Want Heritage Chicken 's that are good for meat, help?

[skookumchuck]

Most heritage Dual-Purpose fowl will do, but if you want meat then I would suggest a faster maturing bird. Examples would be the Chantecler, Delaware, Dorking, and New Hampshire.

I see some mention of the Buckeye, which is a great breed. However, they mature very slowly. The soonest ours where ready for butchering was 7 months. The meat was very flavorful, but extremely tough. It was also mostly leg meat (Buckeyes have huge legs), as the chest wasn't very well developed yet.

We have also raised a number of Chanteclers for butchering, and they are our favorites so far. They mature rather quickly, and have large breasts. We butcher ours as soon as 4 months, but wait till around 5 - 6 months to butcher most of them. They are not a fatty breed (pure muscle) but are very tender, and their flavor is very light. This being said, I have noticed the Partridge develop meat faster then the Whites.

Do you have the whites or are they the Partridge?

 

[RhodeRunner]

Do you have the whites or are they the Partridge?

We have both.

 

[Coyote Night]

Thinking about this myself. I have barred rock hens and 1 white rock hen with a cuckoo marans rooster. This rooster is huge by the way, never seen marans this big until him, but he is getting up there in age and now that I have the rocks I was thinking about trying to create a meat bird for the family. So what do you think about the Marans/Rock cross? Anyone try it?

 

[Gen9]

I have a pullet that is the result of a blue Marans roo crossed with barred rock hen - she's about the same size as my black sex links at only 7-8 months of age, I'm not sure if she's going to get bigger