Old Type Meat birds, not Cornish X's

[max13077]

We had a little BBQ this afternoon for labor day. We BBQ’d some Cornish x’s and a couple of roosters I had. I honestly liked the flavor of the roosters more. The x’s were of course larger and meatier. But I really liked the dual purpose birds better. They seemed to have more flavor and weren’t “mushy” I guess would be the term I’d use. The ones we had were Chanteclers. I was thinking next spring of getting a few more dual purpose birds like them. Are there any other species people like besides the Chanteclers?

 

[Marlinchaser]

Delawares were THE meat bird until the CornishX's took over.

 

[willheveland]

I noticed this year in particular that there was a boom on Delawares and they were hard to get.Really, a great year for hatcheries I bet,seemed all of them were booked out weeks.It kinda screwed me up this year.
But for some reason Delawares were really popular. Will

 

[GlacierNan]

How old were your roo's?

 

[max13077]

They were about 16.5 weeks.

 

[dangerouschicken]

We have been eating both our 14 week roos and 7.5 week CCs, and the roos are much better, much juicier, and much more full of flavor. We really don't care that they are not all pumped up like the CCs. The flavor is better. The kids love eating them, as well.

SO JUICY!

 

[PurpleChicken]

Our Delaware roos were good too and culled around 16 weeks.

 

[sandspoultry]

We have Dark Cornish, not the cross and they are very good table birds with a great taste. They a very solid and compact bird, the only down side for us is the eggs are medium sized (we also sell fresh eggs and people like the larger eggs)

Steve in NC

 

[pdpatch]

The breeds we have had both sexes:

Buff orghington eggs not to bad a little smaller the the large ones from a red sex link, they also have an odd shape (more like a football, or rugby ball) to the eggs. In a weeks period they lay 5 to 6 eggs. Meat was good even a for a year old roo, the two boilers for this year we haven't eaten yet be they were as large dress as the other broilers this year.
(4 meat 1 layer)


Red sex links, Very good egg layer they lay just about every day, very poor meat bird. the broilers dressed at 2 lbs while the rest of the meats birds this year were around 3 to 3.5 lbs. The Males temperment was the worste I have seen.
(6 meat, 2 layers, 13 pullets)

Barbed rock, Not to bad an egg layer, size is almost that of a red sex links, The dressed weight was in the 3 lb region. There temperment was not to bad most of the time.

(3 meat, 3 layers)

Although we haven't had them as layers Turkens were kind of nice to raise and butcher. while we still had all the broiler together the Senior turken's kept all the other breeds in line and there was not to much fighting. They were the easiest to plucket and seem easier to cut up. The naked skin around the neck made it little harder to get to the crop.

Tom