what is your favorite dual purpose bird

[godsgurl4evr]

when I bought mine this spring I was told Delawares are the way to go. That they grew the fastest and got the biggest. So I ordered Delawares. I've been disappointed as they are narrow bodied and are taking a long long time to put on any kind of weight. I keep reminding myself I can't expect them to look like cornish cross however I recently acquired 2 5 month old Black austorlorps and they are 3x bigger then the Delawares are! Looking for Ideas for next year before I know it it will be time to start buying chicks again

 

[BirdBrain]

I think it really depends on where you get your dels from. I got some from Sandhill Preservation and the roo I kept is a pretty big boy at 17 weeks.

 

[mstricer]

Of the ones I've tried orpington, marans, faverolle and EE, I say its a toss between the Faverolle and the Marans. I think I have to try them both next time.

 

[Mahonri]

I have some GCMaran X Dellies that are HUGE and they lay HUGE eggs.

 

[babyblue]

i like bos for the personalty. but i had a br and br/bo that grew massive very very quickly. the br/bo was one huge boy at 15 weeks.

 

[Steve_of_sandspoultry]

I like Dark Cornish for the meat to bone ratio and the Marans for taste.

Steve

 

[DIYSeattle]

Im trying Welsummer and fbc Marans. I have some Light Sussex in the incubator so Ill see what they do but those Ill prbably just keep around in the yard. I looked around a lot of dual purpose birds. The ones that lay the most and the fastest growers were supposed to be the light sussex, delawares, favorelles, and astralorps. Ihavent had all of them though so I cant speak from experience.

 

[mstricer]

Quote:
Marans are very tasty, the only problem with raising them to butcher is they crow and crow and crow andddddd crowwwwww!

 

[DIYSeattle]

What are you feeding your Delawares? What kind of food and what kind of protein?

 

[BirdBrain]

My birds are 17.5 weeks old and are still on chick feed at 20% protien.