Which is best for table meat as well as eggs??

[Beekissed]

That's what I am doing now, accumulating a flock of dual-purpose breeds and breeding a RIR and a Partridge Rock rooster over them. I don't particularly care about pure breeds, just breed characteristics. I want meaty, excellent egg -layers....it also helps if they are pretty and colorful!

 

[seeker55]

Dear Mamadragon,

I live in Upstate NY and I have an almost identical goal as yours, slanted towards good quality meat. Therefore, I want to experiment with a Faverolle hen x NHR cross.

The Faverolle is "supposed" to have a relatively docile temperament [some flocks], a dual purpose breed,, a winter layer, a fair layer [160] and one of the finest tasting meat birds.

NHR has the winter hardiness, selection for utility and early maturity.

Crossing a red male to a white/salmon female might create a sex-linked offspring, allowing early separation of sexes. There might or might not be expression of some hybrid vigor.

The experiment could turn out to be a wild goose chase, but could be a 4H science project at school, in case your son is old enough or interested enough. He could learn quite a bit about genetics, avian nutrition, physiology etc. and science in general by doing and researching it on a project where the results mean something significant for the family.

Any thoughts and critiques would be most welcome. Thanks for your patience with yet another 2 cents!!

Seeker.

 

[MamaDragon]

Seeker -

That is a thought.... however, I'm going for the Long Haul... not just the next generation....

The sex links WOULD allow me to seperate out the spare roos for fattening table meat, this is true. I don't know much about hybrid vigor (other than what you learn in High School science classes),

I've thought about adding Dorkings into the mix, but with Dorkings apparently the chicks are more fragile, and may not do as well in our yo-yo winters here.

I've looked at the Sussex, which doesn't have the size I'd like, but it has a long heritage, and can sustain winters well.

Beekissed - That is also what we are starting here.... I'm still trying to figure out the best breeds to put under our NHR roo, to get both a cold-hardy and Hot Summers tolerant bird.

Isn't living in the South Fun?? !

 

[JasmineBell]

I'm in upstate NY, too. I can't wait to get my birds! The bulk of my flock will be buckeyes for all the reasons listed before.

But I'm learning to process next week on a plump brahma!

 

[seeker55]

As folks have suggested, you could get a Sussex, a Faverolle, a Buttercup and a Delaware, all from breeders [not hatcheries] who are selecting for utility fowl, and make sure your NHR roo also comes from a utility strain. Then you keep selecting the healthiest and best birds for your needs: disease and conditions can vary from place to place.

I teach gardening/horticulture and the same tomato, pepper & zucchini seedlings raised by myself perform differently at the three different places I teach: diseases, yield, taste. I make the students save seeds from each site, so they are developing strains that hopefully will tolerate better the stresses, especially the races of disease organisms, that haunt that particular site.

In some of my earlier posts, I quoted from a book on Poultry Breeding & Genetics by Roy P. Crawford where he writes of pure breeds like Light Brahmas, Brown Leghorns, Wyandottes etc. [i.e. breeds of various conformation] all having breeder flocks that surpassed the best known modern hybrids in egg-laying records!! (pp.1035-36) Unfortunately, these flocks, he says, were left to decline for lack of interest or other causes. This was in the era between WWI & II. What a great loss.

I belong to a game fowl association, simply because I am very keen on the O-shamo and Asil as meat parents. They have known qualities:

1. inheritance of meat qualitye highly-prized Hinai-Jidori of Japan has O-shamo as papa

2. inheritance of vigor: take look at the forum Naked Heels!! 33 inches tall!

3. Appropriately aggressive for outdoor culture: when bred into a relatively quiet breed like a Faverolle, and socialized thoughtfully from birth, an O-shamo rooster is an asset. In any case, he is not going to be running loose, his strong-heeled progeny are.

4. Strong heels, good scratching behavior, good flight responses- fly up into trees to avoid large predators.

5. Unlike Asils, relatively good layer:so mating with another good layer breed will not harm egg production goals.

6. Good mothering instinct: so that trait remains intact/reinforced throughout the breeding effort. These moms will murder anything like snakes, mice, possums. Asils will murder much bigger beings!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! you just gotta see one in action!! I just hate the idea of chickens fighting chicken or any blood sport for human pleasure or profit, but the sheer courage and strength of these birds against a natural enemy attacking their babies is something else.

These are just thoughts--- nice discussing them with fellow enthusiasts. This IS for the long haul: my dream would focus on 3 breeds, meat quality being my goal, as I said earlier.

Fav x NHR = ZZ + Males

ZZ x O-shamo = QQ

backcross once, just for to see? or cross to layer breed lik RIR, Production Browns??

Fav x QQ = ?

BTW, I read that Japanese quail return 8% of their weight as eggs, compared to 3% for chicken. They also need approx. 25% protein in their diet, compared to approx. 17% for chicken.

 

[seeker55]

Welcome, JasmineBell, and best of luck with your children!

I shall throw out a query in as many threads as I post, hoping someone will know the answers: have heard the Nagoya breed of Japan highly praised as a dual purpose meat and layer fowl. Does anyone know of this and are any available in the USA? It is not on ANSI Oklahoma. I got some information on Google but am interested to find specimens here.

How difficult is it to import eggs from Japan, given all the new avian flu and other restrictions? It seems people who have game fowl hobbies do manage to import those, but not utility fowl????

TIA.

Seeker.

 

[SandraMort]

How confusing! I hadn't seen that JasmineBell was logged in earlier. I'm SandraMort -- Jasmine is my 9.5 year old. She and my two sons are going to be raising birds, too.

Quote:

 

[seeker55]

I meant Jasmine's feathered babies on the way!!