What is the best breed that will grow its population the quickest?

[Solanacae]

Jungle fowl definetly seems like a good start for my chicken. What about jungle fowl cross x australorp x Cochin?

Can I achieve size and survivability? I plan to totally free range these chickens on 50 acres.

Where do you live? If you have any sort of winter you will likely not have sufficient forage (both vegetation and bugs) for your chickens to survive on during those months.

 

[SunflowerKing]

Okay, so you are looking for:

- Dual Purpose
- Go Broody
- Meaty
- Protective
- Reproduce fast

In all honesty, I do not believe you can achieve this with one breed or hybrid. My best bet for you would be to keep several broody/lower production birds (wyandottes, silkies, cochins, brahmas, orphington) to be the "incubators". Your rooster should be an EE (which is the "middle breed" which lays good, smaller to medium sized and sometimes go broody) or a gamefowl (which lay poorly, but are great flock protectors).

And then, the rest of the flock should be the layers, the ones that breed and reproduce with the EE and Gamefowl. Should not be a RIR, leghorn, sexlink, etc. Which do not go broody and are sort lived. Why? Because they were bred to just be egg layers and to be switched out often. I would choose a breed like (EEs, ameraucanas, marans, etc.)

How many chickens are you going to start off with?

I will start with about 20... hoping to grow the flock with experience and observation to at least 100.

your philosophy may be better. I can use two different breeds to achieve my goals. The first breeds job is to be meaty and broody and incubate. The second breed will be more all rounder survival bird.

 

[cherrynberry]

Okay, so you are looking for:

- Dual Purpose
- Go Broody
- Meaty
- Protective
- Reproduce fast

In all honesty, I do not believe you can achieve this with one breed or hybrid. My best bet for you would be to keep several broody/lower production birds (wyandottes, silkies, cochins, brahmas, orphington) to be the "incubators". Your rooster should be an EE (which is the "middle breed" which lays good, smaller to medium sized and sometimes go broody) or a gamefowl (which lay poorly, but are great flock protectors).

And then, the rest of the flock should be the layers, the ones that breed and reproduce with the EE and Gamefowl. Should not be a RIR, leghorn, sexlink, etc. Which do not go broody and are sort lived. Why? Because they were bred to just be egg layers and to be switched out often. I would choose a breed like (EEs, ameraucanas, marans, etc.)

How many chickens are you going to start off with?

I will start with about 20... hoping to grow the flock with experience and observation to at least 100.

your philosophy may be better. I can use two different breeds to achieve my goals. The first breeds job is to be meaty and broody and incubate. The second breed will be more all rounder survival bird.

If you start off with a large flock (20) I would say to go with EEs, australorps, marans, aka. the "middle breeds". Out of 20, one will definitely go broody and the others will be the layers. If you want the rooster to be fierce and protective, keep in mind that he may be aggressive to you as well.

 

[BecaHawaii]

Do you mean will they not brood when the flock is large? Animals are all about passing genetics on. That's why broody hens sometimes won't take foster chicks that they know aren't theirs. They want their genetics to go on, not the hen eating next to them. Those hormones cause a hen to go broody, not them thinking 'the flock is getting smaller, we need more chicks'

When my broody stops raising. The Roos take over.

 

[SunflowerKing]

Where do you live? If you have any sort of winter you will likely not have sufficient forage (both vegetation and bugs) for your chickens to survive on during those months.

Zone 9

 

[Little Baby Bean]

How about Delawares? They are Dual Purpose, go broody, one of mine is pretty big but I don't know about meaty, Don't know if they are protective(I may have read that the roosters are but don't remember), And don't know about reproducing fast.

 

[cherrynberry]

I will start with about 20... hoping to grow the flock with experience and observation to at least 100.

your philosophy may be better. I can use two different breeds to achieve my goals. The first breeds job is to be meaty and broody and incubate. The second breed will be more all rounder survival bird.

Choosing the rooster will be harder though, as they will continue the "lines" of your flock. Gamefowl will probably not be a good idea, due to being worser layers.

 

[rascal66]

Haha, so much input from everyone!

what about Easter egger x jungle fowl?

I'm not familiar with jungle fowl at all, but I wouldn't be confident in the meat aspect? But again, I'm unsure.

I mainly cross breed my birds, have tons of barnyard mixes and the results have been wonderful.

 

[BecaHawaii]

Choosing the rooster will be harder though, as they will continue the "lines" of your flock. Gamefowl will probably not be a good idea, due to being worser layers.

My girls lay fine.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

I'm not sure with 50 acres if you can support 100 birds like you plan without feeding them yourself at least partway