Meat birds or dual purpose??

[pringle]

Might I sat somthing new?I know Turkens sound kinda gross to raise for meat and eggs but there very good at it.They lay plenty of large brown eggs and they grow pretty quickly to,and since they dont have as many feathers they are extremly easy to pluck.But the cool thing about them is that they can still be raised in cold climates even without as many feathers.

 

[3KillerBs]

Any of you dual-purpose fans have Delawares?

I'm reading that they were originally a broiler cross that turned out to be great layers too.

 

[aggieterpkatie]

I love CornishX. I doubt I'll ever try a dual purpose breed. IMO, why spend twice the amount of time feeding a bird that will produce half the meat? Not to mention when the dual purpose roos are older, they start getting gamey b/c of hormones.

And my broilers are anything but mushy. They're definitely way better than anything in the store.

 

[Egg_newton]

What we did was get an Orpington rooster and some good laying dual purpose hens like RIR and WR. Orpingtons were orginally a meat bird before the Cornish X's came about. We are going to take some of the fertile eggs to raise our own meat birds. We are also thinking about starting another flock next spring with a cornish roo and WR hens. I know they won't be the same as the crosses you buy from the hatcheries but they will be self sustaining so we don't have to keep purchasing chicks.

We got a batch of the x's because we wanted some homegrown meat in our freezer promptly. I didn't have a problem with getting attached. I don't mean to offend those of you who love the cornish crosses this is just my personal opinion. They just seem so unnatural. The way the are so aggressive with food. And they weren't that cute as chicks with their sloped cro-magnon foreheads and lightly feathered spots as they feathered out. We've culled six of them so far and ate one. We didn't age it like I now know you are supposed to. But after stewing him he was still super tastey.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Quote:
I have some. Mine do not appear to be significantly different from the other dual purpose birds as far as laying or meat. One big advantage to the Delawares as opposed to the darker-feathered birds is that you get a better looking carcass since they are a white bird if you pluck instead of skin. Those pin feathers don't show up as much. The pin feathers had a lot to do with why they were a meat bird.

I am satisfied with my Delawares, by the way.

 

[Minniechickmama]

For those of you looking for a good way to tractor 25-30 chickens at one time that is lightweight enough to move, go to http://www.pvcplans.com/
I made the pen shown on the home page there and it has worked great and is much easier and lighter to move than the wooden ark I made. I started out putting my 8 Dark Cornish hens in it until we got other housing built. It is real nice during the hot days, but now that the weather has cooled down, it was better they get into a more sheltered house. The other disadvantage of having them in there, they never really got comfortable enough to lay much. They quit laying about a week after we brought them here, then only one was laying for a while, then I think a second, but now none of them are. I am hoping that now that they are in a more private little hen house that they will get back to work. It really stinks have all theses chickens and not get even one egg from them.

I too am going to try doing some crossing to see what I can get for some meat producers. I am going to try my Dark Cornish hens with a Barred Rock, Australorp, and New Hampshire. In the spring I am going to get a couple of Dark Cornish roos to do some mating with and see how I can develop my own line of good meat birds. I know that a lot of people say to use the Cornish roosters for a cross, but all I have for now are the hens, so that is what I am going to work with first. Honestly, for coming from a hatchery, the ladies I have here are 7-months and they hold their own pretty well in the meat department. They will never be like those freaky, overbred broilers I have in the PVC tractor right now, but I think they could give our family a couple of really good. Chicken and dumpling dinners.

Almost forgot, there are even some references for ordering the right connectors on the website above. I suggest FlexPVC because their prices are the best. I had two orders with them and they served me very well.

 

[AZKat]

For what its worth, when my Grandma was young, they got 100 straight run chicks (White Rock, as nearly as she can recall) in the spring. At about four months, they started butchering the males. They also maintained a layer flock of 12-20 hens, who went into the stewpot when they stopped laying well, and the most promising new pullets would get promoted to the layer flock. This system seems to have worked pretty well, and kept a large family in chicken and eggs.

 

[wombat]

I don't raise meat birds, but one of my co-workers has now been at it for several years.

He started with a small flock of heritage breeds, with the intent of raising a self-sustaining flock. He started with RIR and some Plymouth Rock, and then added some Orpingtons. The flock is self-sustaining, and he mostly breeds RIR and RIR-crosses. I think he's cut back to a few RIR roos that he breeds to a variety of hens.

He's since branched out and has been buying hatchery CornishX, more each year ... so he has a bunch of those that he butchers all at once, and also some of the heritage breeds he raises from his own flock that he butchers a few at a time.

If you're new to this, I'd suggest doing the same. Start a small flock of heritage breeds to keep around and get a small order of CornishX this coming spring to butcher in a batch and see what you like. Process all but a few of your heritage roos, keep a roo or two and the hens. That way, you're only stuck with the heritage flock long-term, and they'll lay eggs too ... and if you keep your first batch of CornishX relatively small, you'll get a feel for how those work out for you.

I haven't managed to jump over to raising the meaties. I keep thinking of the idea of putting 50+ lbs of meat in the freezer all in one pop, but I've not brought myself to taking on the extra work.

 

[3KillerBs]

I have a hard time believing that those PVC pens are dog-proof.

Yes? No?

 

[RedStarDaddy]

Quote:
Your opinion, or a rhetorical question?

First, if you are depending upon the post office to bring you your new broilers every spring then you are not practicing sustainable agriculture. And if you can't get the parent stock for your flock then you are dependent upon the post office. If the post office or their mail-carriage contractor ever does quit carrying day-old chicks then you have a huge problem.

Second, if your bottom line is driven strictly by profit then go right on ahead. Tyson's and Foster Farms pretty well have that market cornered, though; you can't go head to head with them and do any good. You need to find a niche and compete against them in that niche. For some, that niche is in the heritage breeds that people ate when they visited grandma and grandpa on the farm.

Third, the parent stock for the Cornish X (and White Leghorns and $FOO Stars, for that matter) is inbred to a farethewell. If that inbreeding ever results in a loss of fertility or any other situation where the numbers aren't there to support small sales then your problem is as big as if the post office ever quit carrying day-old chicks.

Fourth, genetic diversity has been all but eliminated in the production crossbreeds. That not only has the result of eliminating production variability, it also reduces or eliminates the varying resistance to disease. If a disease should target one of the major suppliers of parent stock then they would, essentially, be wiped out unless and until they could breed up resistant strains. And those producers depending on them would suffer too.

Fifth, the dual-purpose breeds you sneer at so earnestly do not need anything like the intensive management your beloved Cornish X do. When my Red Stars (crossbreeds between two different dual-purpose breeds) got here I opened the box, checked for pasting-up, and put them in front of a feeder full of chick feed, and they ate until they were full then stopped. The feeder in the chicken house is full and will stay full tonight. I don't need to worry that they will eat themselves into leg problems or ascites. I can enjoy them both as they scratch around in the yard and as they simmer in a soup pot on the stove once they have been replaced.

Sixth, older birds make much better soup than young ones do both because they do have a fuller richer flavor and because their meat has some tooth after it has simmered for two or three days. It is not a big deal if the bird takes twice as long to grow to half the size if it has ten times the flavor.

It is good that chicken-keeping is broad enough to compass both the person making at least part of their livelihood from it and the person keeping a few for the sheer enjoyment of it. I hope that in these six answers to your opinion I have given you some food for thought, aggieterpkatie.

RSD