breeds for meat chicken

[phoenix-silkie]

hi to all, i was wondering what is the best meat bird, but not a Cornish cross. pear breed ? Sussex, Orpington, jersey giants ext. and if you cross two breed will you have a better out come?

 

[cavemanrich]

What is it about cornish X that does not appeal to you.??? It is the best and there are many reasons for it. Grows fast. Good food to feed ratio. Tender meat because they are lazy. All other chickens are eatable, but some have smaller carcass , some take long time to grow to maturity. Feed to meat ratio gets spread out.. Any of the dual purpose varieties are considered OK meat birds. If you raise your own from chicks, then option is to keep the hens for eggs and eat the cockerels as soon as they become troublesome. At that stage, they are still young , somewhat tender, but small carcass.

 

[Kildare49]

I raise both broilers & layers. I butcher spare cockerels around that 18 week mark.

Do they have the meat a broiler does? Nope. More dark meat and love the taste.

I have been happy with growth of my black copper marans over light brahmas mix.

 

[Egghead_Jr]

Sadly the utility attributes in dual purpose birds has not been very well sustained over the decades. The fast maturing New Hampshire is not so fast maturing anymore. A good cross in the broiker industry was NH and Plymouth Rock. That cross sometimes sported white birds that were developed into a singular breed that was worthy of broiler industry too. Good luck finding a Delaware today of that standard anymore. Nonexistent.

The only heritage bird with good growth, quick maturity that I can think of is White Plymouth Rock. If you wanted the best utility bird of today, self sustainable and easily reproduced as it's a pure breed that's the one in my opinion. Not hatchery stock mind you, the meat quality I'm speaking of is in the breeder stock. Good carcass and still excellent layer though not as productive in eggs as hatchery White Rocks.

You get hybrid vigor in crossing breeds in the first cross offspring resulting in faster maturation and even better size than either parent sometimes. But definitely larger due to faster maturing at butchering time, say you butchered at 14 weeks the hybrid would be bigger at that age than either parent at that age.

Ok, that got long, to summarize you'd want a White Rock flock -breeder quality. If the breast meat is too thin to your liking raise a batch of CornishX or Red Ranger for meat. If even Rangers rub you the wrong way then I'd not play around with inferior crosses and go straight to obtaining breeder quality Cornish, any variety I could. The BLR Cornish are hard to come by.
That said, I'd not waste time and expense of added pens to carry two flock, three counting the hybrids your raising to butcher. If my lust for a fuller breast at the table got the better than I'd have a very small flock of Cornish, thinking the White Laced Red are the best variety for carcass. The double breast of a Cornish added to size of a White Rock with hybrid vigor and speed of growth is the ideal. Again, your not going to get the meat quality on hatchery Cornish as you will from a breeder.

In essence your maki g a Cornish cross to butcher but it will pale to the growth rate and feed conversion of the decades long work the broiler industry has done to perfect their CornishX. They are a A to B cross then to a C to D cross and none of those are a breed rather trade secrets and devoloped.

 

[Egghead_Jr]

No idea how the added paragraph "ok, that got long. . . " got smashed inbetween others. Can'tcorrect.

Hate tablets and can't wait for my new laptop cord is the next rant...

 

[phoenix-silkie]

What is it about cornish X that does not appeal to you.??? It is the best and there are many reasons for it. Grows fast. Good food to feed ratio. Tender meat because they are lazy. All other chickens are eatable, but some have smaller carcass , some take long time to grow to maturity. Feed to meat ratio gets spread out.. Any of the dual purpose varieties are considered OK meat birds. If you raise your own from chicks, then option is to keep the hens for eggs and eat the cockerels as soon as they become troublesome. At that stage, they are still young , somewhat tender, but small carcass.

I want to have some hens and a rooster and breed them and there offspring i raise for meat. i have nothing wrong with the Cornish cross it just i cant breed them to get there offspring.

 

[cavemanrich]

I want to have some hens and a rooster and breed them and there offspring i raise for meat. i have nothing wrong with the Cornish cross it just i cant breed them to get there offspring.

Now I have a clear understanding. What Egghead_Jr. stated above is what you should try to do. A less expensive route in my calculations, would be to get broilers chicks, from a hatchery. It is obvious that you don't keep those as breeding stock. Then compare what you breed to the chickens resulting from the hatchery ..
Wishing you best..

 

[SJ]

Sounds like a great dual cross for meat to me.

 

[SJ]

I raise both broilers & layers. I butcher spare cockerels around that 18 week mark.

Do they have the meat a broiler does? Nope. More dark meat and love the taste.

I have been happy with growth of my black copper marans over light brahmas mix.

Sounds like a great dual cross for meat to me.

 

[jruhle]

Im raising some black copper maran X americuna and they definately are fast maturing. They began crowing at three months! Im butchering some tommorow