? RE: Chickens and Turkey Breeds

[brodysam]

Two types of questions. First, I have the following:

pearl white leghorns (2 roos and 2 hens, 4 biddies)
2 cornishx hens
3 BB Red roos
2 black sex link biddies
2 RIR biddies

My question is, would any of these birds be suitable for eating? I know the leghorns are layers, but would the roos and the other breeds be ok for meat? If I'm going to continue with my poultry, I need to keep the flock down to a manageable size, or else I'm going to have a million chickens.

The second is a turkey question. I'm thinking of raising a few turkeys as meat birds. Is there a good beginner turkey that has a good flavor too? I've never raised them before so take that into consideration.

Thanks for any advice!

 

[The Poultry Peanut]

Hi

I think all of those would be good eating but there are birds ment for meat but any bird will be good to eat

as for turkeys I have no clue but maby some one else will.

 

[The Rooster]

I'm raising 3 white turkeys right now. At 7 to 8 months these birds are ready to butcher. The hardest part about turkeys is that they are extremely dumb when they are young. You will have to idiot proof everything. I've had them drown in a drown proof waterer.

 

[Steve_of_sandspoultry]

On the turkeys there are two types the broad breasted and the heritage

The broad breasted are the cornish cross of turkeys - they go fast and large and are ready in 4 months.

The heritage breeds take 6 months + to grow out. We like ours in the 8 to 10 month range.

We have pics of the breeds we raise on our web site.

Steve in NC

 

[Buster52]

Quote:
Nice birds!

We have decided to go with standard bronze turkeys. Sounds from your site they get the biggest of the heritage turkeys, plus they just look more traditional to me.

Right now we have some sort of generic white birds so we can learn the process. If I am going to mess up and lose some, I don't want it to be the ones I plan to keep long term.

 

[Steve_of_sandspoultry]

The Bronze are the largest of the heritage breeds followed by the White Hollands. They make some people nervous by the size but overall they are calm natured. We just added the Bronze to our flocks last year and we are pleased with them. They have turned out to be very good layers. The only fault I have seen is they tend to be sort of "hard headed". We have 2 toms and 1 hen that refuse to go up on the roost at night all the others do. I can go out in the evening and put them on the roost for a few nights in a row and they will go up on their own but then after a few days they are back on the ground again.

Steve in NC