Meat birds and crossing for meat

[MildlyOffensiveChicken]

VERY curious about weights, though the last thing I want in my flock is more white, a 22 week weight would be helpful reference. 16 would have been better.

I don’t have any way to weigh them currently. I may bring a bathroom scale. Weigh myself and then weigh while holding them.

Growth has slowed down after 16 weeks.

This is at about 13 weeks, the darker meat is a year old BCM rooster. For some comparison. I chose the smallest of 13 cockerals to butcher first.

 

[McChooky]

Delawares a good choice if you raise chickens for eggs but don't have a chicken tractor or pasture for meat birds to graze on. The hens lay lots of large eggs and the roosters grow to a good size and will make a good meal when processed.

 

[nicalandia]

If my Aseels werent so expensive, they would make for a good table bird, very good broad breast about 4 month old

 

[Lauravonsmurf]

I ordered Buckeyes to see what the look like, they are suppose to have roughly the Old early 1900s Cornish body

 

[MysteryChicken]

I've read of some moderate "success" with crossing in some Dark Cornish, and one of our frequent posters has some big offspring with an Easter Egger, of all things (a bird that's already more genetic lottery than not). But "success" in this case means a meaty DP bird, not a meat bird like the CX.

As the other posters have FAR more informatively said - nothing competes. And yes, I used a CX (hen) in my culling project. While I was able to successfully raise a male CX to maturity via a combination of methods, the fertility rate was VERY low - easier to get some desired genetics out of the hen.

Results of my very small scale experiment? Half the child birds showed anything like Ranger-rates of growth, much less CX. Less than half of their offspring seem to be significantly larger, faster growing than their peers. Getting the "white" genes out of the mix (which i don't desire) is proving difficult.

That said, remember my offhand comment about the genetic lottery? That's my CULLING, not Breeding, project. I have a lot of genes to work with but not a lot of birds. If I started with 50 birds of the same two species breeds, and carefully bred only the best of the offspring to the best of their siblings, or backbred into the best parent stock, I could certainly make faster progress on a single trait.

officially, we raise pekin ducks for meat. Or would, if we had better incubation rates.

/edited to fix my stupid. Fingers got far ahead of my brain.

I did Brahma X Easter Egger. Biggest birds plus a fair amount of meat I've produced from a crossing besides Heritage Barred Rock X Buff Orpington. He has decent amount of breast muscles as I can feel.

 

[Lauravonsmurf]

I am going to be fiddling with the Naked Necks for sure… I want to Improve them, 20% less feathers is a plus in my thinking.

 

[DarJones]

One of the things I like about chickens is getting to sample the results. I've found that of all the different breeds I raised over the last 40 years, the only one that consistently is still edible as fried chicken at 8 months old is Wyandotte. I've also seen Wyandottes that weigh 10 to 12 pounds at 8 to 10 months old. A Wyandotte rooster over Cornish X hens produces very good size and decent growth.

Keep in mind that roughly 1/2 of the offspring of Cornish X hens will grow fast and 1/2 will grow slow due to their hybrid origin. CornishX growth is determined by two genes which basically tell the bird it is always hungry so it will literally sit with head in a feeder and stay there except to get water. If you can deliberately slow down the amount of feed to Cornish X hens, they will grow slower and healthier. The hens can then be used to produce eggs carrying most of the desired traits.

 

[Lauravonsmurf]

One of the things I like about chickens is getting to sample the results. I've found that of all the different breeds I raised over the last 40 years, the only one that consistently is still edible as fried chicken at 8 months old is Wyandotte. I've also seen Wyandottes that weigh 10 to 12 pounds at 8 to 10 months old. A Wyandotte rooster over Cornish X hens produces very good size and decent growth.

Keep in mind that roughly 1/2 of the offspring of Cornish X hens will grow fast and 1/2 will grow slow due to their hybrid origin. CornishX growth is determined by two genes which basically tell the bird it is always hungry so it will literally sit with head in a feeder and stay there except to get water. If you can deliberately slow down the amount of feed to Cornish X hens, they will grow slower and healthier. The hens can then be used to produce eggs carrying most of the desired traits.

Thank you for sharing that Wyandotte seem to be better as friers. What other breeds did you try?

 

[McChooky]

One of the things I like about chickens is getting to sample the results. I've found that of all the different breeds I raised over the last 40 years, the only one that consistently is still edible as fried chicken at 8 months old is Wyandotte. I've also seen Wyandottes that weigh 10 to 12 pounds at 8 to 10 months old. A Wyandotte rooster over Cornish X hens produces very good size and decent growth.

Keep in mind that roughly 1/2 of the offspring of Cornish X hens will grow fast and 1/2 will grow slow due to their hybrid origin. CornishX growth is determined by two genes which basically tell the bird it is always hungry so it will literally sit with head in a feeder and stay there except to get water. If you can deliberately slow down the amount of feed to Cornish X hens, they will grow slower and healthier. The hens can then be used to produce eggs carrying most of the desired traits.

I've never raised meat birds but I'm raising some this year.Thanks for the tip!

 

[DarJones]

I've grown barred rocks, orpingtons, white rocks, cornish X, easter eggers, australorps, various BB Red Games, brown leghorns, black giants, delawares, dark cornish, rhode island red, and of course wyandottes. White Wyandottes are currently the largest birds in the wyandotte group, but be aware they don't have the double breast size of the Rocks.