Layers and Meats together

[builderko]

Im new and have two Isa brown chicks 6 cornish rocks for meat and 11 bantams that got for free bantams about 6 weeks browns and rocks about 3 can i countinue to house them all togethe even once the browns reach laying age and what are batams good fro other then pets

 

[CoopCrazy]

I wouldnt reccomend keeping the meat birds in with your layers after two weeks.. At two to three weeks you will need to start limiting feed on the meaties and they get so large so fast that i would be afraid they would harm the bantams....

 

[acid_chipmunk]

First,

Second, please go back and use some period and commas. It is very hard to understand what you are trying to say.

Third, if you have bantams, DO NOT keep your Cornish X's with them. From what I gather in your post your bantams are 6 weeks old and the Cornish's are 3? If this is right, your Cornish's are probably already bigger than the bantams. They will trample the bantams to get to the food.

Fourth, what kind of bantams are they? Silkies, Cochins, EE's?

Fifth, you can keep the browns and bantams together, as long as they were raised together and there isn't any fighting going on. Bantams lay eggs just like large fowl birds do, just smaller ones. Depending on the breed of bantam, they also make very good mommies!


Good luck!

 

[builderko]

Thanks guy, Not sure on the read of the Bantams mixed bag when we got them

 

[builderko]

Would like to get a rooster to start my own breeding for a substainable flock, for both meat and fresh layers. One are the Isa browns a good dual purpose and two is this cost effective

 

[patandchickens]

You won't get much meat off an ISA brown. Of course you can eat them, you can eat any chicken, but unless you are not so much interested in the meat as in making broth from the carcass, it would make more sense to pick a meatier, more dual-purpose breed. (Sexlinks like ISA browns are not really dual purpose).

Be aware though that dual purpose chickens will not give you anything even vaguely resembling the chicken you buy in a supermarket. YOu get a, frankly, scrawny-looking carcass, with not much white meat and because you have to grow them out to 14-20 wks to get any meaningful amount of meat off them, it will have more texture than that soft squishy supermarket chicken, too. Also you will have spent much more time and much more money on feed, per pound of meat produced, than if you'd grown meat chickens e.g. CornishX.

However, meat from dual-purpose breeds will also have SPLENDID flavor, and many people PREFER the firmer texture, and it will be from happier chickens.

I have speckled sussexes (from a line with large body size) for this purpose; other common choices would include rocks (any color) or wyandottes (any color), but there are lots of possibilities. Make sure you're getting birds from a suitable line - some hatchery stock is very small-bodied and not as useful for the pot.

Good luck, have fun,

Pat