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

[MamaDragon]

Hubby is favoring the Brahmas - it SAYS that they are heat tolerant as well as cold, and in the Humid South, finding a bird that is Both makes life much easier, or at least less likely to lose birds in 100+degrees with 90% humidity. Those brahmas look like "High Maintenance" birds to me.

Son favors the Orpingtons, he likes the way they look, just wishes they had fuzzy feet. .... He was tickled to death when I showed him pics of the Buff Brahmas... best of both worlds in his book.

I'm still tending towards the NHReds, they are less expensive as chicks, more easily available, lay larger eggs more frequently than either of the others, and we already have 3 hens and a roo. My second choice is also the BO's.

(of course, Hubby gets two votes to our one apiece....

)

We'll be kicking this around for weeks to come, I'm sure.

Kathy

 

[floridachickenman]

brahmas are slow feathering and in my experience, slow growing. I have many breeds so i cud in time find out what i really wanted raise on the long run. sex-links are meaty, not slow growing, very good dispositions, and lay well. You can keep ur red roo and buy barred rock hens, cross them and they are sex-linked.

 

[FutureChickenMan]

you may also want to consider rocks (white rocks specifically). Of my mix (RIRs, EEs, Marans, Dark Cornish, Jersey Giants, Barred Rocks) my BR Roo was the first to mature and was the biggest first. He was crowing and mounting the hens a good 4 weeks before any of the other roosters. Rocks are also one of the birds used to get the cornish cross meat birds we're all familiar with.

 

[al6517]

I have also like many others have tried to think this through, I have got some NHR's 6 wks ago and they have out grown my Barred Rocks twice over, so now i have 15 wk old barred rocks the same size as my NHR's.

I think I would like to cross a NHR roo w/ a white rock hen, and then continue to selectively line breed for speed of growth, white color, plump size.

if i use some silkies as the brooders/setters and just start to churn them out, i will have an idea about certain characteristics in about 6wks, cull the ones i want and sell the others right away.

This may take 2 yrs but i have nothing but time, and i think from what i have learned from this great forum and it's folks, it may just work.

Then i can help those BYCer's that have been so informative to us. Share/Share/Share. Tell me what you think or if I am crazy or not.

AL

 

[Beekissed]

I got some White Rocks with this batch of chicks and they are enormous at 5 wks. The only other chicks that are comparable in size are the BOs. If they lay as good as my other birds, they could be the combination you are looking for. They aren't flighty, very sweet and inquisitive right now. I kid you not, they are nearly the size of my lone Leghorn hen! I have to do a double take to differentiate sometimes...and that is at 5 wks. of age!

 

[professor-yellow]

Orps from the list, but should consider delawares as they are great layers but faster growing than most breeds, so you can get better dress out than other breeds at the same age. Another that i like is the white rock with hens lay noce jumbo eggs and birds are quite meaty and fast growing.

 

[Promiselandfarm]

We got an order of chicks from Hoover's and in that order we got BO, Bar Rock and White Rocks. The White Rock are out growing the Bars by a good deal. The whites almost look like cornish but don't have the huge legs and feet. So in my thinking the Whites grow faster than the Bars. They are from the same hatchery and the same age with great differences in speed of growth. Read up on all breeds you are considering. I think the Buffs are supposed to be layers for years were as many have to be replaced by their second year as they start to lag in production. I was reading that a Buff lays as good in it's third year as it did early on in its laying. You'll have to ask someone who has owned them for a while and see what they said. Our RIRs lay longer and more than our Bar Rocks. So I think you really need to know what you want. We live in Middle Tennessee this year and it got really hot for a couple of spells. We lost Bars and Sex links but our RIRs were fine. Another thing to think about is personalities. Our black sex-link hens have mean personalities but our Red Sex-link does not. Also our RIRs including our roosterS have nice gentle personalities.

 

[dancingbear]

I've raised Orps and Brahmas, Orp roos are not nearly as meaty dressed as they look live. Lots of fluffy feathers. The hens I had weren't all that broody, either. Out of a couple dozen orp hen I've only had a couple that would brood.

Brahmas take about a year to mature, they're about 5-6 months old by the time they're big enough to eat. Not economically feasible as meat birds. Beautiful, and calm, funny, deep voices when they croak out the funniest crows you ever heard, and the hens are very good moms.

Two of the breeds I'm currently interested in for dual purpose are Delawares, because they're supposed to grow out fairly quickly and be good layers, and Buckeyes, also said to be good meat birds and layers. Neither will be like the broilers, but it sounds like you're more like me in your expectations, and you're looking for a reasonable table bird and reasonable layers, rather than peak production of either.

BTW, if you have a broody hen that's a strong brooder, just taking the eggs away won't "take care of that". I have 5 fanatical broodies right now, (1 Lt. Brahma, 3 dark Cornish, 1 Black Australorp) that have been brooding for over 2 months. I've been taking the eggs. I have some eggs incubating that I'm dividing among them as soon as I see a pip or hear a peep. They are not giving up without some chicks. (I'd have just put eggs under them, but they keep moving around to different nests.)

Of course, while they're brooding, they don't lay, and if left too long, a hen can, and they sometimes do, brood themselves to death.

This site has ok descriptions, and great photos, nearly all breeds. They also have links to other sites about the breeds you're interested in, so you can follow the links and get more (and better) info. Hope one of these attempts on the link works.

http://www.feathersite.com/Poultry/BRKPoultryPage.html#Chickens

Look under the "Breeds and genetics" section of the forum, too, you'll find a goldmine of info about various breeds.

 

[RJ_Hythloday]

Quote:
I myself plan on 6-12 layers and 20 or so meat chickens. I'll keep the layers as pets, and cull out a non producer if need be, but the meats I plan on 12 wks in the spring and no more till the next year. Haven't got any yet, so we'll see what actually happens.

 

[dangerouschicken]

I think EE roos are nice and tasty, as well as Cuckoo Marans, and they lay some purdy eggs, too!