Flock Composition Advice (Bresse vs Barnevelder/Marans)

[dawsh2]

Hi,

I want to start taking my chicken husbandry more seriously and breeding my chickens, eating the males and selling excess eggs and chicks, and possibly work out some bartering for carcasses. I would like advice selecting a suitable breed and/or flock composition, I only have enough room for about 10-15 chickens personally, but want am working on setting up a spiral breeding program with one flock at my house (possibly two flocks of 7-8), the others at two different locations. The breeds I'm interested in, along with why, are listed below:

• Barnevelder: autosexing, double lacing (beautiful plummage)
• Bresse: fantastic performance (quick growth, 260 eggs/year and a meaty carcass)
• Marans: well known (so presumably in demand), beautifully dark eggs, quiet breed

I'm trying to stick with one rooster, but may go with two. An advantage to the Marans/Barnies is that with a Maran/Barnie roo, I could create olive eggers and black sex-links if I kept a few easter eggers and barred rocks around, and this would give me more colorful egg cartons. With barnies in particular, this would give me access to two breeds where I could sell sexed chicks. However, Barnies/Marans lay much less eggs per year, and the Bresse is overall much more performant and efficient bird. My only two goals with my flock are to breed my own chicks and to maximize revenue potential from the flock. Since I have no experience trying to generate revenue with chickens, I'm unsure what flock composition would be best.

I'm under the impression that selling chicks is the most profitable aspect to focus, so am inclined to go with a Barnie/Maran roo covering itself along with easter eggers and barred rocks, but from a purely yield perspective the Bresse is hard to pass up, as it lays 30-50% more eggs, grow faster and the dressed carcass looks much better. If I were growing my chickens purely for self-sustenance, not for chick sales, I'd likely go with Bresse as it seems the most 'logical' choice, so I'm almost inclined to just go for that.

 

[nuthatched]

Hmm, I've always read that Bresse are slow to mature, both in weight and egg laying, they aren't great layers but they aren't slackers either. Barnevelders are gorgeous but mine don't seem to have a lot of meat on them. I'd honestly go with the Barnevelders and the Breese.
the Marans hype has died down and they can get flighty/aggressive.
McMurray has breese and there's a farm in n.c that i'd recommend for the Barnevelder, blue-house-farm.com

 

[dawsh2]

Hmm, I've always read that Bresse are slow to mature, both in weight and egg laying, they aren't great layers but they aren't slackers either. Barnevelders are gorgeous but mine don't seem to have a lot of meat on them. I'd honestly go with the Barnevelders and the Breese.
the Marans hype has died down and they can get flighty/aggressive.
McMurray has breese and there's a farm in n.c that i'd recommend for the Barnevelder, blue-house-farm.com

Hmm, I've read the opposite regarding Bresse it seems, consistently reading they lay around 260 eggs per year, and take around 16 weeks to be ready for slaughter. There was one resource that had them ranked as the most efficient bird on their farm in terms of feed conversion rate, and they had barnevelders and some other popular heritage ones too.

 

[nuthatched]

Hmm, I've read the opposite regarding Bresse it seems, consistently reading they lay around 260 eggs per year, and take around 16 weeks to be ready for slaughter. There was one resource that had them ranked as the most efficient bird on their farm in terms of feed conversion rate, and they had barnevelders and some other popular heritage ones too.

It's hard to find information on American Breese ( actually White Gauloise) that isn't copy and pasted sales pitch on a blog or small breeder site but anyway, the minimum worth-your-effort butchering age is 16 weeks, yes. however the birds best dress weight isn't until 20-25 weeks, longer for capons. (neutered cockerels, 28-32 weeks-if feed a certain diet) They aren't bad layers, but just about average at about 230-250 eggs per year. They're a great breed, I've looked into getting some before, I think you'll be happy with them.

 

[dawsh2]

It's hard to find information on American Breese ( actually White Gauloise) that isn't copy and pasted sales pitch on a blog or small breeder site but anyway, the minimum worth-your-effort butchering age is 16 weeks, yes. however the birds best dress weight isn't until 20-25 weeks, longer for capons. (neutered cockerels, 28-32 weeks-if feed a certain diet) They aren't bad layers, but just about average at about 230-250 eggs per year. They're a great breed, I've looked into getting some before, I think you'll be happy with them.

Is there anything that hits the mark better for a true dual purpose? Barnevelders only lay only around 170 a year from what I've read, so the Bresse is around 30-50% better as an egg bird, which is substantial. And yes unfortunately many descriptions for all breeds are also sales pitches.. I've looked at pictures comparing the dressed bresse to a dressed maran and the bresse looked much better (despite being slightly less weight, it was much more stout and less elongated, likely had more meat and definitely thicker cuts).

I'm thinking for revenue generation the best move may be the barnevelder rooster and hens that I breed, and then some easter eggers and barred rocks so I can sell a variety of egg colors and chicks (sexed barnevelders and black sex links, and olive eggers). Since chicks make the most money I think going for as many autosexing or sex-linked chicks as possible makes sense, and getting colorful eggs to sell is a nice bonus.. I don't really know though. Me, I'd prefer an efficient and visually pleasing dual purpose bird with a good disposition, and don't really care much about egg color or autosexing since I intend to butcher the males anyway.

 

[nuthatched]

Is there anything that hits the mark better for a true dual purpose? Barnevelders only lay only around 170 a year from what I've read, so the Bresse is around 30-50% better as an egg bird, which is substantial. And yes unfortunately many descriptions for all breeds are also sales pitches.. I've looked at pictures comparing the dressed bresse to a dressed maran and the maran looked much better (despite being slightly less weight, it was much more stout and less elongated, likely had more meat and definitely thicker cuts).

I'm thinking for revenue generation the best move may be the barnevelder rooster and hens that I breed, and then some easter eggers and barred rocks so I can sell a variety of egg colors and chicks (sexed barnevelders and black sex links, and olive eggers). Since chicks make the most money I think going for as many autosexing or sex-linked chicks as possible makes sense, and getting colorful eggs to sell is a nice bonus..

I'd say the Breese is as close as you can expect for a perfect duel purpose.
as I understand it, there's two or three different lines of breese in the US and they're all different in terms of size and build. That sounds like a good plan, sex linked will sell well and extra cockerels cam go to the freezer.

 

[Mrs. K]

I don't think you need an all or nothing deal. I would try a majority of one breed, with a couple of the others. Then see what you think.

I have had Delaware chickens that are a pretty good dual purpose chicken, but truthfully, I have come to the conclusion that dual purpose birds are really not great at either meat or eggs, inspire of trying to make this work for years.

If you want meat - you will get much better carcasses with meat birds. If you want eggs, you do better with egg layers. HOWEVER - it really depends on the individual birds you get.

Many a time, I have picked a breed of chicken, thinking that this is the breed that I could focus on. Only to find, once I get them, I don't like them quite as much as I thought I would. For myself, I am happiest with a mixed flock.

But I stand by my first paragraph - get the Breese, for the majority of your flock. Keep a breeze rooster, see how it goes. But get a few others, the Rooster can cover them too. Then make the decision, what is working best for you. It is easy to change out a rooster, if another breed starts making better sense for you.

Mrs K

 

[dawsh2]

I don't think you need an all or nothing deal. I would try a majority of one breed, with a couple of the others. Then see what you think.

I have had Delaware chickens that are a pretty good dual purpose chicken, but truthfully, I have come to the conclusion that dual purpose birds are really not great at either meat or eggs, inspire of trying to make this work for years.

If you want meat - you will get much better carcasses with meat birds. If you want eggs, you do better with egg layers. HOWEVER - it really depends on the individual birds you get.

Many a time, I have picked a breed of chicken, thinking that this is the breed that I could focus on. Only to find, once I get them, I don't like them quite as much as I thought I would. For myself, I am happiest with a mixed flock.

But I stand by my first paragraph - get the Breese, for the majority of your flock. Keep a breeze rooster, see how it goes. But get a few others, the Rooster can cover them too. Then make the decision, what is working best for you. It is easy to change out a rooster, if another breed starts making better sense for you.

Mrs K

Part of my reluctance to get ‘meat birds’ (Cornish cross), is that you can’t breed them yourself effectively. Any bird that breeds true is either super slow and/or terrible egg layer (Cornish). I don’t want to have to buy chicks, it’s more an issue of principle or independence really. I like the idea of a sustainable flock that isn’t dependent on importing chicks.

I also wanted to clarify that I was mixing up beilefelders and barnevelders in this thread, it’s mostly down to Bresse and Beilefelder for what makes up most my flock.

 

[Mrs. K]

I had a high price Beilfelder rooster, and raised up some very pretty birds (crossbreds) but not good egg production.

I still stand my my original paragraph, get the breeze hens and roosters, and some other birds. Wait six months and see how it is going.

Mrs K

 

[dawsh2]

I had a high price Beilfelder rooster, and raised up some very pretty birds (crossbreds) but not good egg production.

I still stand my my original paragraph, get the breeze hens and roosters, and some other birds. Wait six months and see how it is going.

Mrs K

Thanks for your reply, to be clear I do have other birds at the moment (just a fun assortment I pick up from the feed store, usually grabbing 2-3 hens every few years to keep the flock going), but I'm wanting to transition into breeding. In comparing Bresse to Belifelder, the Bresse seems more performant but lacks autosexing, but I care more about performance in general since I'd be keeping all offspring that didn't sell. I've seen some very, very meaty Bresse carcasses, too.

Aside from Greenfire, any tips on where to source some good genes for a starter flock? I'd like to get a few, and breed enough offspring to start a 3 clan, 30 chicken spiral breeding program from the first generation of offspring. Would that be too inbred?