How's this for a first-time dual-purpose flock?

[lceh]

I'm hoping to start a dual-purpose flock, but I'm new to eating my own chickens and I want to make sure my scheme is a good one! Let me say right off that I'm not interested in Cornish Xs; they gross me out too much

. I'm thinking of a mixed flock of Wyandotte, Buff Orpington, and one or two Brahma girls, and a Cochin roo (since I have little kids and they're known to be generally mellow). I'm assuming that the little mixed breed chicks that would result would generally be good enough for eating (boys) or laying (girls).

Let me ask this too. I know Cornish Xs reach maturity VERY quickly, which I guess is their great advantage, but I know they eat immense amounts of food. I also know the dual-purpose breeds are slower growers, but I also assume they eat less, so I'm wondering if the net input of food is about the same either way. Is the great advantage of Cornish Xs just that you don't have to have them around very long? I know these bigger breeds take longer to grow up, but if you slaughter on the young side are they still okay for the table?

 

[tackyrama]

Your plan sounds good to me. I also have a mixed flock of dual purpose breeds. I have Buff orpingtons, Americauna, Austraorpe and polish plus some I'm not sure of. I am happy with what ends up in the freezer. Last year I butchered around 20. Weight was from 5 to 7 pounds butchered. My flock is free range so I am not concerned about how long it takes to grow. The only ones I'm not happy with is the orpingtons. They are all right except for being loose feathered so after a short time in the spring the roo has them half featherless plus skin tears. I am also grossed out by the cornish xs. Right now we have 74 chickens with more coming via the broody hens. All but 12 are chicks from our own eggs this year. They are all doing SUPER free ranging. No diseases or other problems. I have a coop/barn with plenty of space and they all get along great and are all happy!

Check out my BYC web pages for my coop story.

 

[lceh]

Thanks Tackyrama. How old do you let your birds get to reach 5-7 lbs.? I'm assuming old enough that you'd want to use a Crock-Pot to cook them (which is fine by me).

How great are your predator losses on your range chickens?

 

[JoAnn_WI_4-H_Mom]

We have young birds on pasture with feed available.

6 Corn/Rock broilers eat 1 5 qt pail of feed daily. Observation shows they just lay by the feeder and eat. Feed has to be taken away to avoid eating to death. They are very dirty no matter what I do.

39 Welsummer, Sussex, Delaware, Ameraucanas eat 1 5qt pail of feed daily. Observation shows they prefer clover to grass, but they eat a lot of grass too. They preen and are clean and active and apparently very happy.

The Corn/Rock should be ready to butcher in 6-8 weeks. The other breeds will not be butchered until 16 weeks or so.

Someone tell me if my ratio math is right:

7 pails a week * 16 weeks / 39 birds = 2.87 pails per bird to butcher time for non-Corn/Rock

7 pails a week * 6 weeks / 6 birds = 7 pails per bird to butcher time for Corn/Rock.

I am certain there will be a difference in weights and quality of meat with the non-corss, older, more active birds. It remains to be seen if we like that difference.

My goal is to find a breed that does well on pasture and to improve my pasture to better feed the birds in addition to a balanced feed being available. If I wanted to eat a wild bird, I'd hunt phesant. I expect i have to feed domesticated animals something.

 

[tackyrama]

Quote:
We butcher at around 16 weeks. They are still tender at that age tho maybe not quite as tender as store bought which is OK with us. We mainly bake our birds. Also lafter butchering we let them "rest" for a day in the fridge then we brine (1 gal. water/1 cup salt) for a day in the fridge or in our case in a tub with ice. Brineing lets the meat retain more moisture as you cook it hence a "juicier" meal.

We have lost 1 bird to predator in 2 years. Two to our now trained dog. We also provide scratch feed in the summer and egg mash for the hens we keep over winter. Our free range birds eat any and everything and do not have a "wild" taste at all. We have 20 acres with about 5 open and the rest wooded. They seem to prefere the woods for foraging. They are healthy and happy with none of the problems so many people report having on this site.

 

[Peruvian]

JoAnn's figures seem generally correct. The term that the OP is looking for is Feed Conversion Ration (FCR). This is how many pounds of feed produce one pound of broiler. CX generally have the lowest at 3:1. Rangers have closer to 5:1. Dual purpose are more like 7-8:1.

So to answer the original question - no, the net input of food for a dual purpose is higher. This is why the CX is so popular/affordable/etc.

 

[TimG]

Quote:
This assumes that the chickens eat as much food during their first week of life as their last.

 

[JoAnn_WI_4-H_Mom]

All the birds scattered a lot of feed in those first weeks. There was more waste than eating, or at least it felt that way.

We cannot make a call on the prefered bird until we eat some of them, but the idea of meat mostly from cheap pasture is very attractive if we can get it to work.

The Hatchery Sussex at 8 weeks are about the same size as the CornX at 4...

 

[Bossroo]

Quote:
All of the above plus one has to add in the cost of one's time, labor, price on the land and it's annual taxes and insurance, irrigation, electric power, gasoline and maintenance. Chicken is the least expensive meat that one consumes. I can buy chicken for $0.79 to $0.99 a pound at several of the local grocery stores. I can also buy a roasted ready to eat 4-5 pound chicken for the same price as a fresh whole 4-5 pound chicken at the same store. One can put the same pasture land to a more productive use such as raising lamb, beef, or pork. I was at a local farmer's market last Sunday. One vendor was selling grass fed lamb 1/2 carcass for $11.50 a pound or cut and wrapped lamb for $14.95 a pound. Another vendor was selling whole fresh organic chicken for $3.99 a pound. One can also grow specialty produce and fruits for a better monetary gain on the same land. So the reality is is anyone really raising their sustainable home grown backyard chicken at a savings?

 

[JoAnn_WI_4-H_Mom]

What you are saying is true. My situation is different from many, in that I have a lot of land, and a spouse that made me wait 15 years to get chickens and is terrified of the perceived problems rumminates get. So I cannot use the land for alternate livestock (I'm lucky to be allowed chickens).

So while I have the pasture, I will be looking for a breed of chicken that will do well on that and a certain amount of feed. I don't expect my food to be free.

This is all provided the DH likes the taste of the birds we raise this year. He has already commented that these will be the most expensive chickens he has ever eaten due to the start up costs.