What are your favorite meat birds??

[Stephanie8806]

Hey there! I wondering what people’s favorite meat birds out there are! We raise chickens for ourselves, and the feed cost ratios don’t really matter to us. We also have sufficient space, so raising a longer maturing breed is also not an issue.

Currently, our family raises dual purpose breeds, primarily having fun trying out mixed flocks of as many different breeds as we can get our hands on! Our main priority is eggs, and we have the added butchering benefit to phase out older (1-1.5 yr old) chickens so that we constantly have new laying stock rotating in. That being said, we are thinking that next year we may build a separate pen to specifically house meat birds. If they lay, great. If they don’t that’s fine too, as we will have a separate flock to meet those goals.

What breeds are your favorite for meat? Do you prefer the quality from one breed over another?

 

[U_Stormcrow]

My favorite meat bird is the one I hatched, raised, butchered, aged, and prepared for table.

They could be better, thus, I have a culling project. Started with hatchery quality birds - whatever I could get from the farm store at the start of the Pandemic last year. Selectively butchering my way towards an improved mutt, eventually to be christened a "clay ranger".

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Comment above edited. Flaggin so @JacinLarkwell and @Molpet are alerted to the change. This is why we measure and write things down - our memory can deceive.

 

[pepe1]

I have Dixie Rainbows from Hoover hatchery, they are a Hybrid but the hens lay a good amount of eggs and the roosters dress out between 4 to 6 pounds at 16 weeks, they are a nice calm bird and grow quickly

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Did they get to a respectable size for females? Looking into getting some straight run next spring (dinner for males and extra pullets for females).

No. At least, not in my view. They peaked early-ish. I want to say most were laying around 22 weeks, and at about 5#. They've put on some weight since, but it wasn't quick.

I'll go grab one and weigh it. Be back to edit this comment.

/edit grabbed a couple. My memory was in error. Current weights range from 4.72# to just over 5.1# hens. So they must have peaked around 4.5#, not 5#, and drifted upwards since.

 

[Stephanie8806]

I'm fortunate to not have a winter, and the single flock idea is why I don't have meaties (that, and a lack of freezer space). If you want to follow along on my journey to produce a regionally useful actual dual purpose bird from what I bought at the farm store, that thread is here.

I will check that thread out!
Im currently unsure about the energy I want to put into breeding. Letting my layers/dual purpose just do their thing is about where I’m at for now. We just got roosters this year, so this coming spring will be our first potential home breeds! I will be trying to hatch some both under a broody hen as well as in our incubator.

But down the road, when our human kids leave the nest and we downsize our house(but upscale our “farm” ), I may want to have more control over my flock! I think it would be a fun “retirement” project

 

[JacinLarkwell]

I want our meat bird enclosure to stay vacant during that time. I really only want to continue expending the energy of maintaining/caring for one group in that time, as we are off-grid and don’t have a general large barn/structure.

Cornish X might be best for you then, since they won't be lasting most than 2-3 months.

You could also just keep larger birds in the layer flock and separate birds as growouts for the meat pen. Then you know they're eating all they want for the best growth. That's kinda what I do sometimes

 

[U_Stormcrow]

I will check that thread out!
Im currently unsure about the energy I want to put into breeding. Letting my layers/dual purpose just do their thing is about where I’m at for now.

That's why I have a "culling" project, not a "breeding" project.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

I have "Rainbows" from Hoover as well, though they weren't called Dixies last year, which I'm using in my project. A bit larger than a Comet, smaller lighter-shelled (color) eggs, good frequency, not great. Tolerable free-rangers. All Pullets, by way of TSC. Contra claims that every bird was unique, mine looked like barnyard mutts with a lot of NHR in the background and maybe some buff Orp. Or Buff Orp with a bunch of NHR mixed in. All of mine are still with me, and will be some of the last to be culled in my project.

 

[Molpet]

Comment above edited. Flaggin so @JacinLarkwell and @Molpet are alerted to the change. This is why we measure and write things down - our memory can deceive.

That's smaller than I thought they would be. I haven't weighed any of my meat mutts hens, I guess I need to.