Future breeding... who should we not eat? :)

[momofthehouse]

You're going to have a nice mix of birds there!

One of my favorite crosses was a brown leghorn and an Easter egger. I don't know if I just got lucky, but I got hens that laid a ton of huge eggs like a Leghorn, and they were light blue or green like the EE. That was my favorite cross for a few years....but then, the cockerels from that cross aren't very meaty at all. It's a trade off.

You could run two "strains", so to speak. I'd breed the Leghorn rooster with the EE, the bsl and the Leghorn hens. Those will be your laying birds, but not so much on the meaty side. You could also use the Aussie hens with him, for a more balanced bird. For some reason I totally spaced your CCLs, they'd be a good production bird to mix in this category also.

Your best meat birds of that will be your Marans, Reds, Wyandottes, maybe the Aussies. Some Faverolle cockerels get pretty good size, too.

Your Cochin and Giant birds will add size, but the Cochins aren't especially meaty and they both take longer to mature. So, you'd get a bigger bird crossing say a Giant and a Marans, but instead of it reaching full size at 5-6 months, it may take 7-8. It's up to you how important that is.

If you want to play with sex links, you have a few options...

your cuckoo Marans and cream Legbar hens under any of your males except the Legbar, white Giant or cuckoo Marans will give you black sex links.

Your Faverolle hen under either your RIR or brown Leghorn roosters should give sex link chicks.


For purity of breeding, at least 2 weeks is advised. If it's of absolute importance to have a specific rooster father the chicks, I'd say wait up to 3 weeks after the hen was last exposed to an undesirable rooster. Hens store sperm internally for a good 2 weeks, sometimes more.

Sounds like you've got a great flock coming! Have fun playing with them, and remember there's no wrong crosses with chickens---you can simply eat your mistakes

I am rereading your post and I am wondering which roo for the meatier birds should I breed? You mentioned that my good meat birds are the marans, rir, wyandottes, australorp and salmon favorelle but not sure which roo to use?