Is there a breed like this?

[MROO]

I don't have any chickens yet so right now I'm just here to learn and get a better idea of what I'm doing lol but basically I'm wondering if there are any chicken breeds with the following traits?

- Meat production only; I do not want eggs. I'm severely allergic to them and can't be around them but weirdly can still eat chicken.
- Broodiness/maternal instincts; don't want to mess around with an incubator or buying chicks.
- Foraging ability; it would be neat if they could find lots of their own food during the warmer months but it's not strictly necessary either.

For a bit of background: I live on 40 acres and I have some soay sheep, soay/katahdin crosses and two horses already. And well, I have acquired a taste for actual chicken ever since one of my friends cooked for me. By actual chicken I mean spent laying hens, especially soups made from them and other delicacies made in the crockpot. They make store bought chicken taste bland in comparison, and well yeah that's why I want my own chickens.

I don't want cornish x or anything that is going to pump out a lot of eggs every year, but I haven't had any luck in finding breeds like that so far Everything is either a fast growing hybrid or a dual purpose egg layer!
So yeah, any suggestions? If there aren't any breeds like this, how hard would it be to maybe breed for the above traits? Is that viable?

Take a look at Dorkings - Not only are they close to what you're looking for, but you'd be giving a boost to a heritage breed that could use the help:
https://livestockconservancy.org/index.php/heritage/internal/dorking

 

[Ruthster55]

Try Giant Naked Necks?

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Try Giant Naked Necks?

The standards? Or a breed I have yet yo hear about?

Those are good ideas, but one thing I've noticed is that the males (and females to a lesser degree) eat A LOT and need A LOT OF PROTIEN.

 

[Ruthster55]

If you get Cornish Cross, you will almost certainly sacrifice them before they ever lay an egg. There are various strains of broilers from slow-growing to fast-growing. They do eat a lot during their short lives.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

If you get Cornish Cross, you will almost certainly sacrifice them before they ever lay an egg. There are various strains of broilers from slow-growing to fast-growing. They do eat a lot during their short lives.

They said they don't want cornishX

 

[Ruthster55]

They said they don't want cornishX

They seemed a bit confused about them because they implied that Cornish X lay a lot of eggs. They don't at the normal sacrifice age. Even as older birds, they don't lay very many eggs.

However, for the traditional taste, Cornish X may be too mild and soft...because you're basically eating a chick.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

They seemed a bit confused about them because they implied that Cornish X lay a lot of eggs. They don't at the normal sacrifice age. Even as older birds, they don't lay very many eggs.

However, for the traditional taste, Cornish X may be too mild and soft...because you're basically eating a chick.

They don't want the CornishX because they taste bland and don't want anything that pumps out eggs

 

[varidgerunner]

Get some hactchery grade Thai Gamefowl. You will end up with low input meat chickens with out of this world flavor. They will raise themselves semi-feral. With some very basic predator control (larger livestock that served to intimidate things like foxes, enough ground cover to allow chicks to hide while mom intimidates winged predators, and some occasional possum and coon trapping) I once had a few free ranged pullets and a stag turn into a a chicken plague that took months of freezer filling to overcome.

You have to harvest the stags before they come of age, or they will harvest each other, but they get very meaty before then. Harvest a few pullets when you are doing it, or you will end up with chickens and chicks of all sizes descending from the woods every time a feed bag rattles. I'm under strict orders never to let that happen again or I would still be doing it. It was horrible, like something from a horror film, you couldn't set anything down for 21 days or it would be full of chicks.

The things still have their natural instincts, and one of those is to procreate. A hen turns into ten chicks, half of those are pullets that start hatching when they are six months old. At summers end the original hen is coming off with her fourth or fifth batch of chicks when all of her first hatch are coming off with theirs. Honestly, you need some predators, one hen starts hatching in March and by September you are looking at around a hundred chickens. Turn loose four hens like I did, and there will be chickens that you never knew you had showing up after you thought you had eradicated them.

They are pricey to start with, but considering your original birds will have a productive life well into their teens, and the capacity at which they reproduce, you can recoup that. I would suggest starting with some breeders in a more protected environment, and use surplus birds as free range stockers. What I did was an experiment, one that I don't wish to repeat, but I think it could work for someone that wanted meat birds (very delicious meat birds) without incubators, brooder lights, enclosures and tons of feed. In the summer they do a lot of that off of bugs and weed seeds, and what they found in cow pies. Do not presume that you will raise an unpecked tomato to maturity in such a situation, however. Or that a loaf of bread can be left for a moment in a car with an open window, or that a feed bag can't be pecked open and emptied in a matter of minutes.

 

[BlueBaby]

Try Giant Naked Necks?

Naked Neck's go broody, plus lay more egg's than what the OP is wanting.