Dual purpose bird or straight meat bird?

Lazy J Farms Feed & Hay :

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Frank,

That cross was made with different birds than we generally have access to now. With the greater emphasis by hatcheries to have "Dual Purpose" birds with the single objective of producing brown eggs we have lost the meatiness and growth characteristics that made the NH and Delaware birds passabel meat birds over 50 years ago.

With the high price of feed I suggest you use the bird that will most efficiently convert feed to meat, that bird is the Commercial Broiler sold by most every hatchery in the US.

Jim

1st; Frank is the guy I quoted, my name's Mitch.
2nd; Its really too bad that happened to these great breeds. But there are breeders of them again and they're trying to get them back to the point where homesteaders will be able to use them the way they were uses back 50 - 60 years ago. When they get there (Rocks & Buckeyes are there now) will they be considered "passable meat birds?" To most, no, but I am happy with getting a healthier bird (that I shouldn't lose 20 out of 25 chicks) that both lays & produces a good sized carcass.
With the high price of feed I suggest you use the bird that will most efficiently convert feed to meat, that bird is the Commercial Broiler sold by most every hatchery in the US.

We've tried them, and we had bad years, and some decent. But, I've just come to prefer true-to-type birds that produce.
Mitch​
 
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Trust me, I'm not a "PUNKY" guy at all, It was the name of my Buckeye cull. I can certainly understand that. You know how long it took for us to get rid of three males that I wanted gone so bad? About two months.( they were delicious!)
Mitch
 
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The dual purpose don't really eat any more in 20 weeks as then the Cornish crosses do in 8 weeks if both are fed only feed. If they are allowed to free range they will eat less and with some good breeder stock White Rocks, Barred, Buckeyes you wont even have to wait until week 20.

See this link:

http://animalscience.ucdavis.edu/avian/feedingchickens.pdf

According to the chart a dual purpose type breed will use about 14 to 16lbs of food to get to 20 weeks of age if we don't butcher before that age. Our records show about 1/4 to 1/2 of this but ours free range.

For Cornish X we figure 20lbs of feed per bird. 10 lbs of feed from 0 to week 6 and 10 lbs of feed for the last 2 weeks.

So according to our own experience and figures and the research of others -- the feed usage is less for the DP to week 20 than the Cornish X to week 6

See this link:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=5528990

Also anyone wanting to keep track is welcome to use the free forms which can be found in the links of my signature below.
 
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These are my thoughts exactly! I am getting some Buff Orpingtons this week to start hatching out my own chicks to eat. I don't think I will be able to process them until early 2012, but I think it will be worth it to not support the poor treatment of the store bought chickens.
 
Orpingtons from a hatchery are much smaller than they should be. I got some with the idea of them being dual purpose and one of the biggest hens only dressed out to 2 1/2 pounds at 26 weeks. They naturally don't have the breast meat that Cornish X do but they do have really big meaty legs and thighs.

So another consideration might be whether you want mostly dark meat or nice large breast meat that the CornishX have, since I've been told Rocks and all the other dual purpose birds are similar in that they have a much smaller proportion of breast meat. For myself, I like dark meat and like the idea of a sustainable flock. I've gotten some black Orpingtons from a breeder and they are huge compared to the hatchery hens. Soon (those hens are not laying yet - but any day now...
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) will be raising my own dual purpose birds.
 
I like my dual P breed from breeders not hatchery ones . My BO I got from a breeder, the male over 12 pound at 18 weeks. I kept one for my breeding stock, before the heat of the summer he is over 14
 
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I doubt you weighed him right (or is that a typo?). I've never heard of a bird get that big that fast except for CX. I can see him being 14lbs, though.
 
I thought 10 lbs was typical for a rooster--14 sounds huge! And 12 pounds in 18 weeks is the fastest growing heritage breed I've ever heard of ....
Are you sure these were not buff orpington turkeys??!!
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You could always try the slower growing colored broilers from one of the hatcheries. Ideal has black and red broilers. I don't recall what Mcmurray carries. Whelp and most of the other big hatcheries all offer some line of colored broiler, touted to be slower growing and healthier. I'm going to add a few to my fall Cornish cross order.
If going for dual purpose, I'd probably pick a Cornish, since they still have a wider, longer breast and were one of the original meat birds.
 

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