Dual purpose chickens.

[Arklady]

I don't know about a lot of you but my dual purpose birds aren't all that dual... Sheesh. I am lucky if a bird has decient legs to eat on it when I put the roos down. I had 4 roos I put down one week and the only bird that had plenty of mean was one of my Marans. He had suffered frost bite on his leg and was crippled and useless for breeding.

Anyhow... this guy had the most meat on him of the others.... Rir, ameracauna(freeranger) Dark Brahma, cornish the cornish was the only other meat laden bird. I probably need to get a bunch of those lol.

I will tell you what though he(my marans) had the biggest heart and liver I ever saw in a chicken and very excellent color. The others had smaller hearts and livers weren't so good. Still wow... My marans beat out the other for meat on the bird. The rir all I got was pitiful breast, but legs was ok...

What is your breed and how much meat did you get? The cornish/rock birds I understand they are meat birds but what was the average weight by week/age on those please.

Arklady

 

[WoodlandWoman]

How old were they?

 

[Bamaman]

Dual-purpose weren't ment to have lots of meat. They are just a happy medium between a commercial layer and a commercial meat bird. Meaning they lay almost as many eggs, but have more meat than a commercial layer and they produce more eggs, but less meat meat than a meat bird.

 

[Arklady]

They were grown roosters. I just got tired of them running around and feeding them I didn't need to keep feeding them. And the free range roo was so skinny I didn't bother butchering him. He was just more roo noise I could live without. I have tried for over a year to get him a home but no one wanted him... Now he is making less noise. Even our silkies have more meat than the duel birds lol...

Arklady

 

[silkiechicken]

I think the "meatless" dual birds are meatless for two reasons. One: We've all gotten used to seeing the broad breasted cornish x in the stores that were bred to be meat machines. Two: most "dual" purpose birds now a days are not bred to be "dual" purpose anymore, but rather "eggs on heavy frames that look like what the breed is".

I had a dual purpose RIR rooster at about oh 7 months dressed out that was about 5-6 lbs... a commercial leghorn rooster dressed out at over a year was only 3 lbs!!!

To get the 6 lb meat bird from a cornish takes about 8 weeks with publically available strains, while industry can do it in 5-6 weeks!!

 

[SewingDiva]

Quote:
Really? Wow. That's amazing - and kind of scary!
Phyllis

 

[EmsoffLambs]

I've found the same thing with my light brahmas. At 4 months, they were pretty skrawny. I also later bought some slow cornish from Privett. At 8 weeks they were bigger and much meatier than the brahmas were at 4 months. I also butchered several dark cornish. They were plenty meaty, but took twice as long to grow as Privett's slow cornish.

My conclusion, with feed being such a major expense, it's more cost effective to pay slightly more for the birds bred for meat than to get the dual purpose cockrels and have to feed them twice as long for less and tougher meat.

 

[Arklady]

I agree, I would rather have the meaty birds for less time than the multitude of roos that are too big. They eat so much.

But is the meat tougher on the cornish?

I mean how were yours??

Arklady

 

[adoptedbyachicken]

of the 248 cornish cross total I just did the 133 at 7 weeks birds varied 3 to 5 pounds and the 115 at 8 weeks 4.5 to 7.25 pounds.

Your dual purpose will do better if confined rather than running loose, and best if they have no hens to fuss or fight over. But still they will not ever have the amount of meat the cornish have, nor will they ever mature as fast. They will have stronger taste to the meat so between that and the toughness of the meat some like it better for soups and stews.

Feed conversion on my cornish was not as good this time as it has been I don't think, but I'm going to calculate it today. I have gotten as high as 2:1 in the past.

 

[Arklady]

I bought what I hoped were cornish cross unfortunately I think I have like just regular white rocks... now all I need is a cornish roo... then I can raise my own??

Hopefully??

Arklady