What Dual Purpose Chickens Are Good To Eat????

[Egghead_Jr]

I dug up an old chart I'd made on growth rate of a Silver Penciled Plymouth Rock. Just to provide real numbers for a heritage breed. Now if you know anything about the Silver variety of Rocks you'll know they are undersized and can't compare to the White Rocks. That said, Rocks grow frame first then flesh out. That's why New Hampshire are superior, better carcass at broiler age.

11 weeks of age- 4 lbs live weight----This is age they eat as much as adults.
14 weeks of age- 6.25 lbs live--------Nice weight for limit age of broiler.
19 weeks of age- 7.5 lbs live---------9lbs feed for 1 pound meatier roaster

You wont get weights at these ages from hatchery stock. They simply are not bred to be dual purpose. Standard bred birds that were traditionally dual purpose still are. By that I mean breeder stock.

 

[PandaGirl]

Thanks guys, what do you all think a proper butchering age would be if I did,
A.Wyandotte
B. Dominique
C. Rock ( suggestions on what color)
Also can I eat the girl birds, for instance if I did not want any more eggs but I needed more meat and my chicks turned out with a bunch of girls, can I eat them? Also, are the breeds above broody, because I do not want to have to use a incubator?

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Yes, you can eat the hens. On average, they will weigh less than the males of the same breed. I'll leave it to someone else to answer the rest, though you can butcher at any age. I've not butchered any (of those breeds), my SLWs are all breeding hens. Eventually, they will be stock or sausage.

 

[NatJ]

what do you all think a proper butchering age would be if I did,
A.Wyandotte
B. Dominique
C. Rock ( suggestions on what color)
Also can I eat the girl birds

Proper butchering age is whatever works for you.
When I was young, my Mom liked White Rocks.
She butchered them any time after 8 weeks old. She had read that they needed more feed per pound of meat after that age--I have no idea whether she was right, but that's how we did it. They tasted fine, and because they were smaller, they were better for grilling: easy to get the pieces cooked all the way through.

Small chickens just means you spend more time butchering, and need to raise more total birds, to get a given amount of meat. But butchering them young means you don't spend as many months raising each batch. There's good points either way.

You can eat males or females, at any age. Younger ones are more tender, older ones can have tough meat but are really tasty in soup. (Tough birds just call for different recipes.)

When deciding what size is too small, remember that some people raise pigeons or quail for meat. Some of the quail weigh less than a pound when they are "ready" to butcher. Most kinds of chicken can be bigger than that at a relatively young age!

C. Rock ( suggestions on what color)

--White or Buff Rocks have a nicer looking carcase after you pluck the feathers. Dark feathers leave dark spots on the skin (safe to eat, but some people think they look ugly). If you remove the skin, it doesn't matter what color feathers they used to have.

--White or Barred is likely to grow faster than other colors. This doesn't mean they get bigger, just that whatever size they will reach happens sooner. The hens are likely to lay more eggs, too.

For any other breed: whites or buffs make prettier plucked carcases. The most common color of a breed will typically mature earlier and lay better than the rare colors of the same breed.

are the breeds above broody, because I do not want to have to use a incubator?

Any breed can go broody, but the ones you listed are not likely to. So in a large flock, you might get a few broodies. If you have a small flock, you may get a broody, or you may not.

One option is to get two kinds of chickens: one to lay the eggs for your meat birds, and a different one to go broody and hatch them. Bantams (almost any kind) might be a good choice for the broodies, because most of them will be likely to go broody. Bantams can sit on full-sized eggs just fine, and the different egg sizes will make it easy to tell which ones you want to hatch for your meat birds.

 

[Egghead_Jr]

Varieties of same breed differ due to the complexity of fancier varieties in breeding. To keep that perfection of pattern other things tend to give way when selecting breeders. Solid colored birds are superior in growth due to the fact that quality can be on the forefront as there is no pattern or intensity of egg color (Marans for example) to weigh into consideration of choosing breeder birds. The White Plymouth Rock is actually overweight as adult for the breeds standard. The other varieties of Rocks make adult standard weight but the Whites are few pounds over.

Non pattern birds almost always outperform in meat and egg laying qualities to their breeds patterned variety.

 

[Egghead_Jr]

It doesn't matter what you choose as long as it's not hatchery. @ChickenCanoe dropped everything and only breeds Black Penedesenca anymore for meat and eggs. Who knew it would be the perfect dual purpose bird for them? So pick a bird that means something to you as by the time you obtain good stock and start breeding seriously it should please you to look at them.

Their flock of Black Pene-

 

[NatJ]

It doesn't matter what you choose as long as it's not hatchery.

Hatchery birds taste good too. Birds from a good breeder might be more meaty than hatchery-quality birds of the same breed, but it's often easier to find a hatchery than to find a good breeder of a particular breed.

So I wouldn't rule out hatcheries entirely.

 

[Egghead_Jr]

It's really not hard to get breeder stock. Just look at the hatching eggs for sale here on BYC come Feb-March. Or local breeders posting Craigslist or APA poultry shows in area or the many breeders with websites or facebook breeder clubs by breed. It's not like finding hens teeth, breeders are out there.

@PandaGirl if you post your state location we could locate what's probably in driving distance from you.

 

[SulkyBantam]

I noticed no one mentioned Sussex here. Though they are not the meatiest, I have heard of people saying they are good as dual-purpose birds.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Livestock Conservancy has a good comparison chart, but it's limited to heritage breeds:
https://livestockconservancy.org/index.php/heritage/internal/chicken-chart

In my experience, Delawares and Rocks are good layers of large to extra large eggs and make good-sized table birds. Rocks set more often than Delawares, if you want to hatch without an incubator. I grew up with Rocks, mostly barred and partridge, and they were well-behaved with children.

I like this chart from ALBC. The far right column lists special meat characteristics of various heritage breeds.
chickenbreedcomparison.pdf (livestockconservancy.org)