If you could choose ONE meat breed to raise, what would it be and why?

[Jkslb08]

Hey there. We are considering raising some meat breed chickens. We thought it would be best if people who actually cared about the overall health and well being of the chickens were the ones that raised them from the start.

So, what meat breeds do you guys recommend?

Why?

Thanks in advance! Any input is helpful!

 

[DTchickens]

I favor the Dorking and Chantecler; rare breeds, fairly attractive, and for sure the Chantecler's are supposed to be good year-round layers of large brown eggs.. Egg layers for a few years: then butcher.

If I were just going for straight up meat consumption, I'd buy a lot of Cornish X and raise them for a month and a half or two and butcher.

God bless,
Daniel.

 

[Poupoulles]

Do you mean dual purpose or do you mean meat chickens? I raise Freedom Rangers for meat and love them compared to Cornish Cross. My customers LOVE them.
I have not yet found the right genetics to really have a true dual purpose breed. remember that a dual purpose breed from a hatchery is MUCH more of a layer than a meat bird. They breed for rate of lay, not dual purpose. You have to get real dual purpose birds from a serious breeder that cares about dual purpose!
I have heard that buckeyes and delawares are both good dual purpose birds, if you can gt the right genetics.

 

[cassie]

For meat you simply cannot beat the Cornish X. They grow fast, have plenty of meat, and are delicious. They give you the most with the least effort. Assuming, of course, you make the effort to find out how to properly feed and manage them.

 

[Jkslb08]

Thanks! We already have laying hens. We just wanted some input from people who actually have experience with meat birds.

We have many "dual purpose" breeds who will only ever be layers to us! The meat simply is not there on many of them.

I think this spring we might try our hand with some Cornish X! We had discussed buckeyes too for helping sustain the heritage.

Thanks again!

 

[Oregon Blues]

Cornish Cross all the way at my house.

My family likes the white meat and the CX are the birds with the huge breast meat. No other breed has it like the Cornish Cross does.

8-9 weeks and done. No more work after that. Feed conversion is better than any other breed. Cost might not be the only consideration, but it is important and getting more important as the price of feed goes up and up.

Temperaments are lovely, calm, easy to work with.

If they are raised correctly, there are no health issues.

 

[4-H chicken mom]

I have to agree with cassie and Oregon Blues, Cornish X is the only meat bird we have ever raised and they are wonderful.

 

[erinszoo]

We've had cornish x before and they did great! We started butchering at 4 weeks and got 3 lb birds dressed weight. The ones we left until 7 weeks dressed out between 6 1/2 and 8 1/2 lbs. They were huge and breasts that weighed over a pound each which was great since we wanted to put up some boneless skinless breasts. Feed conversion is really good. Even with buying the birds, shipping, and feed we spent a little less per bird than if we bought them at the store ... and the meat was WAY better.

In two weeks we're getting our fall shipment. This time we went with a mix of cornish roasters and cornish x just to see what the difference is. Supposedly the roasters don't grow quite as fast but since we butcher our own we don't really want all 25 ready to process on the same week anyway. That would be TOO much work.

If we had more land we would probably try out freedom rangers since they are supposedly bred for gaining weight on free range, but we don't have that much land to let them wander and graze in.