Meat Bird Project - Delaware, White Rock, Dark Cornish

[Baymule]

Very interesting project, I'll be checking in on you to see how it's going. I ordered 50 straight run Delawares and wound up with maybe 11 pullets. And to top it off, these Delawares have got to be the meanest durn chickens I've ever seen. I'm going to process ALL the cockerels this week and go find a RIR rooster so I can breed my own red sex links.

The White Rocks seem to be gaining the best for you. I've heard that they are calm, friendly birds, good layers and have a meaty carcass. I wish you the best in your breeding efforts!

 

[KoopOnTruckin]

Getting too many cockerels was my fear too, so i spent the extra money to get females and males. Yes, the Dels are the meanest chicks I've ever had, very quick to snip at my fingers and very defiant. The WRs and DCs are great, even temperament and no fuss when picking them up. And meaty! They both have some weight to them and feel thick, whereas the Dels remind me of my layer sex links. I have high hopes for a breasty, thick DC x WR cross.

 

[Dlmillion]

Ok Thanks!

I can't wait to see your results.

I'm getting 9 chicks (for egg purposes) this coming Thursday.

I'd live a spreadsheet but I don't know what to keep track of!

I want to account for every penny I spend on the batch.

After searching through the forums a bit about two weeks ago, I stumbled across a great thread which includes an awesome financial tracking spreadsheet!
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/...or-tracking-expenses-and-income-from-chickens

 

[Kiki]

After searching through the forums a bit about two weeks ago, I stumbled across a great thread which includes an awesome financial tracking spreadsheet!
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/...or-tracking-expenses-and-income-from-chickens

thanks...i might be able to add a few things to this to make it work for me.

thank again.

 

[Dlmillion]

I love the spreadsheet! I'm definitely going to take some ideas from this, it's really thorough. My spreadsheet is just labeled by color of leg band(s), as I didn't want to name them until I pick out the "keepers" from the rest. I like the column for temperment, that makes a huge difference. Let me know how those wing tags work out for you!

In the "Week 1" weights, were those when the chicks arrived or was that when they turned 7 days old? And condolences on "Hillary"...

Good News!! I got those wing tags in the mail and have successfully placed them on all my chicks! so far, I'm loving them and the were so easy to apply!

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/...wing-bands-and-spreadsheet-for-record-keeping

 

[JenellYB]

For what it's worth... My experience raising meat and dual purpose chickens was 30-40 years ago, but I tried most of the most popular and commonly available breeds. I only ventured into Cornish Rocks, knowing nothing about their problems, and it was a horrible experience.

The breed that I kept going back to and eventually stuck with, all around the best, was White Rocks. Fast early growth for feed efficient meat birds, the hens made great layers of large to huge brown eggs, with a longer productive laying life than most the egg breeds. Good foragers which helps reduce feed costs, though not the most alert and watchful birds, so vulnerable to predators. But having a few of some other more watchful breed to keep watch and sound alarm helped that.

Temperament, personality, excellent. I never had an aggressive WR roo. Having a family with small children, that was important.

One more thing, I know the Plymouth Rocks are all supposed to be the same breed, with all the same traits, but that wasn't my experience. I also at times had the Barred Rocks, and they are quite different from White Rocks. They don't grow as fast, if meat is a consideration, and the personality seemed different to me. So whether I wanted to raise birds just for meat, or for dual use meat and eggs, White Rocks would be my first choice.

 

[KoopOnTruckin]

For what it's worth... My experience raising meat and dual purpose chickens was 30-40 years ago, but I tried most of the most popular and commonly available breeds. I only ventured into Cornish Rocks, knowing nothing about their problems, and it was a horrible experience.

The breed that I kept going back to and eventually stuck with, all around the best, was White Rocks. Fast early growth for feed efficient meat birds, the hens made great layers of large to huge brown eggs, with a longer productive laying life than most the egg breeds. Good foragers which helps reduce feed costs, though not the most alert and watchful birds, so vulnerable to predators. But having a few of some other more watchful breed to keep watch and sound alarm helped that.

Temperament, personality, excellent. I never had an aggressive WR roo. Having a family with small children, that was important.

One more thing, I know the Plymouth Rocks are all supposed to be the same breed, with all the same traits, but that wasn't my experience. I also at times had the Barred Rocks, and they are quite different from White Rocks. They don't grow as fast, if meat is a consideration, and the personality seemed different to me. So whether I wanted to raise birds just for meat, or for dual use meat and eggs, White Rocks would be my first choice.

Thank you for the experienced advice, I'm glad you had such a great experience with WRs! At this point I'm thinking the WRs will be my bird of choice, not too sure about the Dels but they may grow on me. And I'm thinking a DC roo will be a good watch-bird for predators, hopefully...

I have a 2 year old son, he's pretty good with the birds but temperament is definitely a consideration. I know a local breeder who recommended Dels for their temperament, she didn't have any at the time so I went with hatchery chicks. I assume her line of Dels are much better than the line I have, they're not "mean" necessarily but they don't hesitate to peck. They're very comfortable with people, they peck at my glasses, fly at me whenever I open the mobile pen, and are the first to find a way out to the other sections of the pen.

The DC are just all around good birds (so far) as well. They're all cockerels, with very even temperament and solid personalities. A bit skiddish, but that's mostly my fault since I don't hold them as often as I should. I'm going to make it a plan to go out and hold the larger ones a few times a day, as I'm likely not going to keep any of the small ones. Only one DC cockerel will make the cut, as well as one WR cockerel. Guess I should start holding all of the WR hens as well, since likely all of them will be around for a while.

 

[KoopOnTruckin]

Good News!! I got those wing tags in the mail and have successfully placed them on all my chicks! so far, I'm loving them and the were so easy to apply!

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/...wing-bands-and-spreadsheet-for-record-keeping

Love the video, great info! Glad to have another cohort in this project, sir! I'm going to spend some time this weekend putting my data into the spreadsheet you created, also keeping track of their temperament since they're a bit older and have their own personalities.

 

[KoopOnTruckin]

So below are my numbers from week 4. You can see that the WRs are still the leaders by far, the DELs are falling quickly behind:

3 days 1 week 2 weeks 3 weeks 4 weeks
DC 61.8 (g) 84.4 168.4 269.2 373.2
growth - 137% 200% 160% 139%
DEL 60.1 80.6 150.4 221.4 295.5
growth - 135% 197% 147% 133%
WR 68.8 100.6 209.6 328.25 452
growth - 146% 208% 157% 138%
WR (younger) 65.7 97.7 205.6 330.2 -
growth - 149% 210% 161% -

The WRs are still better personality-wise than the DELs, but the DC cockerels are IMO the best and calmest of the 3 breeds. The DELs are peckers (literally and figuratively), the WRs are submissive and reclusive, and the DCs are calm-submissive (Cesar Milan would be proud).

The biggest & smallest of each breed are as follows:

Biggest Smallest
WR Cockerels 502 364
DC Cockerels 452 276
DEL Cockerels 383 314
DEL Pullets 335 226
WR (younger) C 414 337
WR (younger) P 338 278

There's a big gap between the DC biggest and smallest, if you take out the 2 smallest DCs, the average jumps up to 425g, which is a healthy weight and then some! And there's a much smaller gap between the DELs, though all of them seem very light compared to the heavier breeds.

As I said, the DC are nice and calm, and easy to handle. I have a small food scale that I'm using to weigh them ($11 from Amazon, very happy with the purchase), and the DC sit nicely on the scale and wait for me to nudge them along back into the pen. The WR are a bit more hyper but still when I calm them down. The DELs (especially the cockerels) will only sit still when I block their view with my hands, and even then I need to nudge them back onto the scale a few times until they sit still long enough for the scale to register long enough for a reading.

It's important to note that the younger WRs (3 weeks old) are still on 24% while all the rest are on 22%. I will definitely transition all of them back to 24% over the next 2 weeks or so (when I run out of the 20% feed, currently mixing with the 24% feed) so they all gain as much healthy weight as possible.

 

[KoopOnTruckin]

Very interesting project, I'll be checking in on you to see how it's going. I ordered 50 straight run Delawares and wound up with maybe 11 pullets. And to top it off, these Delawares have got to be the meanest durn chickens I've ever seen. I'm going to process ALL the cockerels this week and go find a RIR rooster so I can breed my own red sex links.

The White Rocks seem to be gaining the best for you. I've heard that they are calm, friendly birds, good layers and have a meaty carcass. I wish you the best in your breeding efforts!

I would suggest keeping the largest/best temperamented DEL cockerel, that way you can breed with the best pullet and hopefully you'll get the best combination with your chicks for meat going forward. I'm likely going to do the same, keeping 1 DEL cockerel and 1-2 pullets to see if I can get past this cruddy personality trait that seems to be pretty common in the breed.

From what I've read (and hoping to learn firsthand), the best determining factor in size comes from the rooster. Most people seem to be more concerned with the temperament and body width of the cockerels over the hens, so maybe the amount of cockerels you got was a sign! And they should be bigger in the stew pot since you're planning to process the vast majority!! Tell me how they turn out, if they're worth it or not!