Meat breeds

[ChickChic00]

Are Black Australorp, Buff Orpington, Barred Rock and Delaware chickens good to raise for meat?

 

[archeryrob]

What do you want from your meat birds? Cornish cross give you that "white" meat. Heritage, non corn feed, get a rich darker meat and flavor. My neighbor told me I didn't bleed the bird I gave them enough. She used to raise her own birds as a kid and they corned them heavily as bird feed wasn't really a thing.

This was a Rhode Island Rooster, that had to go.

And the thighs

 

[Ridgerunner]

Are Black Australorp, Buff Orpington, Barred Rock and Delaware chickens good to raise for meat?

You've been getting good information but I don't know what you mean by "good to raise for meat"? What are your goals? What are you after?

Others have talked about feed to meat conversion. If you buy all their food that could be very important. If you raise most of it or they forage a lot it may be less important.

How will you cook them? Dual purpose take longer to grow to butcher size so you may be restricted in how you cook them. Frying of grilling an older bird is a good way to create shoe leather but a slow moist cooking method can give you an excellent meal.

How important is size to you? Dual purpose will not get as big as the Cornish X or Rangers comparatively. There are only two of us, I can get two meals out of a small pullet. I like the size of a good cockerel but that just means I get left-over chicken for lunch. For many people size is of utmost importance.

You can hatch your own dual purpose. You pretty much have to buy Cornish X or Ranger chicks. There are some threads on here where people have been able to hatch Cornish X or Rangers, usually crossing them with dual purpose, but most people that try that are not very successful. It's not easy.

If you hatch, half will be pullets. What will yo do with them? If you keep them and hatch many you can be overrun with pullets. I eat mine, some people sell theirs. You need to have a plan.

As far as breeds of dual purpose, what you mention comes close to describing my mixes. Mine are not a specific breed but a combination of several hatchery chicken breeds. Before the Cornish X took over the meat market Delaware, New Hampshire, and some strains of White Rock were the main meat breeds in the US, but that was in the 1950's. For over 60 years the hatcheries have not been breeding these for meat. They are still a good choice but so are several other breeds. If you can find a breeder that is breeding a dual purpose chicken for meat and they know what they are doing you can get a better meat bird than a typical hatchery chicken, but they still will not beat a Cornish X or Ranger as a meat bird. They probably won't be real cheap either but the cost for breeding stock could be worth it.

If you pluck you get a prettier carcass with a white or buff bird. They all leave pin feathers behind but you don't see them as much as you would with a darker bird. I skin mine so it's not an issue. They go through juvenile molts, they outgrow their feathers and have to replace them. If you time your butchering when they are molting and you pluck you can get a real ugly carcass.

We all have different tastes. When cockerels go through puberty the hormones adds flavor and texture to the meat. The texture is why you might have to use certain cooking methods. Many of us like that flavor but to some it is strong or gamey. How you cook it has an effect, but some people just don't like that flavor, especially if they are used to the "store" chicken, which are Cornish X butchered well before puberty hits.

I used hatchery chicks to start my flock. One of my goals was meat, so I selected the larger cockerels to keep as breeders. In a couple of generations I noticed a difference. It wasn't that the biggest cockerels got real big though they did increase in size a little. The big difference for me was that the smallest cockerels got bigger. I still got a pretty big range of size between smallest and largest, but I eat the smaller ones and keep the biggest one to breed. The increase in size of the smaller ones did me a lot more good than the few "biggest" getting bigger.

 

[ChocolateMouse]

Eh, depends on what your goals are and where you source them.

Hatchery chickens probably aren't going to do very well for you at all. They'll stay skinny as they're way more egg focused than the breed description calls for.

No heritage breed will have a "good" feed conversion ratio. Under ideal circumstances a cornish cross can turn 2-2.5lbs of feed into 1lb of live weight. Red rangers and other "slow' hybrids do about 4lbs/1lb. Heritage breeds tend to need 7lbs of feed to 1lb live weight, which is pretty abysmal if your goal is good feed conversion for reduced costs or land usage.

Heritage non-hatchery chickens WILL be good for eating the extra roosters for personal use if you're raising them for show or eggs or personal use. My australorps made a good stew when the spent hens were done and most non hatchery DP/meat heritage breeds would do well to make a good sustainable flock for personal use or an artisianal market flock. But the resulting meat will have been expensive to produce still.

 

[RUNuts]

I'm just starting out so am researching into meat breeds. I would make as many pens as needed to get what I'm after.

Not sure about timeline I just started so not sure how long this sort of things takes. I'm young and fairly new to poultry and farming.

I see a decision in your future. To over simplify, spend a lot of money for quality stock to save time or spend a lot of time to develop quality stock. Sometimes the journey makes you appreciate the destination more.

How much time would this take? Good question. A lot of times the goals change as your knowledge increases. Simple answer is as much time you think it needs.

Since you are new and this is my opinion only, set a dollar amount to spend/invest. Is this a hobby? How well do you know chickens? Get some cheap chickens and see if you enjoy it. Too many times people discover they don't like something after spending a lot of time and money. So invest the time using your budget. Spend more on the infrastructure than the livestock at first.

I knew nothing about chickens. Did some research and wanted to try it. I'm enjoying in way more than I thought I would. Start small and go from there. Ask around for a mentor. Internet is neat, but touching something is better.

Not trying to evade your questions, but only you know your answer.

Best wishes!

 

[NatJ]

Are Black Australorp, Buff Orpington, Barred Rock and Delaware chickens good to raise for meat?

You CAN eat any chicken, at any size.
Some people eat quail--it's hard to find a chicken smaller than that!
You can butcher chickens very young. I've been known to butcher 4-week-old bantams. You get miniature "wings" from the hindquarters, and 1 "chicken nugget" from each half of the breast. Collect all the hearts, livers, gizzards and you eventually get a little pile of boneless meat (different flavor than the other parts).

Whether a particular chicken is worth it for the feed it eats, the time it takes to grow, the size it ends up, and the time it takes you to butcher it (or the cost to have someone else butcher it)--the answers differ depending on who you ask.

If you love doing breeding projects, you may end up with so many culls that you have no need to raise "meat" chickens at all. If you just want to efficiently fill your freezer, and do not want to experiment, then cornish cross (or whatever the commercial broiler types are called in your area) are apparently the way to go.

There's a thread in the Meat Birds section of the forum, by someone raising purebred White Cornish (not crosses) as meat birds. They work well for that person--it's a long thread with lots of details.

The breeds that are perfect for some people look ugly to me, and the breeds I think are pretty tend to have colored pinfeathers (Ridgerunner makes a good point there, about plucking vs skinning.)

 

[Egghead_Jr]

You should try eating a dual purpose bird before you make any decisions. You may find it too strong of flavor- many do.

The photo of leg meat posted makes my mouth water. If you've had duck and like it then dual purpose chicken is for you. That dark leg meat is very close to duck flavor.

Thinking you'll create a meat strain/line is an extremely lofty goal. You are better off getting the best stock you can of the breed you settle on. Look for faster maturing breeds, breeds and lines of breeds that flesh out early as that's what you'll mostly be eating. Young cockerel culls. Butchering around 14 weeks of age is still young enough to broil or put on the grill.

Try eating a young dual purpose and a roaster dual purpose prior to making the plunge. Look around for under 15 week old cockerel and one over 20 weeks old to roast. Don't roast one much over 30 weeks unless you brine it first. Really should try eating the two age groups you'd be culling for food. Likely you'll find hatchery stock cockerels free on craigslist. Know that a standard bred bird will have better carcass but taste the same.

 

[RUNuts]

I guess it would also depend on if there is quality stock near me, I'm from Australia and I can buy what they call "Ross" or "Cobb" chickens here but they are the industrial meat chickens.

I have found some people who have pure breed Cornish (indian game birds) I was thinking of getting some and breeding them with some other large heritage breeds that have good table value like Sussex, Australorp and Dorkings (although I have heard that dorkings are not that large in Australia).

I have had egg chickens for years and I love raising chickens so it is a hobby I guess but I'd also seriously like to develop a chicken that is great at foraging and fast growing but in a healthy way not like the industrial chickens. Something more suited to the Australian climate too.

I guess I will just have to take it as it comes and hope it doesn't take me 40 years hahaha

Australorps were developed in Australia as DP birds. Just find a strain to your liking?

There is value in everything. I raise the commercial birds for fast meat that is better than grocery. Diet affects flavor. Husbandry affects all.

Enjoy the journey.

 

[FoodFreedomNow]

I don't think we do, but we have something called a Sommerlad which is apparently australia's version of them. I don't know what their like or even if I can get my hands on them. They are pretty hideous though haha they have transylvanian naked neck genetics in them.

I hadn't heard of Sommerlads before, so I did a little research - they sound intriguing, esp. since they're specifically bred for your conditions there. From the Sommerlad website: "Sommerlad 'naked neck' chickens...have a greater level of heat tolerance due to the lack of feathers around their neck." Not all of the chickens look like that (based on the pics) - some look like Barred Rock types and other mixes.

Now that's sensible - breed for characteristics that help the chickens survive/thrive where they live!

 

[RUNuts]

Could you selectively breed larger birds from heritage breeds? how long would this take?

Generations. Breed a lot & cull heavily. How many breeding pens would you operate?

what is your timeline? Quicker to source birds closer to your desired type.