Creating Meat hybrids

[Mr D]

Is there a reason that crossing breeds to create a meat bird, the Cornish roosters are over another, say Dorking, Hen? As opposed to a Dorking roo over a Cornish Hen?

 

[Sydney Acres]

Compost King, you have a very unhealthy line of Dorkings. I breed Red Dorkings and my line is extremely healthy and vigorous. I have about a 90% hatch rate (which does need improvement, but isn't terrible) and I honestly can't remember losing any chick that hatched. Over the last 8 years. I have the Sandhill Preservation line, and every chick survived shipment despite a delay. A few of the other breeds died a few days after arrival, but these Dorkings are like little dinosaurs with my free range management. I am a member of several Dorking FB groups based all over the world -- USA, Australia, NZ, UK, etc, and no one is reporting such a high mortality rate. And longevity has been good -- I have many 8 year old hens that are still laying and producing chicks.

 

[Ridgerunner]

In most respects, no. The offspring gets one of the genes at the gene pair from each parent so both contribute equally, except for the sex linked genes. There is always an exception when talking about chicken genetics just to make it confusing. For all practical purposes though, sex linked genes do not matter in what you are talking about so ignore them.

When trying to breed a hen for egg laying you generally look at the hen. You can see what she is contributing genetically. A rooster doesn't lay eggs so you can't be sure what he is contributing, but he is contributing as much genetics toward egg-laying as the hen. If you know what the rooster's mother and grandmothers were doing egg-laying you can make a good guess at what he might contribute but the hen is easier and more reliable.

It's pretty much the same if you are talking about only eating the male offspring. The males and females grow differently. You can tell a lot more about what the rooster will contribute meat-wise to his sons more than what his mother will contribute. Again, if you know what the hen's father and grandfathers looked like you can get an idea what the hen might possibly contribute. Both parents will contribute genetically equally for all practical purposes.

This applies to where you have several Dorking roosters to choose from, choose your best one. But a Dorking hen will contribute just as much to the conformation of the offspring as a Dorking rooster would. It's just easier to tell what the Dorking rooster might bring.

I hope that makes sense.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I'm guessing people mostly use the Cornish rooster because hens of any other breed will tend to lay more eggs and eat less feed.

If the cornish is a typical cornish-cross hybrid, then it's also hard to keep them alive long enough to breed (they get too fat and die unless kept on a strict diet.) If you use the cornish rooster, you only need one of him, vs. probably wanting several hens--so that's fewer birds that need special care.

Actually the opposite. The males get so big they are not able to mate, you may need to use artificial insemination. A dual purpose rooster can breed the hens.

The Cornish X are raised commercially. Part of that is they are feeding the hens that lay the eggs which costs a lot, so they want them to lay a lot of eggs. They are actually bred for good egg production. Some people get pretty good sized eggs others get smaller eggs. The eggs don't have to be big, they just have to hatch.

 

[LilyD]

Dorking actually have a fairly limited gene pool so they tend to have a lot of genetic related issues that crop up due to not having enough breeding birds in the population. For them I was told it's actually a much better idea to get birds from multiple sources so you have a greater chance at more genetic diversity in your flock. I ran them for quite a few years but they never did super well. I think they would have if I kept at it and kept culling out the birds with the genetic issues and adding more birds into the group to keep the population diverse but it got too expensive and wasn't what I was looking for in my birds.

 

[LilyD]

Compost King, you have a very unhealthy line of Dorkings. I breed Red Dorkings and my line is extremely healthy and vigorous. I have about a 90% hatch rate (which does need improvement, but isn't terrible) and I honestly can't remember losing any chick that hatched. Over the last 8 years. I have the Sandhill Preservation line, and every chick survived shipment despite a delay. A few of the other breeds died a few days after arrival, but these Dorkings are like little dinosaurs with my free range management. I am a member of several Dorking FB groups based all over the world -- USA, Australia, NZ, UK, etc, and no one is reporting such a high mortality rate. And longevity has been good -- I have many 8 year old hens that are still laying and producing chicks.View attachment 1911892

I was doing Silver Gray and not Reds and I have to say I got no where near that hatch rate. I also purchased from Sand Hill and a few other sources that were local and had been having luck. I did a total of 5 sources because in talking to more than one breeder the SGD were considered endangered as a breed and the breeding pool was limited enough that they tended to have issues all throughout their life.

Pictures of some of the grow outs I had and some of the older birds they free ranged in separate areas until it got hot in the summer then all free ranged together for the summer so they could get to the horse pastures where the shade was.

 

[Egghead_Jr]

Traditionally speaking, the faster to mature and most conforming to the desired body type has been the Dam in making of meat hybrids. I'd think there is something to that trend but as Ridgerunner pointed out both parents are contributing equally so it doesn't make a lot of sense in theory.

In the case of Cornish Game the obvious reason to have the cock over another breed is Cornish hens don't lay many eggs. Good production in Spring season only. But if we go back to traditional meat industry hybrids like the Plymouth Rock over New Hampshire and other such meat crosses made prior the late 1950's it's always the male for frame structure and female for quick maturing.

Edit to add- The stock you start with will mean most to any gains. Hatchery stock simply does not compete in size and breadth to breeder stock. In the case of Cornish you definitely want to attempt to obtain standard bred Cornish. @Compost King has more insight to the state of Dorking, believe he states they are under standard weights and is working on improving that.

Dorking is a small bird by standard but matures very rapidly with excellent fleshing. CK implies they are even smaller than the standard weight when mature. You should look for his posts in this meat forum or drop him a line to get some of his thoughts on Breeder stock Dorking in the U.S.

The meat industry butchered birds as broilers 12 to 14 weeks of age. 4 lbs carcass weights with good fleshing was the goal of hybrids at that time and still is today for backyard meat birds that are not the CornishX commercial bird.

 

[LilyD]

Its actually the Opposite, Dorkings are a large bird that takes a long time to Mature and fill out. The Reason why their flavor is so good (and I have not had a male live long enough to process to find out) is because of the slow maturing process. The current problems with Dorkings.. or the ones I have is that very few survive to adulthood. 90% mortality rate. They start out good the first week then some start getting Lethargic, eventually a few weeks later the Lethargic ones die, in the mean time even more of them get lethargic and they die a few weeks later. By the time they reach maturity 10% are still living and in my case only females have made it to adulthood. @LilyD has stated she had similar results but I can't remember exactly what she said about them. I get the feeling she did better than 10% as far as survivors go.
To improve them I crossed them with Red Rangers, although i will admit I was just clowning around with breeding Red Rangers to different heritage breeds to see if I can make respectable semi-sustainable meat birds. The Dorking x Red Rangers turned out so well that I kept some around to breed back to the Dorking's in an attempt to improve the Dorking's.

I have to totally agree I did Dorkings for a number of years they seemed to take forever to grow and fill out. Usually closer to 30 to 36 weeks versus the orps which I can process at 20 weeks. Took them much longer to fill out meat wise they spent a lot of time as bones and skin. As far as laying and heartiness they were hard to hatch and hard to get fertile eggs. They were great mothers once they had fertile eggs and would go broody and would take care of chicks that weren't even their own. But the chicks themselves weren't very hearty either. I had a lot of early culls in the brooder for failure to thrive in my bunch. The ones that did make it to adult hood were very healthy but I think it's more because I am not very tolerant to illness or issues in my birds I want them to be healthy enough to grow and thrive from hatch on and if they have problems with that I don't want to breed them because that's not what I'm looking for. As far as taste in the Dorkings I loved them very wonderful flavor probably because they went longer before processing and the meat was much darker than a normal heritage bird. They were breasty once processed but it took them a while to get there.

 

[LilyD]

I found that crossing them with those free ranging meat hybrids and breeding them back to the Dorkings has greatly improved the Mortality rate. First cross I had 100% success rate and a lot of vigor. 2nd crossing I lost about 2 out of 30 (going on memory for the numbers and if you ask tomorrow it might be 2 out of 40 or 35) The ones that survived the first week thrived. Red Rangers seem to be a great choice for this because it is drawing out other patterns I want and it doesn't hurt to have good meat Genetics involved in this. I would love to find someone who has done the same thing using another breed then when both of us get to our finished product we trade hatching eggs.

I could definitely see that being a great help. I am going to be trying something similar with my orps. The mentor I have been listening too has said breed heavy and cull hard to get the top 10% of the birds out of a large population. The truly excellent ones. Probably for the first few years after crossing out you will have to work off this principle for several things. Hardiness, egg quality, and hatchability. That was actually the first place I culled was in the incubator. No assistance they needed to be healthy enough to get out of the egg. Then in the brooder for failure to thrive and grow. If they weren't eating or drinking and getting along well they had to go . Then later on for size and confirmation.

 

[LilyD]

In most respects, no. The offspring gets one of the genes at the gene pair from each parent so both contribute equally, except for the sex linked genes. There is always an exception when talking about chicken genetics just to make it confusing. For all practical purposes though, sex linked genes do not matter in what you are talking about so ignore them.

When trying to breed a hen for egg laying you generally look at the hen. You can see what she is contributing genetically. A rooster doesn't lay eggs so you can't be sure what he is contributing, but he is contributing as much genetics toward egg-laying as the hen. If you know what the rooster's mother and grandmothers were doing egg-laying you can make a good guess at what he might contribute but the hen is easier and more reliable.

It's pretty much the same if you are talking about only eating the male offspring. The males and females grow differently. You can tell a lot more about what the rooster will contribute meat-wise to his sons more than what his mother will contribute. Again, if you know what the hen's father and grandfathers looked like you can get an idea what the hen might possibly contribute. Both parents will contribute genetically equally for all practical purposes.

This applies to where you have several Dorking roosters to choose from, choose your best one. But a Dorking hen will contribute just as much to the conformation of the offspring as a Dorking rooster would. It's just easier to tell what the Dorking rooster might bring.

I hope that makes sense.

Agreed the issues often you run into is that you breed more towards meat quality birds and you lose the ability to lay eggs. Both take resources so a bird can either be good for one or the other but it's harder for them to be good for both which is where the dual purpose breeds come in. For egg laying you want a wide back and a large abdominal cavity so that there are space for eggs to be plus you want to look at your pelvic bones. They need to be straight and not malformed or too tight to let your eggs through. This goes for both the hens and the roosters. I had one rooster I processed this year that had no abdominal cavity at all. He was a failure to thrive bird who turned around and made it to the cull grow out pen. He finished at 21 weeks as around 2lbs processed. He was very short backed and I could get one finger between his pelvis and the base of his keel.

You have to try and balance the amount of chest and space for meat to grow (plus ability to use resources to build muscle) with the ability to have space to lay eggs so in all actuality you want a bird that is more of a rectangle than a triangle in shape. Broad in both breast and pelvis. Able to lay moderately well and still create a decent carcass. And you are 100% spot on that you want to assess both the males and the females on both points you want males that have straight pelvises and broad backs and abdomens and females who have width to their chests and the ability to balance and use their wings and bodies proving they are well muscled.