ISO information on certain breeds

[farmwife2016]

So we are looking at trying out a few different kinds of laying breeds this year. We had white leghorns this past year but we are now wanting to add a few different ones. We decided on getting a few brown leghorns as layers. We want some meat birds and we can now get New Hampshire and light Sussex birds from our local hatchery. I see that they can be used as layers and as meat birds - what are your experiences with these type of birds? Are they good layers? How are they for meat birds?

 

[TomZilla43]

So we are looking at trying out a few different kinds of laying breeds this year. We had white leghorns this past year but we are now wanting to add a few different ones. We decided on getting a few brown leghorns as layers. We want some meat birds and we can now get New Hampshire and light Sussex birds from our local hatchery. I see that they can be used as layers and as meat birds - what are your experiences with these type of birds? Are they good layers? How are they for meat birds?

I have one of each, both of mine are docile birds who lay well. The Sussex has the most personality per lb of any of my admittedly small flock and NH Red is probably the friendliest. As far as their value as meat birds that I really don't know as I only raise them as a small backyard laying flock

 

[Folly's place]

Welcome! Cornishx are the grocery store meat birds, and can't be beat for rapid growth and feed conversion. They also have miserable health issues, and are in the freezer by eight weeks of age, so not very tasty.
Dual purpose birds grow slower, so cost more to raise to twelve to sixteen weeks of age, but are 'normal' chickens who run around, have few health issues, and taste much better!
I haven't had light Sussex, but love the speckled Sussex hens! The New Hamps grow out well and can be very nice hens too.
Were you going to get straight run chicks and freeze the cockerels? I like to do that, and then you may have a nice cockerel that needs to stay in your flock too.
Both breeds will be pretty good layers, but likely not as good as your white Leghorns. I think they will make up for that in other ways though. Having a mixed flock is more interesting, and the hens will molt at different times, which also helps with evening out egg production.
Mary

 

[farmwife2016]

Hi, thanks so much for the info! I’m not sure if we will have cockerels or not as when we order the chickens from the hatchery they are not sexed and you tend to get what is given. Do New Hampshire and Sussex get along with leghorns? That’s my other concern as this past summer we had some bad tempered chickens that were feather plucking and had pecked one of our broiler chickens quite bad and we had to have it seperate. This will be our second year with our chickens and we are down to 4 White leghorns out of 11 we started with after butchering season. It’s been a lot of trial and error trying to figure out what we may be doing right and wrong with our girls so we hope this year will be a better one after we make a few changes to our coop and feed.