Meat Birds and Egg laying...

[cottontail farm]

It's my understanding that cornish crosses are hybrid birds. Therefore if you buy a flock and manage to get them to breeding age they wouldn't breed true anyway. (even if they managed to successfully mate - I have read that the cornish cross roosters get so breast-heavy that they literally can't mate and therefore the eggs are artifically inseminated). I have raised them, butchered at 8 weeks and yes they taste just like supermarket chicken.
Red rangers are the meat "breed" that I love to grow. They take slightly longer than a cornish cross, I butcher at 10 weeks, but the taste/texture is the same at that age. We grow them out in a large pen on grass. If you let some of the hens get older they lay large brown eggs and mine have gone broody/raised chicks for me.
I have a Brahma rooster that mates the red ranger hens. The offspring are huge, gentle and beautiful.
As for the "supermarket" taste: the flavor and texture of grocery chicken comes from being butchered at such a young age and not being able to move around much. The older a chicken gets (the more it is allowed to, god forbid, run, flap it's wings and be a chicken) the more "chicken-y" the meat will taste, the meat will look darker and will be more fibrous. Frankly, I've come to appreciate the flavor of a chicken that's had a longer life.

 

[cottontail farm]

I like the taste of quail, but they only cost about five dollars each where I am, so you could just eat one to see if you like it. They can't be housed with chickens. They are much smaller, so the pen doesn't take up much room.

Quail are fantastic and very easy to breed. My husband calls them "the lobster of the poultry world" lol. Egg to freezer in 8 weeks (the males start fighting at about that time). It takes about 2 quail per person for a meal. The meat is dark meat. They are sweet little birds and simple to butcher. We raise them on grass.
You can buy day-olds around here for $1 or $2 each and once you have a little flock they are prolific layers (like 5 or 6 eggs a day from 6 hens) and easy to incubate.
I did a post awhile back about meat quail. The final cost of the initial batch (buying in the chicks) was $1.37 a bird. It would drop to 81c each if you incubated your own eggs. http://cottontailfarm.blogspot.com/2017/05/quail-harvest-butchering-results-costs.html

 

[m1chelle1]

Quail are fantastic and very easy to breed. My husband calls them "the lobster of the poultry world" lol. Egg to freezer in 8 weeks (the males start fighting at about that time). It takes about 2 quail per person for a meal. The meat is dark meat. They are sweet little birds and simple to butcher. We raise them on grass.
You can buy day-olds around here for $1 or $2 each and once you have a little flock they are prolific layers (like 5 or 6 eggs a day from 6 hens) and easy to incubate.
I did a post awhile back about meat quail. The final cost of the initial batch (buying in the chicks) was $1.37 a bird. It would drop to 81c each if you incubated your own eggs. http://cottontailfarm.blogspot.com/2017/05/quail-harvest-butchering-results-costs.html

wow! thank you so much for both of your inputs! I never knew quail was such a prolific sustainable bird like this. Good to hear that they taste that good, too. Ill def have to find someone local who does meat quail and see if i can order one off of them and see how it goes! This is the kind of bird i think im looking for. Really appreciate the response. Ill check out that blog, too

 

[Kris5902]

100% correct on the CX info, and that the hybrids don’t breed true, but if you read through the Toad thread... breeding them can be done, it’s just not easy...

I’m thinking I will start with a local Red Ranger type hybrid (I need to get a jump start on my production), and several heritage breeds that are more meat oriented, so I can maintain two separate lines and cross them selecting for desired traits...

I doubt it’s possible for a backyard breeder or small farmer to come anywhere near the CX in size and efficiency, but I think it should be possible to get a more sustainable meat bird that can be hatched out on site.

The Quail sound great from a cost perspective... but at 2 birds/person(adult)/meal that’s a lot of butchering... I’ve got a family of three (husband, mother, and myself), so that would be 6 birds per meal... if I were to feed the whole family (on the farm) and wwoofers right now that would be 8 people, last summer 10-12 people... that’s a whole lot of birds! I can make a whole roasting chicken into 2 or 3 meals for the three of us.

 

[cppeace]

Many people have successfully raised CC pullets to maturity and then bred with a DP breed like white rock or Delaware. The CC hens generally will live to maturity if fed like a normal chicken and can breed and lay but generally only live a couple years.
Several people are working on making a meatier DP breed, I'm really just starting my own, myself. I don't plan to have any CC or RR in there but Traditional Dark Cornish and some other breeds I like that are nice and docile. I have a goal in mind and figure I can get there within 5-12 generations. We shall see.
Yeah, many people like quail as well, but I just can't see having to kill and clean so many birds just to feed a handful of people. Just seems like a lot of work to me but to each their own.

 

[Kabootar]

Hello BYC Family,

So ive never raised purely "meat birds" before. But I did cull and eat some of my DP cockerals...they tasted ok.
This might be an incredibly stupid question, but I was under the impression that people typically purchase meat birds as babies, then raise them, then slaughter. Repeat.
What if you wanted to do this, but also wanted to breed CX or another breed of pure meat bird, so you had a recurring sustainable supply? I know most people butcher their meat birds before "egg laying age" so its my understanding that they dont get to an age where theyre popping out eggs in the chicken tractor. But is it possible to breed these types of birds? I know they dont live very long on their own, since they are heavy meat birds, so im even also wondering if they can make it to egg laying age..... Really looking for someone who has done this before, or knows of a friend or family member who has, so i can get a good look at how difficult this would be.

Wasnt able to find anything about it in this forum, but i think my search function is broken right now. Would love if this discussion happened before, someone could attach a link.

Thanks All!!

M

So I understand that this is an older thread, but I see that many ladies and gentlemen who posted on this thread are still active members of the BYC community so I will give my take. Cornish cross birds can be kept till breeding age if they are kept correctly. The best way is to wait for the most active hen (eg OEG, Cornish or some other game bird) in your flock to go broody and put some Cornish cross chicks under her when her own chicks are hatching. Then let the mom and chicks (both her own and adopted) free range as much as possible. They will be forced to keep up with the adoptive mom and siblings and eat greens and bugs. Their instincts will kick in and they will become good in scratching and foraging. Limit their access to grains don't let them hog the feeding station, only a light meal in the evening. If you see them hanging near the food kick them away. Also give them roosts to sleep on.
Cornish cross chicks brought up properly will not only live upto breeding age but will lay huge eggs. They have no problem in breeding, because hens sit down when they are mounted by the roosters and extra weight goes in the ground. They will also go broody and raise chicks. It's best to leave leghorn roosters on them and then breed the next generation back to the leghorns and then breed them with whatever dual purpose breed you like.

 

[Kabootar]

I understand that this is an older thread

How about toads?

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/toad-raising.1152440/

Hmmm I see the 'toad' looks promising at first glance, but there are some profound difficulties with this hybrid. Nevertheless it's a good try. I will try to keep an eye.

 

[Kris5902]

Well of the 3 CX I’ve raised... a runt, and two midsized at processing age, I’m going to process one of the midsized ones as she can no longer stand at 20 weeks... they have been on the diet and exercise plan. They are laying... but super small eggs and not with any frequency. I’m still going to try to breed them.

 

[Kabootar]

wow!! im not as familiar with them. How do they taste? Do you mix them in with your laying hens? Do they get along in mixed flocks? I know like ducks and such can be mixed in with chickens. Not sure about quail.
Yeah, i mean, like i said in my post, ive eaten DP birds before and im not honestly sure i like the taste. Like im not sure i care to raise them for meat, see what im saying? Thats why i was asking about Cornish X because theyre supposed to be more or less "grocery store" tasting. Not that i need an exact replica or anything. Just want something i can enjoy the taste. Figure that seems reasonable enough.
Heres another idea: was thinking about getting straight run of mixed DP breeds and seeing if i like the meat taste on any other DP breeds. Like barred rock, NH red, etc... Having like 10 different DP breeds then culling at a decent size and choosing which taste i like better......

I see what you are going through. From the time I have spent here on BYC I have come to understand that my fellow chicken keepers in the State have a ROOSTER problem. They don't know what to do with those freeloading gangs of rambunctious cockerels who show up every spring and who taste like garbage.

No matter how much you cull, a rooster is gonna taste like a Rooster that is tough, chewy and stringy. What my family calls ''a sad meal'' The male hormone testosterone makes the meat less desirable. That's why people castrate their calves, lambs, baby goats and piglets. A steer's, wether's and a barrow's meat is always superior to that of their intact counterparts.

The castrated male animals also create less problems on the farm and pose less danger to their handlers and to each other. They also don't overbreed the females. If you let a gang of hormonal roosters overtake you are going to have hens with bloody bloody heads, bald backs and a lots of injured roosters. The flock will look like they have come out of a tornado.

The best way to deal with this problem is to caponize your extra cockerels. They will be mellower than a hen, peaceful like a nun and kind enough to brood the chicks.

Capons are plump like a mellon and their meat is tender like a mother's love. It is juicy, moist and full of flavours. You don't need to process them in mass and care about maintaining a freezer like Cornish cross. They live as long as a normal chicken.

Here is a pic of my RIR capon

Note: Nothing I said is an exaggeration.

 

[Kabootar]

Well of the 3 CX I’ve raised... a runt, and two midsized at processing age, I’m going to process one of the midsized ones as she can no longer stand at 20 weeks... they have been on the diet and exercise plan. They are laying... but super small eggs and not with any frequency. I’m still going to try to breed them.

Well, there was a lady on the caponizing thread, she had a CX hen that lived for years and laid super large eggs.