It is certainly possible. Just in case you're not already familiar with homegrown chicken meat, you won't get a bird anything like what you buy in the grocery store if you are using dual-purpose birds. The meat is still good, and I think it has a better flavor, but you're not going to get as much on each bird as you would with the fast growing broiler birds. So you might need a higher number of birds per year to eat if your count is based on storebought birds.
If you want a good, gentle, low-maintenance dual purpose bird, I can highly recommend Orpingtons. Of all the dual purpose birds I've eaten, I have found them to be the meatiest. They usually have great personalities, and are good layers, and do well in both heat and cold. I find that they're even pretty good to eat when they are old; I processed some 5 year old hens and they were great in the crock pot. If you've got 12 hens for eggs, and only want to eat three dozen eggs a week, you will probably have some excess with that many birds. Most dual-purpose breeds will lay 4-7 eggs per week per hen. You can always give them away to friends and family or sell them to cover some of your feed costs. If you hatch your meat birds in the spring, you can raise them up until fall and butcher them when it's cool outside and they are a good size. You want them to be at least four to five months old before they're really worth the effort to butcher. It wouldn't be that difficult to process 20-ish birds in one day, if you get a few people together and just make a day of it. It takes a while the first time around if you've never done it, but you get faster with practice. I found the buff Orpingtons easier to pluck than white Plymouth Rocks.
If you want a good, gentle, low-maintenance dual purpose bird, I can highly recommend Orpingtons. Of all the dual purpose birds I've eaten, I have found them to be the meatiest. They usually have great personalities, and are good layers, and do well in both heat and cold. I find that they're even pretty good to eat when they are old; I processed some 5 year old hens and they were great in the crock pot. If you've got 12 hens for eggs, and only want to eat three dozen eggs a week, you will probably have some excess with that many birds. Most dual-purpose breeds will lay 4-7 eggs per week per hen. You can always give them away to friends and family or sell them to cover some of your feed costs. If you hatch your meat birds in the spring, you can raise them up until fall and butcher them when it's cool outside and they are a good size. You want them to be at least four to five months old before they're really worth the effort to butcher. It wouldn't be that difficult to process 20-ish birds in one day, if you get a few people together and just make a day of it. It takes a while the first time around if you've never done it, but you get faster with practice. I found the buff Orpingtons easier to pluck than white Plymouth Rocks.
