I’ll throw in some comments on breed.
You cannot match the broilers (I’ll avoid the phrase you did not want to hear again) for meat production. They have been bred for that and nothing else. You cannot match the commercial egg-laying hybrids for egg production. They have been bred for that and nothing else. One of their characteristics is that they have a very small body with extremely little meat so most of what they eat goes to egg production, not maintenance of a large body. You’ve basically said you don’t want any of those and I don’t either. But you can’t beat their efficiency.
I really think people get hung up on breed. Some breeds do have tendencies, but each chicken within a breed is an individual and may or may not follow those tendencies. Unless the person selecting which chickens get to breed select those chickens for those specific tendencies, the traits get lost. Those traits are all-encompassing: how fast they reach maturity or butcher size, size, shape, color, and frequency of egg laying, whether barring is sharp or blurred, how well they handle confinement, whether or not they tend to go broody, how soft and flexible or how brittle the feathers are, eye color,…... The list just goes on and on.
Each hatchery is unique because they have different people selecting which chickens are allowed to breed and they each have different business plans. They are in the business to mass-produce chicks at a reasonable price. Most are going to use the pen breeding method to maintain genetic diversity and mass produce those chicks. They might put 20 roosters in a pen with 200 hens and let random breeding take care of genetic diversity. No matter how much effort the person selecting the breeders puts into it, you are just not going to get show quality chickens and the chickens you do get will not be all that uniform in many traits. Since the hens that lay a lot of eggs produce more candidates for this selection, the hatchery hens tend to lay fairly well whether the person selecting the chickens select for that trait or not. How efficient they are at converting feed to meat or rate of growth are generally not traits they are looking at. I’ll say it again. Each hatchery is unique. The same breed from different hatcheries have different traits.
There is a lot more diversity in breeders. Some breeders are breeding purely for show. They only breed for the traits the judge sees. The judge does not see anything about rate of weight gain, anything about the eggs, or anything about behavior in the flock. They produce some beautiful birds but these may not be the ones you want.
Some people (extremely few) not only breed for show but breed for tghe other traits the breed is supposed to have. That’s why you occasionally see where certain breeds are endangered because there are only two or three flocks in the country breeding true whatever that breed is although there are a lot of people breeding them for show.. This is where breed really matters, but these hatching eggs or chickens can be really expensive if you can buy them at all. Many of these very passionate people won’t even sell you eggs or chickens unless you can convince them that your goal and passion is to preserve the breed the way they are trying to preserve the breed.
Some people don’t necessarily breed for show but breed for production, maybe meat production, maybe egg production, maybe both. These may not even be a specific breed but what we call a barnyard mix. If you are only after production, what difference does eye color or whether the comb has five points or six really matter?
Some people take hatchery birds, breed them, and sell them as purebreds. They may or may not have an idea what they are doing. They may know enough to enhance certain traits or they may just take the cutest or friendliest chickens and let then breed. I don’t see anything wrong with any of these as long as they are upfront about what they are doing.
I bought hatchery birds of different breeds and started selecting the breeders for the traits I want. My goals were not pure production, I selected for certain colors and patterns as well. That makes selecting for production a lot harder. The fewer traits you are selecting for the easier it is. It also helps to hatch a lot of chicks. I eat about 40 chickens a year so that’s all I hatch. That does not give me a great number to select from. It’s been slow.
One of your goals is to sell chicks or chickens. One way to maximize chick or chicken price is to learn how to breed for show (not cheap because of all the management and separation you have to do, plus they need special diets, plus there is a very steep learning curve), get some really expensive but great stock, win a few grand championships, and make a name for your line of chickens. Not going to happen, huh?
On a more practical note, purebreds tend to sell better and for a little more money than mixed breeds. Another way is to have chicks that can easily be sexed at hatch so you can what you want. Some breeds are auto sexing (though that can be trickier than some people think, especially before you gain some experience). Certain crosses can be sexed at hatch by down color or pattern, but you have to either buy replacement breeders or maintain two separate flocks to keep the breeders pure plus manage your crosses when they hatch. If they can be sexed at hatch you don’t have to feed them until they are mature enough to sex. Or maybe you can sell point-of-lay pullets at a high enough cost to cover your feed bill.
Something that can be a hot seller too is pullets that lay green or blue eggs. The big problem with this though is that these chickens tend to not be great at production, especially for meat. Some hatchery EE’s are pretty good at egg production.
I suggest the first point of your research is to decide what traits you want if you are not clear on that. It sounds like you might be, but you cannot get what you want if you don’t know what you want. To me, this is the most important step, though remain flexible because some things won’t turn out as you plan.
Then come up with a plan to get what you want. The closer you can get to your goals with your initial stock, the better off you are. You can start with hatchery stock and through selective breeding and eating the ones you don’t want to eat and breeding the ones you do, you can get your own strain that can come pretty close to your goals. If you can find a breeder that is breeding for your goals and knows what they are doing you will be a lot further along when you start.
How do you find a breeder that is actually breeding for your goals? I don’t know. Maybe go to local chicken shows and chat with the people there. Maybe find your state thread in the “Where am I? Where are you!” section of this forum and open a discussion. Maybe by pure luck. If you have “natural” foods stores or restaurants that buy their eggs or chickens locally, find out who supplies them. Go to farmer’s markets and chat with people selling eggs or hopefully meat.
Good luck! What you are talking about can be done. Doesn’t mean it is real easy is you have stringent goals.
