Is anybody else trying to breed the perfect dual purpose breed.

[gjensen]

Quote:
Yes, you can learn alot like that. I like "traditional" simple crosses. Some crosses work, some don't. Somebody farther back in the thread, mention Rocks crossed with Australorps. I was wondering what strains were used. I made some sex links last year with some hatchery "production" rocks with some pretty good New Hampshires. The males grew out very fast, and were meaty. The females (a friend has them), are great durable layers. I was impressed with the outcome. I did it again this year, but just hatched a few. I gave a couple of hens away. I don't know how they are laying. What I did like about the cross was that though the cockerels were big and meaty fast, they didn't get exceptionally big in the long run. The hens varied slightly, but most grew to be on the lighter side of "dual purpouse". I didn't keep them myself, so no specifics were tracked. A few years ago, I crossed a hatchery New Hampshire on somebody elses Rhode based "production whites". The hens came out nice, but the cockerels were a waste of time. They didn't put much meat on, though they matured fast. Both of the parents were fast growers.

 

[Lordofchickens 86]

i got really good a hen from crossing a americana rooster with a silver wyandotte hen.i keeped a rooster and a hen thinking i going to breed the rooster back to silver wyandotte. because he looks like a silver wyandotte just not as laced.

 

[burtonjon]

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I apologize if I came across as being critical. That was not my intent. What you don't know is that I was interested in creating some. Where I ended up was with so few good Reds out there, if I was going to work with Reds it would be Reds. The advantage of auto sexing wouldn't do me alot of good if I was to raise the cockerels up. I was merely stating my opinion on something that I had thought out. I am not saying that someone couldn't make use of the trait either. I hope that you are succesful working with them.
I imagine that there are plenty of people that would choose to work with birds other than what I have chosen.

No worries there gjensen. I should have did a better job of explaining why I thought the Rhodebar was the ultimate dual purpose chicken in my first post. I am still of the thinking that the Rhodebar are the best dual purpose chicken in America today but there are thousands of crosses out there that would make great dual purpose breeds. As most who know me know that I have more crosses and project than hardly anybody but most times its better to improve on whats already there than trying to create new. But that's just my opinion.