New to breeding

[montanakatee]

I have recently purchases 10 Bresse chicks. I have experience with laying hens and this will be my new venture into raising chickens for meat and eggs. I plan to supplement my egg production from my established flock. But I would like to continue to Breed and raise Bresse for my own family as meat chickens. They are not my sole source of meat, but just an added bonus for when we feel like having chicken rather than red meat. I was wondering if anyone had any good recommendations for a newbie interesting in breeding? Either books, YouTube channels to follow, textbooks, personal advice, or programs they follow themselves, anything!

 

[nuthatched]

Hi there, what information are you looking for, specifically? I'd avoid utube for livestock information, fraught with misinformation.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Hi, welcome to the forum from Louisiana, glad you joined.

I don't know how much experience you have with breeding any animals or what your knowledge of genetics is. I assume you are more interested in how to manipulate genetics than in how to hatch eggs and raise chicks? I could be wrong.

My main suggestion is to know what specific traits you are breeding for. That's not always as easy as it sounds and may take some experience to figure out. I know my goals changed as I went along. For egg laying, how much does egg size matter, number of eggs per week, or even egg shell color?

Meat can be more challenging. Why did you decide on Bresse? What traits of Bresse attracted you that you want to duplicate? Then those are the traits you want to concentrate on.

One of the traits that some of us that breed for meat tend to concentrate on is size. For some people size is extremely important. It is not for me, there are only two of us and I can get two meals out of a small pullet. Some people only eat the boys, some of us eat both girls and boys. The age that you butcher has a big effect on how you can cook it. Some chickens of the same breed can grow at different rates, so do you want a chicken that reaches a good size at a certain age? How do you feed them, do you provide everything they eat or do they forage for a lot of their food? That can affect the cost of feed or the feed to meat conversion rate.

Each of us raise them differently in different climates so what is best for me is probably not going to be best for you. I'm a proponent of trying different things and see how they work out at your location with your methods and for your goals. We often find that what we originally thought we wanted really isn't what we really want.

Probably not where you expected this to go but I'm not sure what questions to respond to. Anyway, once again

 

[JacinLarkwell]

I like watching @U_Stormcrow 's flock thread. He has different goals, but it shows a bit of what goes through the mind when working to improve a meat flock

 

[Hedgeland Farms]

I like watching @U_Stormcrow 's flock thread. He has different goals, but it shows a bit of what goes through the mind when working to improve a meat flock

Can you provide a link please??

 

[U_Stormcrow]

My culling project Warning, long, rambling thread.

Tl;dr? I started with a bunch of subpar birds and a handful of reasonable goals, together with a not very focused effort on achieving any one of them specifically. (I free range a mixed flock 24/7 - controlled breeding isn't possible under that management). 2 years later, I'm starting to get the color and the pattern I want (or at least close enough to it that there is clear progress), and my egg color is acceptable if not as good as hoped, but I've given up a lot of size/weight gain, and don't currently have a good idea as to to either onset of lay or frequency of lay in my newest birds.

and my goal was to take a bunch of small red birds who laid early and often and a bunch of slower growing larger, patterned, (not red) less frequent layers and combine the two into a red (gold) base patterned bird of moderate size and egg production (cream eggs or lighter) who free ranged my pasture well and didn't give up too much in start of lay.

As above, I have the egg color and much more frequent gold base patterned birds, while I'm slowly editting out featherd feet and undesired combs - but the other goals are very much uncertain progress ATM. It was always intended to be a very long term project.

By starting with a single breed and a more controllable breeding (as opposed to culling) effort, you should be able to make much faster progress. Keep the ones you want to eat for future breedings, eat the ones that don't measure up.

 

[Hedgeland Farms]

By starting with a single breed and a more controllable breeding (as opposed to culling) effort, you should be able to make much faster progress. Keep the ones you want to eat for future breedings, eat the ones that don't measure up.

This is my plan, and after I asked for a link I realized I've seen the thread multiple times, thank you

I'm gonna read through it...

I started (this yr) with hatchery barred rocks, and then a rooster from someone else. He is still what I'd consider hatchery quality as he is most definitely not heritage based on his appearance, but he's a big boy, and holds good qualities. hopefully he will produce big boys.



I plan on hatching out with some minor goals in mind...as life doesn't lend its hand to 100% effort on this project.