HERE is where we are going to talk about a sustainable meat bird flock

[PaulaJoAnne]

Hoping to see discussion on Delawares. Good Dual Purpose?

 

[Brunty_Farms]

Yes and no I guess.... If you find good quality stock from breeders that have bred for the original traits of the birds then yes. If you buy hatchery stock, your not going to get much of anything as far as meat. Great bird to raise though...

 

[PaulaJoAnne]

Quote:
Good to know. We have a tiny family run hatchery up here, that does all in house breeding.
They mentioned using a RIR roo over Delaware hens to get links, and to possible improve meat quality.......

 

[randomchick]

Quote:
We grew our birds 14-16 weeks, a neighbor of mine grew her cornish cross birds for 6 weeks. We used almost the exact same amount of feed per pound of carcass. Hers had much more fat than mine and mine were not some hybrid cross. They may have to be alive longer to produce good meat, but they don't eat any more(actually they eat less) than the 6 week old baby cornish cross birds who can barely walk and half stress on their hearts and respiratory system. As for jersey giants, well they do take a few months more to produce a large carcass, however they don't eat very much more and are incredibly lean unlike the cornish cross's, and for me it is worth not eating a baby. I like knowing that the meat that is keeping me healthy has lived a healthy and happy like. Not sent to slaughter at 6 weeks old, after a like of heavy breathing and limited motion. If you really think about what the cornish hybrid fast growing crosses are, don't they resemble obesity.

This is just my opinion and I completely respect everyone else's opinions.

 

[Bantimna]

I can't contribute. But this is an intersting read

 

[paduanchook]

I'm experimenting now: I have crossed American game with dark Cornish and brahma with dark Cornish
then I am gonna cross them together.
(game x Cornish) x (brahma x Cornish)

the game is for hardiness and disease resistance, Cornish for the meat and breast and brahma for the size and tempermant
I've got the first to crosses in brooder. The game x Cornish is a crazy sciddish bird. I hope when I cross to the brahma Cornish it will have a better tempermant.

The game x Cornish is so far looking good, meaty and compact, just crazy.
Anybody tried this before, think it will work?

 

[Buster52]

Quote:
I picked some nice ones up at an auction the other night and plan to hatch out their eggs for my meat bird experiment next month. I'll let you know how they are for meat. Egg laying ability isn't all that important to me in a single breed, so I won't know if they would make dual purpose birds.

 

[Brunty_Farms]

If you really think about what the cornish hybrid fast growing crosses are, don't they resemble obesity

I would say more like a body builder...

I would have to disagree on the feed intake on dual purpose birds. There is another thread that is already showing great differences in feed intake to pounds gained between the hybrids and DP breeds. It's astronomical how big of a difference it really is, especially when you raise 100 DP's compared to 100 Hybrids.

Hers had much more fat than mine and mine were not some hybrid cross. They may have to be alive longer to produce good meat, but they don't eat any more(actually they eat less) than the 6 week old baby cornish cross birds who can barely walk and half stress on their hearts and respiratory system. As for jersey giants, well they do take a few months more to produce a large carcass, however they don't eat very much more and are incredibly lean unlike the cornish cross's, and for me it is worth not eating a baby

I respect your opinion and your reasons why you do not want to raise the hybrids but I'm going to sort the facts from the opinions here.

First is fat, this can go either way. Truly it's how they are raised, age processed, and what was fed. I've processed two year old layers that have tons of yellow fat in the cavity and around the vent. Fat's not always a bad thing either, actually it's prized among many chefs and people in general. The more fat the better the soup's flavor.... the older the bird the richer the flavor.

They do take longer to produce on more feed and you get less meat than you would on a hybrid. I think something your missing is the fact that DP's have less edible carcass than a hybrid. The amount of meat to bone is extremely different. So yes, you may have the same size at 15 weeks with a DP as you would with a 6 week old hybrid... but then if you would cut all the edible meat away from the bone you would see how big the difference really is.

At six weeks, my hybrids are running and flying in their pens and very eager to search for forage. I think the whole respiratory, heart, and stress on the legs is avoided if a bit of research goes into avoiding these issues. These are commercial problems... not ones you see on a pasture based program.

As for lean, that goes with the fat issue. The Giants are no different than the hybrids if they are raised the same way. If the giants sit in a commercial setting.... they would get fat too.

The whole eating a baby thing.... do you eat chicken? Do you buy it from the store or only eat the ones you produce? That's a bold statement and very hypocritical if you eat chicken form sources other than your own.

If you want to raise and eat DP's than great.... do what's best for you and your family. However I just want to point out that it's silly to not to raise the hybrids because you were misinformed about their traits. Too many people get false information on the internet and in biased books or magazine articles.​

 

[Brunty_Farms]

Quote:
It will definitely work, the more crosses you have the better the end result would be. It would be best to develop two lines and always cross to get your chicks. Hybrid vigor is extremely important if your wanting to develop meat lines.

 

[Buster52]

Jeff, you really need to stop getting so defensive about the Cornish X. They aren't perfect and definitely have their faults. They have strengths as well, but to many of us they don't nearly outweigh the faults.

I'll be happy to go through the pro and con discussion with you once again, but I don't think that is what CARS is trying to do in this thread.