Tre3hugger
Let Your Freak Flag Fly
The topic of dual purpose birds and sustainability come up a lot on this forum. After raising about 50 cornish x, and learning a few things about meat birds and processing, and reading threads by people like @U_Stormcrow I decided I am ready to sacrifice their quick growth for an option a little more sustainable AKA I DO NOT want to have to order meat chicks every year from a hatchery. So after having chickens on this property for 18 months and really evaluating my poultry needs and goals, I've come up with a rough plan for my IDEAL homestead flock.
The theory is: to raise New Hampshire Reds and Delawares. The NHs are Henry Noll line heritage "meat" birds selected for quick growth and favorable carcass. The Delawares are a Heritage line coming from a small hatchery, Art's hatchery, selected for STANDARD and egg production. A pure line of each of these will be kept. I will be selecting to the standard and for mothering abilities/egg production in the Delawares, and keeping mainly hens. For the New Hampshires I will select to the standard and for fast growth and favorable carcass. Keeping mostly roos. Now for the cool part...
When crossing these birds, a heritage cross, dual purpose sex link is born! I will keep the males as meat birds and sell the females as red sex link layers. I think people in my area, who are pretty conscious and local minded, will much appreciate having access to a guaranteed female laying machine that was produced from heritage birds in their area. I may even call them New England Homestead Hereos. This is my grand idea.
The Practice: So on 7/14/ 21 my birds hatched and I got them a few days later. I got 13 NHs and 13 Delawares, planning to keep about 12 for the breeding project and process the rest at 16 weeksish.
Fast forward almost six weeks and they are growing fast! The NHs are already very easy to sex. I separated out my NH roosters today so I can better observe them and make my selection for keepers based on how they grow out. I have 6 or 7 apparent roos and think I will keep 2 to start. Here are the biggest 3 as of now. I will likely weigh them at 6 weeks (Sept. 1st).
Look at those comb/wattles for 5 weeks old!
The Delawares are not so easily sexable yet. I grabbed what I think is 5 girls and a boy, but it is 50/50 right now. I'm sure I will shuffle them around a few more times before we are thru. Here is I think the male.
And the possible ladies.
You can really see the size difference in these. The NHs sure mature fast.
If you have read this far you deserve a medal! I will be sharing my experiences with these birds and what I learn from them in this thread.
Anyone else doing something similar and want to share results?
Any one else want to share how they set up breeding pens to keep groups separate for a project like this, I would REALLY appreciate it. That is what had been racking my brain lately.
Thanks for reading!
The theory is: to raise New Hampshire Reds and Delawares. The NHs are Henry Noll line heritage "meat" birds selected for quick growth and favorable carcass. The Delawares are a Heritage line coming from a small hatchery, Art's hatchery, selected for STANDARD and egg production. A pure line of each of these will be kept. I will be selecting to the standard and for mothering abilities/egg production in the Delawares, and keeping mainly hens. For the New Hampshires I will select to the standard and for fast growth and favorable carcass. Keeping mostly roos. Now for the cool part...
When crossing these birds, a heritage cross, dual purpose sex link is born! I will keep the males as meat birds and sell the females as red sex link layers. I think people in my area, who are pretty conscious and local minded, will much appreciate having access to a guaranteed female laying machine that was produced from heritage birds in their area. I may even call them New England Homestead Hereos. This is my grand idea.
The Practice: So on 7/14/ 21 my birds hatched and I got them a few days later. I got 13 NHs and 13 Delawares, planning to keep about 12 for the breeding project and process the rest at 16 weeksish.
Fast forward almost six weeks and they are growing fast! The NHs are already very easy to sex. I separated out my NH roosters today so I can better observe them and make my selection for keepers based on how they grow out. I have 6 or 7 apparent roos and think I will keep 2 to start. Here are the biggest 3 as of now. I will likely weigh them at 6 weeks (Sept. 1st).
The Delawares are not so easily sexable yet. I grabbed what I think is 5 girls and a boy, but it is 50/50 right now. I'm sure I will shuffle them around a few more times before we are thru. Here is I think the male.
And the possible ladies.
You can really see the size difference in these. The NHs sure mature fast.
If you have read this far you deserve a medal! I will be sharing my experiences with these birds and what I learn from them in this thread.
Anyone else doing something similar and want to share results?
Any one else want to share how they set up breeding pens to keep groups separate for a project like this, I would REALLY appreciate it. That is what had been racking my brain lately.
Thanks for reading!
