Dual Purpose Success

[mandelyn]

For 5 years now we've been solidly, personal use, dual purpose and haven't had to buy any chicken or eggs at the store. It took a lot of learning to figure it out, but through selective breeding, decent flock size (50+ birds at any given time) and growing out a LOT of chicks in order to find the best 10% to keep... we're now genetically self sustained too. I don't have to buy any more chickens unless something bad happens. I set up some other locals with breeding groups too, so that if I need to buy back into them, I can.

The Bresse... they were closer to being ideal and their breeding was more about working through undesirable recessive traits and maintaining/building up on growth/size.

The blue/black silver Marans needed a lot of breeding work, still working on structure/type/fleshing and feathers. I think I'll be pretty happy with them here in another 2 years.

My goal was to have useful cull cockerels, in a reasonable amount of time (16-18 weeks) so that I could breed/hatch our own birds without waste or giving away extra boys after the work/expense of raising them. In our area, extra boys hardly ever bring anything, since so many people just give them away.

Lately we've been putting them in the smoker, 6 at a time, so that we have 2 weeks worth of pre-cooked chicken on hand.

 

[CluckerFamily]

You have been doing an amazing job! There is always a learning curve with anything new. I can tell you are very proud of your hard work (and you should be!), it always makes you feel good to be able to have food available in your backyard.

 

[Molpet]

Nice looking, you have done a great job

 

[Tre3hugger]

Quite the accomplishment. Keep up the good work!!

 

[U_Stormcrow]

^^^ end goals. Thank you for marking the way. (Ok, so I built my own smoker, but otherwise...)

 

[Morrigan]

Those Bresse are looking great. Are you selling or eating the extra pullets?

 

[blueberry1]

Where did your original Bresse stock come from?

 

[Weetamoo93]

^^^ end goals. Thank you for marking the way.

Same! I can't wait to get here! I have to start a lot smaller (7 birds), but this is where I want to be. I'm pretty sure my McMurray stock leans heavily on egg production.

 

[mandelyn]

Those Bresse are looking great. Are you selling or eating the extra pullets?

Depends. If they're an outright cull, then they stay for supper. If they're acceptable chickens and I don't need them, then they go with the extra boys that have breeding merit that I also don't require. I can only fit 3 great boys at a time for each variety I have.

 

[mandelyn]

Where did your original Bresse stock come from?

Greenfire line, once removed through a breeder. This past summer I added some from Bresse Farms for a strategic line cross, though the stock was "meh" besides 1 boys and 3 girls. Enough to do something with, at any rate.

This is the boy I kept from the Bresse Farms, too long legged and his comb blade hangs too low, he took awhile to fill in but his coloring is fantastic and so is his tail. I'll put him over some of my short/round girls and see what hatches. I'd like to find his tail and coloring with the growth habits and body size/shape of mine.

I've been working on my original birds for 4 years now, so next year I'll do 3 pens. Mine pure, outside cockerel over my girls, outside girls with one of my boys. Planning a slow and steady, methodical tweaking towards improved coloring, tails, type, growth, etc.