Were my buff orpingtons too small?

[silverchick_161]

I dispactched 3 buff orpington roos yesterday at 16 and a half weeks of age. I was going to try to wait longer, but they were being hard on my hens. (Who much prefer my dominant barred rock rooster). After processing and packaging they weighed between 2.7 and 3 pounds. Is this a normal weight at this age? They appeared healthy, and I have been feeding Purina start and grow since day old chicks. They have a coop/enclosed run but I was also letting them free range daily. I got them from Meyer hatchery. Thanks!

 

[Molpet]

Average for hatchery cockerels at that age

 

[silverchick_161]

Average for hatchery cockerels at that age

I've heard that hatchery birds are smaller. Why is this? And why do they say that they get up to 9 or 10 pounds if they don't lol. I know he still had some growing to do.

 

[RUNuts]

I've heard that hatchery birds are smaller. Why is this? And why do they say that they get up to 9 or 10 pounds if they don't lol. I know he still had some growing to do.

Hatchery main market is laying hens, so they select for the good layers. Meat birds are the other option.
9-10 pounds if fully mature. The meat birds mature faster and are more efficient meat producers. As opposed to small and efficient egg producers.

Define your goals. Eggs and small or meat and large in the shortest time possible. You can get a dual purpose, but not usually from a hatchery. Dual purpose means fewer eggs and longer to develop meat. Choose your path.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I've heard that hatchery birds are smaller. Why is this?

Each hatchery is its own business with different people running them so there can be exceptions, but in general hatchery birds are produced for the mass market and their price reflects that. Hatcheries use different breeding methods than people breeding for show, for example. Someone breeding for show carefully select which males get to breed with which females to get the best possible match. Even doing that the majority of the chicks they hatch don't measure up. To get their quality they have to hatch a lot of chicks and raise them to an age that they can tell how good of a quality they are, which costs a lot in feed and housing. It is expensive to breed that way and their prices reflect that. When you are showing chickens you are rewarded for having size.

Most hatcheries use the pen breeding method. The may have 20 roosters in a pen with 200 hens that mate randomly. You are not going to develop really great chickens with that breeding method. That's part of it.

Another big part is that if the person that selects which chickens get to breed selects for a certain trait then that trait gets enhanced. In this example, size. The person at a hatchery selects for the traits that they think will help them sell chicks. If they consistently select for the largest males then over time the average size of the males will grow. Another related trait is early maturity. An early maturing chicken will grow faster than a late maturing. I've only gotten chicks for three different hatcheries. From what I've seen none of them use size or early maturity as really strong criteria.

I've gotten cockerels from different hatcheries. Even within the same breed with the cockerels raised and fed together you can get a wide variety in size and maturity date. They are not very consistent. That's why I don't think the hatchery person that is selecting which birds get to breed use those as a high priority. If you only get one boy, did you get one of the larger ones or one of the smaller ones?

And why do they say that they get up to 9 or 10 pounds if they don't

This is one of my beefs with many hatcheries. According to the breed standards the hens and roosters are supposed to reach a certain size. Instead of weighing their birds and using those numbers, some hatcheries use what the breed should weigh. Their birds won't measure up to those standards.

There is another factor. How did you feed that boy? To get them to grow big they need a special high-protein diet. We typically don't feed our chicks that will be a laying flock that kind of diet. Show birds bred to the breed standard are fed a diet to help them reach those weights.

Even if you fed him a really high protein diet a hatchery bird will not match the ones bred with size as a criteria. Birds bred to the breed standard are bred to be big.

 

[iwltfum]

Yes. That weight is about what I'd expect from 16wk old buff orpingtons. you might get a 9-10 pound roo in 40 or 50 weeks.

 

[Parront]

I raised my Orpingtons to 20-24 weeks, and they were still about 3 pounds. I would say you did good! It would take a lot of feed to add another pound -- not worth the pain of too many roosters in the flock.

 

[silverchick_161]

Thanks for all the input! Definitely learned something from this thred, which is why I love this forum. I was worried I had done something wrong, so glad to know this is the norm. It's amazing how much calmer the flock is without those roos harassing everyone. I have a barred rock that matured early who the hens favor. Still have one more barred rock roo that is submissive to the bigger male. We'll keep him around for now, but he has so much personality I don't think I could harvest him if he doesn't work out!