I raise my own egg layers, cycling birds out every two years or so, earlier if not to standard. Spare roos are eaten, traded or sold.
I had partridge rocks but switched primarily to Delawares - a bird much closer to dual purpose. If I grow them out the males sell very well and at a good price that means growing and vetting next generation improvement roos isn't as costly as it was in smaller birds.
They're excellent foragers and pest management birds - which also helps.
They lay well and are easy keepers. I haven't over wintered the delawares so won't know their winter lay rate until this spring but it looks favorable, there was little loss at all over molt.
I tinker with meat breed mixes, so I am adding some marans who are better meat than egg birds.
I don't think I'd keep an egg only, no roo flock. I find paying someone else for layers not something I would choose to do and you cannot improve stock if you do not breed to do so.
I have banties for broodies in case, and for amusement value LOL.
Right now my Delaware Roo will yield sex linked chicks over my remaining partridge rocks, but I will be growing out males for a comparison to other possible meat bird combinations, so I don't need the opportunity for an early cull.
Sex linking is handy for early cull, for setting yourself up with only laying hens, instead of raising roos.
If you want a purebred bird you can point at and say - yep that's a ______, that breeds true. You want a purebred, not the sex links produced for laying only.
People who want lay only birds, just sell off old birds and buy new every two years. That's how a layer only flock is managed.
If you breed from your sex links, you lose sex link, and you get scatter bred type that you have to cull HARD to what you want to look at, then generations of focus on your standard creates whatever you want to call them. That's a _______ (pick a name). But it won't be any purebred breed someone would recognize because you made the only flock in existence.
Some purebred breeds can be sexed at birth. That gives you a purebred and a choice for early cull of males. Always a nice option.
No choice is wrong. You have to chose for yourself, your set up, your temperament.
