Managing a Dual Purpose Breed Flock for Eggs and Meat

[pkarkos]

Hi All!
I am looking into starting a sustainable meat and egg production program on my college's farm and I am looking for advice/book recommendations/experience. Basically any advice you all can give me! I have been raising egg birds for a hobby for about 15 years now, but I have never run it as a business or raised meat or dual-purpose breeds for meat.
I am still very much in the beginning stages of my research and planning for this venture, but my very basic, general idea was to breed our own birds on the farm and keep the hens for egg laying and breeding and keep some cockerels for breeding and send some to be processed. On our farm, we also raise cattle and pigs for meat and sell it into our meat CSA. This was also my plan for the meat from the birds.
As I said, I am inexperienced with meat birds and I am in the beginning stages of planning this so I would appreciate any references and advice you all can give me!
Thank you very much!

 

[Mosey2003]

I would suggest looking at the Crossing My Red Rangers thread in here. I think if you had a good dual purpose male and Red Ranger hens, you'd get lots of eggs plus add a bit of size to the offspring.

 

[The Dapper Duck]

Personally I think if you are going for meat production to sell, you won't find a heritage breed that has a marketable carcass and also is an efficient egg layer. Most people are just used to the big, fat store chickens. I would keep two flocks, one for eggs and one for meat, so you can focus on either trait separately and shape the breeds to your needs and environment.

 

[pkarkos]

Personally I think if you are going for meat production to sell, you won't find a heritage breed that has a marketable carcass and also is an efficient egg layer. Most people are just used to the big, fat store chickens. I would keep two flocks, one for eggs and one for meat, so you can focus on either trait separately and shape the breeds to your needs and environment.

Yes, that definitely makes sense and it is a possibility I have been considering. But in the flock that is bred for eggs, what do we do with the males?

 

[Kris5902]

Yes, that definitely makes sense and it is a possibility I have been considering. But in the flock that is bred for eggs, what do we do with the males?

You can process them out yourself for personal consumption, you won’t get much meat off egg laying cockerels, mine dressed out at about 2-3lbs, and they don’t make a good marketable product, but it tastes fine and is IMO, better than just culling male chicks. (Not as efficient from a strictly business perspective, but more sustainable) you will need to be ready to cull them before they get too hormonal. 16 weeks is usually recommended. I’m just starting out in a similar situation.

As for the meat breeds I’m looking to produce my own chicks as well, for the sustainability and because I’m fairly remote making shipping chicks a challenge financially. Do look at the “crossing my Red Rangers” thread it’s got a ton of good info. I’m also experimenting with this on our small farm.

And realize that it’s going to be a slow start, and you will be running at a loss (financially) for a good while. Most small business ventures take at least two years to “get in the black”. But there are many added benefits to adding chickens. I’ll have to get a picture for you, but I’m running tractors in our hayfields/pasture in the off season for fertilizer, and wow... huge differences are apparent in the field since January. Also you will want to look at getting a really efficient brooder and incubator set up.

Best of luck, and I look forward to following your project!

 

[The Dapper Duck]

Yes, that definitely makes sense and it is a possibility I have been considering. But in the flock that is bred for eggs, what do we do with the males?

Like @Kris5902 said, use them for personal consumption. Or maybe market them as a bonus to an egg CSA. You could factor them into the price of the egg CSA and then every share gets X number of 16wk cockerels per year if they opt for it. That might get people interested in the actual meat birds you raise. This might not work well if you are raising some dinky breed like leghorns. Then I would say cull and compost. This would work best if you had an autosexing breed, like Bielefelder, so you could cull at hatch or sort them out to be raised with the meat flock.

Sounds like you are giving it some good thought. I would like to know where you end up with your plans.

 

[Ridgerunner]

This sounds a little familiar, college farm and all that. I don't recall that being New England though. Still, some of the issues I think you will have.

From a pure economical viewpoint dual purpose cannot touch the efficiency of the Cornish X meat birds at converting feed into meat. You'd have to buy the chicks but the feeding costs would be significantly less. Your turnover would be quicker also since the Cornish X are butcher-size at a much younger age than the dual purpose. The Ranger type chickens are not as efficient as the CX but not bad. You can pasture CX and Rangers, plenty of people do, but in New England your growing season for pasture is fairly short.

It's the same type of thing with laying hens. You cannot beat the efficiency of feed to egg conversion ratio for the commercial laying hybrids as compared to dual purpose though leghorns aren't bad.

The CX are butchered so young that they can be fried or grilled. The older chickens get, especially cockerels, the more flavor and texture they have. Some people like that flavor and texture, some don't and call it "gamey". The older they are the more restricted you are in how you can cook them and still be acceptable to most people. Some people are so used to the store-bought CX they aren't happy with anything else.

If you are involved with the pig or cattle operation you have probably noticed a difference in breeds, but also that there can be a huge difference in individuals of the same breed. Same thing with chickens. Some hens are going to lay better than other hens of the same breed. Some cockerels are going to grow faster, grow larger, and mature earlier than other cockerels. If you are looking at a breeding program you basically butcher the ones you don't want to and breed the ones you want to butcher. With your stated goals I can't tell if you have any reason to restrict yourself to purebreds or if mixed breeds would work.

If you pluck your birds it is recommended they be white of buff. Plucking leaves pen feathers behind. If they are black or dark red they are really easy to see. They will still be there with lighter birds but you get a prettier carcass with lighter birds.

If you are going to try to have one flock where the pullets are kept for laying and the cockerels are butchered, you have a ratio issue. About half of what you hatch will be girls, half boys. To get enough boys to service a meat industry you will need to hatch a lot of eggs. What will you do with all those girls? If you butcher them there will not be much meat, they just don't grow that big.

I don't know what a CSA is so my suggestions may not apply. I could see you raising dual purpose boys to a certain butcher age and packaging them as a "sustainable" chicken or something like that. But include a few suggested recipes when you sell them along with an info sheet that explains they are butchered older than the CX so they need to be cooked differently. You could try marketing the excess pullets with some specific name, like the Cornish Game Hens are really just young CX. Or maybe make soup or broth with the pullets.

Good luck!

 

[Kris5902]

Of course if you do decide to go with the commercial hybrids for an egg flock, you should also be aware that they don’t have the same life expectancy of heritage breeds or less productive hybrids... you will need to be replacing your hens yearly or bi-yearly to maintain those levels, and they develop reproductive issues fairly commonly past the age of two years, sometimes even before.

You can never achieve the same high productivity for meat or eggs with a heritage flock that you see in the highly specialized layers and CX meat birds. However, I really like the idea of having chickens that are allowed to really be chickens, and that can be raised from egg to table on the same farm. In my area there is a solid interest in specialty local foods, and they sell at far more lucrative prices.

That said, I wouldn’t ever try to market a layer breed cockerel for meat or even include one as a “free” bonus with eggs. It can be devastating trying to rebuild a reputation if you start a venture with an “inferior” product. I personally don’t care how skinny my chicken is, once it’s slow simmered into a stew, soup, or pot-pie it is fine for me. But as a consumer I wouldn’t purchase one, and as @Ridgerunner points out, most people don’t know what to do with a less than “soft and pudgy CX ” chicken. There are plenty of solid dual purpose breeds, that with a little tweaking, good marketing, and the right consumer (not one expecting an $8 broiler bird the size of a small melon!) might work out. Another thing to consider is cost of processing per bird if you aren’t legally allowed to do it yourself for sale. $6 for a meat breed is recoverable, but for a 3lb layer cockerel it isn’t.

I’m planning on putting my heavier layer Roo’s (Marans and Barnvelder) over some Ranger hens and seeing how that goes for Meat, and I can still breed them back with my Marans and Barnvelder hens as well, keeping the “pretty” laying flocks pure. I also plan on running some ameraucana , Isbars, and Crested Cream Leg-bars to keep my eggs colorful, but wouldn’t consider trying to breed them with the Rangers.

I suppose what I’m struggling to say is you don’t “have” to go with the commercial hybrids to make it work, if you have the right market and are careful in selective breeding. You still may still want to maintain separate laying and meat flocks, or have some crossover when appropriate. You can’t compete with the commercial chicken industry, but you can produce a specialty product for those who are willing to pay a bit more to really know where their food comes from.

 

[GreenbrierChickens]

Delaware's can fill both needs. Look into them for sure!

 

[The Dapper Duck]

I think the goal of being "sustainable" kind of rules out the CornishX for meat birds. A heavier breed (like those Delawares) that will make lots of eggs but can still get people hooked on the flavor of the "free cockerels" sound like the best option. Use the culled laying breed to give people a taste for range-fed chicken and then direct them to your meat breed for a larger carcass that they can purchase.