Red Boiler / Ranger mix home made

[CSKA]

Hello,

I have been reading about Red Broilers / Free Rangers.

I understand industrial hatcheries use combinations like New Hampshire with Cornish for example. The first for growth speed and the second for weight.

Of course, industrial hatcheries, have selected animals with better performance than commonly found samples of these breeds.

My question would be if I make a home made cross of New Hampshire x Cornish (always first generation resulting from these 2) ... will I have a reasonable fast growing meat bird? I don't mean as good as an industrially hatched red broiler, but somewhere close to that? That is reasonable for a self-consumption homestead?

I have tried Malines and other heritage breeds. But they grow slowly and when they are of good size, the meat is already hard for a grill.

Is there any other good suggestion for home hatched meat birds?

 

[NatJ]

My question would be if I make a home made cross of New Hampshire x Cornish (always first generation resulting from these 2) ... will I have a reasonable fast growing meat bird? I don't mean as good as an industrially hatched red broiler, but somewhere close to that? That is reasonable for a self-consumption homestead?

I have tried Malines and other heritage breeds. But they grow slowly and when they are of good size, the meat is already hard for a grill.

Is there any other good suggestion for home hatched meat birds?

The cross you mention would probably be better than the purebreds you have tried.

But if you really want chickens that are large while they are still young & tender, you are pretty much stuck with the modern hybrids. If you start with any kind of purebred chicken, you just can't reach their level within a reasonable number of years breeding.

You can butcher any chicken at any age or size. So if you really want tender meat, you might consider butchering them much younger, even though they will be small. You might end up grilling leg/thigh pieces that are small enough they look like wings. (I've done that a few times. They tasted fine.)

Butchering small chickens does mean that you spend more time butchering to get the same total amount of meat (more chickens to get that meat.) But if you care about how much feed it takes to grow that amount of meat, older birds tend to be less efficient at converting feed into meat, so the younger birds may actually be more cost-effective in that respect. It's one of those things where the "right" answer is different for different people, because all choices have their good and bad points.