

But, at the same time they were Queen Victoria's favorite eating bird. That says a lot.

It is sad that the Dorkings are in such bad shape.

I did cross a dorking rooster with australorp and RIR(hatchery). They made very nice meat birds. The hens are not great egg layers though.

 

[gjensen]

Many of the old breeds are in that kind of shape, and some of the more recent breeds. These birds used to be what fed people fowl meat and eggs. That changed, and as a result these birds have changed, or have been left behind. It is a labor of love to take on old and/or rare breed. It is not for everyone, and there is nothing practical about it. It is purely a labor of love.

For these to have a future, we have to give them a place and a role in a new world. Otherwise we are saying goodbye to an old friend of sorts.

To put it in perspective though, if we had fed the Queen a modern meat bird, she would have praised it to know end. There is a practical reason these birds have been left behind.

As aspiring breeders we have to find where our loyalties are. They are in different places and for different reasons, and that is how it should be.

 

[dfr1973]

P.S. I do not care for the barred or cuckoo patterns, either.

Same here ... and we are both working with laced Wyandottes. I wonder if that is coincidence?

More of my January hatch Wyandotte pullets are starting to lay ... exciting times for me, as I am also doing the selection portion on the April hatch pullets I ordered from Cackle. I ordered 25 pullets, received 24 pullets and 2 cockerels ... and am growing one of those cockerels out. He's big in relation to the hatch, he's quite colorful ... and he follows hubby and I around and lets us both pet him. These will be the last of the P generation. The Silkies (incubators disguised as feather dusters!) are the same age as this last batch of GLWs, and out of ten remaining I am pretty sure I have 3 cockerels and 6 pullets ... with one that looks halfway in between the rest.