If you wanted to naturally breed and hatch large breasted meat birds....

[DB_Tex]

... how would you do it?

I've done some research and double breasted females on pasture free ranging and a good diet can handle a long and productive life-- but I don't know enough about turkey breeds to know what kind of tom would be best? I admire royal palms and prefer the white underfeathers, but would I lose too much size in my offspring? How much could I expect to see the growth rate slowed from commercial BBWs?
Do you have a better breed alternative to suggest? I have considered going with double breasted bronze and dark breed birds, but I'm trying to keep that clean carcass my sheltered city customers prefer.

My end goals are a sustainable "source" breeding program made up of and resulting in happy, healthy birds-- keeping some of the efficiency bred into the BBW as well as the double breast. (And yes, I'd also want to maintain breeders in the heritage source breed flock as well... the idea is two pens, the meat breeding group, and the pure heritage group)

 

[windwalkingwolf]

Definitely go with a large Royal Palm Tom. That's what I've done with my BBWs, and their offspring are anywhere from 12 to 35 lbs. Keep in mind though, that your BB girls will be unlikely to be able to sit a nest--all the eggs will eventually get broken--so you will have to either artificially incubate the eggs or use a surrogate heritage breed willing to sit on them.

 

[Frosty]

I currently have two BBW hens in with a White Holland tom. One of the girls is last years, the other is from the year before (s a one year old and a two year old). Nothing on my first attempt at hatching, but the tom had only been with them for about a week at that point. I have a few more in a different incubator right now, but they are just at day 2. My plan is to keep the largest hens and some smaller toms if I get any to hatch.

 

[Oregon Blues]

I wouldn't use Royal Palm, because of all the turkeys, they have the scrawniest breast meat. Beltsville Whites might be good because they have a slightly larger breast than other heritage turkeys. The size should be easy to breed up. You would be wanting to reduce size on the BBW, anyway, because they are gigantic when full grown.

You could use colored birds and if you select for white, it wouldn't take too many generations to get white offspring. It would save one step if you start with white birds.

 

[DB_Tex]

Yes, I would certainly incubate them indoors-- our spring/summer weather is not a nice environment for hatching, I had so many problems with my ducks trying to brood

Frosty, I don't know anything about white holland other than it's a large white bird? could you tell me any more about them?

 

[Frosty]

Yes, I would certainly incubate them indoors-- our spring/summer weather is not a nice environment for hatching, I had so many problems with my ducks trying to brood

Frosty, I don't know anything about white holland other than it's a large white bird? could you tell me any more about them?

I got mine from Kevin Porter, he has some info on his site about them. http://www.porterturkeys.com/ Size wise they are along the lines of Narrigansett or Bourbon Red, maybe a little bigger. They are really wonderful birds, I love them. They might be perfect for what you want to do since they are substantially larger than a Royal Palm.

Editing to add that I'm not sure what you want to know about them. Mine aren't flighty, nor are they aggressive. A lady from the state was out to AI test my birds last year (the WH were two years old) and she said she never saw white turkeys as calm as these guys are.