non-cross or hybrid meat birds to breed?

[Molpet]

someone did a study that may interest you
https://projects.sare.org/project-reports/fnc12-866/

 

[Rye]

someone did a study that may interest you
https://projects.sare.org/project-reports/fnc12-866/

View attachment 1204919

Typical of hatchery birds I guess. Certainly not typical of true to breed type.

 

[Redhead Rae]

I wonder how much LF Cornish cost per lb.

 

[Ridgerunner]

someone did a study that may interest you
https://projects.sare.org/project-reports/fnc12-866/

View attachment 1204919

That was a long read but very interesting, thanks for including the link for background instead of just posting the chart. It was a valiant effort but there were some basic flaws in it, many of which the author touched on. Those birds all came from Cackle Hatchery. Each hatchery has its own people selecting which chickens get to breed and over the decades have developed their own strains. You will get different strains from Cackle, Meyer, McMurray, Ideal, or any of the others. At best those breed comparisons only apply to Cackle birds. You cannot draw any conclusions for any other hatchery’s or even breeder’s birds.

In the first half if the 1900’s Delaware, New Hampshire, and some strains of White Rock were developed as meat birds. They were selectively bred to put on meat rapidly, be pretty good at feed to meat conversion, and all the other things that make a good meat bird. When the Cornish X took over the market people quit breeding them for meat and they became just another dual purpose breed. It’s quite possible the high early mortality of that batch of Delaware influenced his results more than he thinks but that’s a sad commentary for how far from the early strains of Delaware as meat birds those have fallen.

I think if you can find a breeder actually breeding toward meat quality chickens in any of these breeds you could beat those results versus the hatchery birds by quite a bit. It’s my opinion but I consider strain to be much more important than breed in this. That includes different strains form different breeders as well as different strains from different hatcheries. I also think if all you are after is meat you cannot beat the hybrid meat birds on a per pound basis.

 

[rjohns39]

I wonder how much LF Cornish cost per lb.

You can find out When raising meat birds I'm religious about tracking their feed consumption from day 1. Then I capture the weights at harvest. To date, the best I've done with CX is 3.6:1.

ETA: Next spring I want to do a head to head experiment with ROSS 708 and Cobb 500. Separate brooders and shelters, same dates, same pasture, etc.

 

[aliciaplus3]

I like DesertChic's idea of her own crosses one for eggs the other selected for meat qualities. ... from what I understand she does mostly necked necks. I am planning something similar but with both NN and full feathered breeds.

meet tree beard he weights 14 pounds. I just got him yesterday but I am hopefull he will add size to my meat line

 

[cavemanrich]

. The excess are given away to relatives, friends, or a food bank. .