Unhappy with Speckled Sussex - Looking for a different breed

[lukkyseven]

So I wanted to go the route of the Speckled Sussex because they are touted as a dual purpose bird. After not being able to find a good hatchery, I took a chance from multiple and sorted the best I could. Turns out I have small birds that lay small eggs. Are they beautiful? Yes, but I don't care.

I am looking for a breed that lays at a minimum of XL (63g) eggs fairly consistently, gets large enough to eat (I cull my roosters for stock/soup) and is not expensive. I am not into rare breeds as I have too many predators and I like to be able to easily replace stock as needed. I live in Maryland and have semi cold winters w/ hot summers. So region specific would be even more ideal.

I'm currently leaning Barred Rock or Orpingtons, but I am tired of reading false narratives on the internet. I would like some commentary from you wonderful people.

Thanks in advance

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Recommend against the Brahma. Contra to the experience of the other poster, I've found my predator aware, very attractive Dark Brahma to be VERY slow growers, mostly feathers, producing only medium large eggs. Not usually large, definitely not extra large. I just culled two last week, age almost a year (both hens), they made excellent sausage, and had a good amount (actually, a LOT) of subcutaneous fat, though they (the whole flock, actually) are free-rangers, so its not evidence they were starved into lower weight. Both were under 6# live weight, and yielded about 3.5# of carcass and meat.

Love my Comets for egg size and consistency - lg to sometimes xl, almost every damned day. At a year old, they have live weights around 5.2-5.6# each. They were egg-laying machines by four months at around 3.5# each, and have continued to put on weight steadily since, but seem to have plateaued.

My SLWs bulked up and started laying fast, around three days out of five, good alertness, chonky little beasts, but again, medium eggs.

Honestly, it seems to me that you can have a bird that makes a lot of large eggs early. or you can have a bird that puts on a ton of weight early. Or you can have a decent dual-purpose that starts between 18-24 weeks producing md-lg eggs more often than not, and hitting 5.5-6# at 5 months +/- from a host of birds. But as soon as you start pushing that weight gain towards a 3-4 month range, or the egg size to XL on 4 days of 5, or both, you just won't find a breed that does that consistently. If one did, it would dominate the market. i.e. SexLinks with very large, frequent, early eggs but relatively light early body weights (like the comet) or meaty CornishX with huge weight gain early, but slow to lay and infrequent when they get there (great egg size though - I'm using one for breeding myself, as I couldn't get the parent stock last year when we were all beggers, not choosers, at the local farm store).

Your wish list sets a very high bar. Might want to re-evaluate what is most important to you. Egg Size, Egg Frequency, Meat Production. Giving on one of those factors somewhat might make finding the other two a bit easier.

There have been efforts to breed up meat production in some of the dual purposes, and a few breeders with success in that area, but in the main, what most of us get from commercial hatcheries are lines that have emphasized egg production for years, if not decades. The CornishX really encouraged a focus on something other than meat production in many dual purpose birds - they just couldn't compete.

 

[Mrs. K]

I did get nice eggs from a Delaware- and nice size. But for the most part I found it true that dual purpose, was not real good for meat, and not real good for eggs.

But I too started with the idea of dual purpose birds. I have since gone to meat birds, and layer birds. Not only do I want eggs, but I want high quality eggs, and not all eggs are high quality. I want thick whites that hold together while poaching.

And while I have eaten a lot of home grown chicken, I find that I like laying birds and roosters for soups and casseroles, but for chicken, I want my meat bird. So I do both.

I find a dozen meats, keeps me in enough chicken, and home canned chicken broth for about a year.

If you want to raise eggs - get egg laying breeds, the sex link, cinnamon queens, the leghorns. Throw in a couple of BO, mine have generally been willing to raise a brood for me. And a pen of meat birds.

Mrs K

 

[black_cat]

My white leghorn lays wonderful, huge eggs, but they're slimmer than most breeds. I'd say that Rhode Island Reds or Red Sex Links are your best bet- they both have the egg capabilities that are close to a leghorn's, and they're much meatier. RIR roosters are known for being aggressive, however, so I'd get RSLs. Delawares are also good for meat, but I don't know about their egg laying.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

I agree dual purpose birds do fall short of expectations. And it's sensible to pick layers and meatbirds instead of relying on a breed to give you both.

*Maybe.

If, for whatever reason, you have to be able to "grow your own", the very best of the meat birds (in terms of rapid growth and feed efficiency) are off the table. and if you are limited for freezer space, then its just not practical to buy a load of meaties a couple times a year with a bulk purchase, followed by bulk processing.

From my own example, I'm hatching anywhere from 6-10 birds every three weeks. On average, half of those will be males. That allows me, on average, to take one young male, and one aging female, out of my flock each week for the table while maintaining a stable flock size across a range of ages, with a constant source of replacements, that allows for small but natural losses to illness, injury, or predator. and it allows me to improve the lot (albeit very, very, very slowly) along the way, selecting for birds which do best under my management conditions.

It really depends on how you want to measure "best". If measured in terms of cost inputs per pound of meat yield or eggs produced? Even free ranging and having no chick purchasing costs, I'd lose out to "purpose built" birds - but that ignores the fact that I don't have the freezer space, and even if I did, I'm not in a position to take on the extra equipment purchase costs to process meaties in bulk, nor do I have a low cost source nearby to process for me. "Best" is a relative term.

Theory and Practice sometimes diverge, particularly when perfect conditions do not exist. We make do.

 

[Emelyn]

So I wanted to go the route of the Speckled Sussex because they are touted as a dual purpose bird. After not being able to find a good hatchery, I took a chance from multiple and sorted the best I could. Turns out I have small birds that lay small eggs. Are they beautiful? Yes, but I don't care.

I am looking for a breed that lays at a minimum of XL (63g) eggs fairly consistently, gets large enough to eat (I cull my roosters for stock/soup) and is not expensive. I am not into rare breeds as I have too many predators and I like to be able to easily replace stock as needed. I live in Maryland and have semi cold winters w/ hot summers. So region specific would be even more ideal.

I'm currently leaning Barred Rock or Orpingtons, but I am tired of reading false narratives on the internet. I would like some commentary from you wonderful people.

Thanks in advance

I recommend white leghorns. I have a leghorn myself and she lays pretty big eggs. The yolk is also large too and she lays practically EVERY SINGLE day but she is sort of skittish. They are also are known to eat less than a regular chicken so chicken feed will last a little longer. The eggs are also white but please don't think that white eggs are less healthy than brown eggs because it's not true both are the same thing the only difference is the egg shell color. I also recommend ISA browns because they lay A LOT too and are very kind and loving if you raised from a young age I can confirm this because I have them myself also and they lay brown eggs.

 

[black_cat]

Comets are not super big, but definitely standard sized. Leghorns are a bit smaller

Both of these are standard breeds, but RSLs have more meat on them and a different build than leghorns.

 

[lukkyseven]

I should have also asked in my original post, but in any of these breeds do you find the hens to go broody? It's actually a trait I would be looking for.

Thank you for the suggestions so far.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Egg size/production is very much the most important factor. Bird size is 100% secondary. I would also put broodiness above bird size, but below egg stuff.

Then in my experience, the sex link hybrids are likely your best bets. LOTS of early eggs, of very good size relative to body weight. None of mine have gone broody, its not something emphasized in the hybrids. and that basically ends my experience.

If you are looking to breed your own replacements, one of the posters more experienced with dual purpose true breeds will no doubt step in with an early maturing, high frequency, large egg bird now that we have better idea of what fills your bill.

/edit from the charts, not personal experience, consider the Delaware. Frequent large eggs, early maturity, good size, some broodiness - and of course an actual breed, so you can grow your own replacements. New Hampshires and Rhode Islands, too. Less the Leghorns - you know, the root stock used to craft those sex link hybrids. Its a good place to start from.

 

[aart]

I am looking for a breed that lays at a minimum of XL (63g) eggs fairly consistently, gets large enough to eat (I cull my roosters for stock/soup) and is not expensive.

I should have also asked in my original post, but in any of these breeds do you find the hens to go broody? It's actually a trait I would be looking for.

You can't have it all.
Any bird can be eaten, especially for stock/soup.
Egg laying breeds are not going to be meaty like Cornish Cross/grocery meat birds.
Any bird can go broody too, but there are no guarantees.

Your wish list sets a very high bar. Might want to re-evaluate what is most important to you.

An impossible bar.
Expectations definitely need to be assessed.