uhhhh......?

[B. Saffles Farms]

Sure thing, Ill let you know when we get ready to start hatching.

 

[SussexInSeattle]

I don't have loads of experience with eating 'dual purpose' chickens that are supposed to be OK for eating as well as laying eggs BUT, the duals that I processed were Gross!

With all the types of chickens available to us today, my recommendation is for you to order super fast maturing'meat' birds as well as your slower maturing layers so that you have good eating birds, then also good layers. The meat birds reach great weight by about 8 weeks whereas some of the layers don't grow that large in their whole lifetime.

I think a lot of people just assume that we consume retired layers in the grocery store's meat section but from what I have been able to learn in my researching, we don't eat layers at all from the store.

I think the birds we eat commercially are very young 'meat' birds. If you google chicken hatcheries, you will see that most of them have the chickens divided by layers and meat birds.

 

[ravencreek]

I understand about meat and layers. My grand parents had a commercial type chicken house. If it weren't for both of them no longer being alive I would be asking them for direction. My grandmother also raised layers as her personal hobby. I do remember that we never ate the layers. I plan on mixing my flock so I will have both meat and egg birds. All birds I get will have to be picked up local as I don't have the ability to care for ordered chicks.

 

[cw]

i belive we do eat the retired layen hens ive got friends that work for purdue, you dont want to know what ends up on the shelf, the retired hens are processed so you really wouldnt know thats what the are. with that said i agree for the individual buying meat birds would be more economical then trying to slaughter you 1 1\\2 year old laying hen like the large egg producers do. After that time frame they replace there layers cause the feed to egg ratio isnt there, those birds never stand.