Dual purpose breeds

[moenmitz]

I get what you are saying....most of us feel the same way. We would like to not have to order our "meat" birds from a hatchery. So yes, you can do just fine by using heavy dual purpose roosters for meat, since you are talking about just filling your own freezer, not selling. As Greyfields pointed out, most people don't know what a "normal" chicken should look like, and thus those of us who are selling them are using broilers, of one type or another. We butchered 14 DP roos yesterday- barred rocks, turkens, and Wyandottes. The BR were the most nicely fleshed, and I am very pleased with them. They were all 18 weeks. I have a couple in the crockpot now, and am looking forward to some delicious pot pie tomorrow!

I know it is hard to tell form the picture, but if you look close, you can see there is a substantial amount of meat on them, even the breasts are plump, and I was surprised of that because they felt like mostly keel bone when I picked them up prior.

They do not compare to my Rangers, by any means-but that is ok. They spent most of their life roaming my 12 acres all day, eating feed only at night, up until a month ago when I confined them to the garden and started stuffing them with turkey starter. I do not have near so much invested in feed for these guys, just time. The biggest downside for me I think is that it is a lot harder to kill REALLY PRETTY birds....that part of me would much prefer raising Cornish X.