Good size for dual purpose breeding flock?

[partsRheavy]

I'm more inclined to recommend starting with 50 and build to 100-150, unless you eat vegetarian a lot of the time..

I think you sort of need to have new little ones in the pipeline each spring and even perhaps in the early fall. Yes, they are work, but a veggie garden is, too!

Assume you produce 80% of your own food. If you eat chicken once a week, what do you eat the other 6 dinners? And the other lunches? Implied here is the observation that many people enjoy eating chicken 2-3 times/wk rather than once.

Another suggestion: read up on compost piles and planting cover crops like rye or clover to reduce dependence on commercial feed.

Before you even get the chicks, set up your housing, fencing, and do whatever you need to do to trap predators (raccoons etc.) on the property.

Definitely go with a dual-purpose breed or otherwise get a good laying breed and then try out one of the "Frypan Special" deals for meat birds. But with heritage breeds which are free ranging ---- they need decent forage and availability of bugs, grass seed, places to hide from the hot sun etc. This is so you don't have to give them too much commercial feed during their growout period which is longer than that of commercial CornishX.

It's a lot of work and there are always unexpected losses even if it's due to the neighbors' dog....

 

[Shylis]

Thank you for the reply. As for what we would eat the rest of the time, that would be pork and beef. As the one who does all the shopping and cooking, I know what we eat in an average week. And typically that is beef twice, pork three times and chicken twice. When I said we'd likely be eating one a week, I meant one whole chicken, not chicken just once. A whole chicken, for just two people, is enough for two and sometimes three meals. Generally speaking I use leftovers from one night for a meal a few days later. Example, last night I made beef and rice soup from a roast we had two days before that and rice from the day before. That takes care of dinner. And for lunch, Mike usually eats at work, and I don't eat meat at lunch. Breakfast is a combo of eggs, bacon, sausage, pancakes, biscuits and gravy or french toast. (Have you ever eaten pancakes with bacon cooked into it? Fantastic!)

I love that you mention growing crops to reduce the need for commercial feed, as most people don't think of that. I've already got that in the plan. We will be planting rye, oats, barley, wheat and corn, along with fodder root veggies (like beets, etc) to feed to our livestock. The goal is to be as self-sustaining as posable. We are even considering getting bees so we wond have to buy sugar, and growing enough wheat and rye to make our own flour.

Our nearest neighbor is a couple miles away, so dogs are unlikely, but i have seen fox tracks. My uncle is giving me two of his dogs that were raised as livestock guardians, so I think the fox (and other critters) will stay away. And the dogs were raised with sheep, goat, cow, chicken and turkey, so I don't have to worry about how they will act with the chickens and other animals.