Meat hybrid chicken

[trescloudy]

I can't speak to the breeds, I've not had any you are looking into, but I can say that TSC gets most of their chicks from Hoovers. Hoovers birds are in no way exceptional.

If I were beginning a breeding project and had breeds in mind, I'd look further afiend than TSC for your starts, try and save yourself a few generations of culling for the best birds by starting with a little better than average hatchery quality.

Absolutely! If starting a breeding project you want to step ahead of most hatcheries and go for a private breeder or hatchery that is notorious for excellent quality birds.

Just wasting a bunch of time trying to breed . Its better to get set up and put on a waiting list.

 

[trescloudy]

Easy..............

This works too...

New Hampshire rooster on CX hen

 

[trescloudy]

Check out my thread. I'm breeding from freedom ranger hens x new Hampshire roo right now. I ramble alot lol you can skip to about page 10 I think is where I started last year with chicks.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...stainable-flock.1432152/page-27#post-25597426

If I could know then my experience since... I would have gotten all pullet freedom rangers and kept only the best 3 to breed from. I've restricted feed from like the second week and they've only gotten .25# feed per day.. often less when feeding lots of scraps.. And even then, now at 13 months old they are all so fat I'm expecting them to burst from internal fat. They just really put on internal fat. I'm butchering them soon. They started laying about 21 weeks.

I have Henry Nolls New Hampshires. Their color is more like RIR but wow these birds get big and grow fast.

I got twelve NH in 2020. Was so impressed got 100 last year, 2021. Got some incredible birds from those 100. This year we are breeding NHs. If interested check out my thread.



I won't ramble the whole thing, check my thread. But the only ones of the mix of breeds from mcmurray that were worth a darn was the new Hampshires.
I'm planning on getting new Hampshires from freedom ranger hatchery. Supposedly still stock from the Henry noll line bred for meat production. Check out Tre3hugger's thread on them and Delawares. As I recall they just hatched their first batch of eggs.

 

[Florida Flock and Farm]

I have done a lot of research over the years and after breeding chickens for things like egg color and broodiness I would like to finally try breeding a meat hybrid cross.
I know that I will never get the growth rate of a Supermarket Cornish broiler.
I want to breed a meat hybrid that will give me more breast meat and a little faster growth rate than a standard dual purpose chicken.
I have been looking into the Candian Chanceler, Dark Cornish, White Cornish, Dorking, Buckeye, Slow growing white broiler and the Freedom Ranger(Red Ranger)

Issues I have encountered are the Dark/White Cornish are pretty much non existent in my State. I can't find any online.
I have found Candian Chanceler available for special order online. I can order them on Tractor supply's website 10 chicks for $36.
But I'm not sure of the quality.
Anyone here have experience with Chancelers? How's the meat production on the carcass?

I was thinking Chanceler crossed with Freedom Ranger for a meat hybrid but I gotta special order at least 25 at Family farm and home to get them.
Or does it make more sense to just breed a common Dual purpose breed to Freedom Ranger hens?

What about Buckeyes are they pretty close to a Chanceler?
I can't seem to find Dorkings anywhere and I have never had them before.

All in all I know this is a crap shoot.
Debating just breeding a common dual purpose breed for meat like Barred Plymouth Rock or Black Australorp.
Right now the only sort of dual breed I have is large fowl blue/splash Cochins but I have them mostly for their mothering instincts to raise chicks.

Curious to know what you decided to breed. We are trying to figure out the same thing. We had the Cornish cross before but would rather not do that again. We now have dark Cornish cross (or at least we hope. We bought from TSC and they have a tendency to mark their chick incorrectly). I know the dark Cc take longer to butchering but I prefer that after watching the white Cornish crosses grow way to rapidly. It was almost sad. I would like to start having my own supply so that I wouldn’t have to buy chicks anymore and have a meat bird that has a lot of breast meat but have a natural growth process not one that has been manufactured to grow fast at the expense of their health.