Self sustaining

[Smiles-N-Sunshine]

Oh, and I've done well by raising many chicks every year, sending the cockerels to freezer camp and either keeping the pullets as replacement layers or selling them at point-of-lay. My 'Lorps have laid well into their third year, and I'm getting 8-12 eggs a day in winter from 12 hens and 10 pullets without supplemental light.

 

[bantyhen'sfriend]

For what it's worth, my great grandma had leghorns and brood hens (mutts who hatched her next layers/fryers). She also fed the family with leghorn cockerels - it took a lot to make a meal, but they were good!

Like the others said, most of the dual-purpose breeds would be fine; the problem is finding a breeder/hatchery that sells large enough birds to make feeding them worthwhile. Most hatchery rocks are rather small, and don't make much of a meal except for soups or stews. I also recommend buying some notoriously-broody breeds to add to the flock, because most hatchery dual purpose birds won't go broody (at least, none of mine did). Bantam or large fowl cochins would be great, as well as bantam rosecombs.

 

[Oregon Blues]

Self-sustaining meat bird? You bet.

Pekin duck. Excellent feed conversion and fast growth, nice temperaments. Silver Appleyard, excellent feed conversion, fast growth, large size, excellent egg layers, nice calm temperaments.

Any breed of large geese. The geese can be raised on grass since that is their preferred diet. You only need a small amount of supplemental feed and probably would have to feed them in the winter. They don't eat much, considering the size of them.

For a self-sustaining meat chicken, I'd probably go with the Dorking. They are a meat bird, not a dual purpose bird, and their egg laying is a bit scant compared to some other breeds.

 

[CluckyJay]

My white rocks and other chickens are eating mainly free-range foods. They get some scraps occasionally and some wild fish regularly. They are pretty large hefty! Haven't weighed them but they are much heavier, and larger than the production RIR from McMurray. They look like they have good breasts and legs, too.
Won't know for sure until I slaughter them though.

 

[galanie]

Just be sure your breeder stock is from a good breeder rather than from a hatchery and whatever you pick will be great if you pick from what has been suggested in this thread. Unless you like Duck, which I do not. They are not good tasting in my opinion and are really messy smelly birds. But that's only my opinion and you did ask for chicken breeds after all.

 

[CluckyJay]

This thread was the last straw! I am finishing my incubator tomorrow, even if it kills me, LOL.

 

[Bullitt]

Is there such a thing as a self sustaining pure meat bird flock?

You said you want a pure meat bird flock, but you said you were thinking about breeds like Australorp. That would indicate that you do not want a "pure meat bird flock." Your original question was a little confusing.

I would say to get a good dual-purpose breed like Australorp or Barred Plymouth Rocks, because they are good at laying eggs and they will usually hatch out chicks for you. You can use cockerels and older hens for meat and add pullets each spring. The Australorps are better egg layers, though.

Someone mentioned how his grandmother used leghorns as dual-purpose chickens and she had a couple of mixed-breed chickens as brooders. You could have a couple of Australorps as brooders. Leghorns are supposed to be the best at feed to egg conversion. The leghorn cockerels would make good fried or roasted chicken. The older leghorn hens would be great for chicken and dumplings or chicken soup.

Australorps, Barred Rocks, and leghorns can all free range very well. I like brown leghorns because their color is better for hiding from predators. If you are in a very cold area, you can get rose comb light or dark brown leghorns.

 

[bj taylor]

why are hatchery birds not so good if you're trying to build a flock? how does one go about building a flock of say barred rock if they are poor @ brooding? are mutts as good as specific breeds if you're trying to build a flock? some of this is confusing.

 

[Fred's Hens]

why are hatchery birds not so good if you're trying to build a flock? how does one go about building a flock of say barred rock if they are poor @ brooding? are mutts as good as specific breeds if you're trying to build a flock? some of this is confusing.

In many of the popular breeds, like the Barred Rocks you mentioned, simply have had broodiness bred out of them to a large degree. Sure it happens, but not consistently and not very often. The hatcheries use parent stock must crank out eggs, to be hatched and sold to the public. Thus, through natural selection, over time, the parent stock of the hatchery birds have intentionally or unintentionally been bred so long with one goal in mind, Eggs. A broody doesn't lay, so broodiness isn't something that hatcheries desire.

Hope that helps. To be more sure of broodiness, you need to know the broody tendencies of the line of the breed you want.

 

[bj taylor]

thank you fred. i'm going to have to look further @ dual purpose breeds that have a fair tendency to be good mamas as well as providing a fail amount of eggs. i have time. right now i'm just after the eggs & later the meat. i will tackle roos & such at a later juncture in my chicken adventure.