Help with breed selection

[2broke]

Im looking for a breed that are good egg layers but also have some meet on their bones for the freezer so when they start slowing way down i can cull them out. Im planning on breeding too so selective breeding sort of as well. So i can produce big, healthy egg birds. I had RIR'S but they weregood egg layers but they were on the scrawny side.

 

[JosiahK]

What you are looking for are dual purpose breeds like Buff Orpington, Black Australorp, or Plymouth Rocks.

Each of them are excellent layers and the roosters are great for the freezer!

 

[junebuggena]

I'd get a red/gold base color rooster and some Barred Rock hens. My barred Rocks are good sized girls, good foragers, fun to have around, and lay really well. When bred to a non barred rooster they will produce black sexlink chicks. The cockerels will usually grow to be bigger than their father. The pullets will outlay their mothers. Plus everyone wants chicks that are easy to tell males from females easily and early on.
I have a red Easter Egger cockerel I'm planning on using to make black sexlink, green egg layers with my girls.

 

[2broke]

That sounds great. So basically breed a RIR rooster with some barred rock hens? So i get size and egg layers? That sounds like exactly what i would want.

 

[2broke]

What you are looking for are dual purpose breeds like Buff Orpington, Black Australorp, or Plymouth Rocks.

Each of them are excellent layers and the roosters are great for the freezer!

are they good sized birds? Any ideas on average weight? And egg productivity? I plan on having enough to put eggs in my fridge and sell enough eggs to pay for their feed if possible haha. Ideally the less feed i have to buy the better. So good foragers are a must haha. But its going to be in an enclosed coop and run. Theres too many snakes, coyotes, hawks, stray dogs ,cats, possums, and racoons here....basically everything that wants to kill my chickens haha.

 

[Michael OShay]

The other members have given you some great suggestions. Black Sex Links are very friendly and hardy, egg laying machines that had a decent amount of meat on them. I've raised them for years (along with dozens of other breeds and hybrids), and my BSLs have been my best layers, consistently churning out more than 300 large, brown eggs per hen per year. Black Australorps are an excellent dual purpose breed with a decent amount of meat on them. They are extremely hardy in both heat and cold, calm and gentle (my children and granddaughter made lap pets of them), and the best layers of the standard, brown egg laying breeds. A Black Australorp holds the brown egg laying record with 364 eggs in 365 days, and while none of mine have ever reached that level of production (and likely never will), I've still had a few of them lay over 300 eggs in a year. Whatever breed or hybrid you decide to get, good luck with your flock.

 

[2broke]

Ill be doing research on the specific breeds yall have mentioned and let yall know what my decision comes out to be. Im going to pick my breed first then design/build my run around what breed i get. Plan to house around 50-60 with 2 coops with 30 nesting boxes in each one at each end and the run in between them.

 

[2broke]

Starting with around 15 birds and breeding my way to more and implementing rational grazing so i buy as little food as possible

 

[Michael OShay]

Ill be doing research on the specific breeds yall have mentioned and let yall know what my decision comes out to be. Im going to pick my breed first then design/build my run around what breed i get. Plan to house around 50-60 with 2 coops with 30 nesting boxes in each one at each end and the run in between them.

Whatever breed you get, make certain that they are not overcrowded. You will need a minimum of 4 sq. ft. of floor area in the coop (not counting the area taken up by the nesting boxes) for each bird and 10 sq. ft. of ground area in the run for each bird. That means for 60 birds you will need a minimum of 240 sq. ft. of floor area in the coop, and 600 sq. ft. of ground area in the run. And these are bare minimums; more is better as overcrowding can quickly lead to aggression, fighting, biting and feather plucking, and even cannibalism.

 

[2broke]

It will have plenty of space lol