Why are coops built so stout?

[Scruffyfeathers]

Quote:
Thanks Sonya9, That was a lot to take in. I am proceeding cautiously and therefore doing a lot of reading and talking with people that own and raise chickens as well. My neighbor is doing the same thing but has a jump start on me. I am in no hurry so I will watch and learn as he proceeds. I think I am leaning more for layers. This will augment my CSA farm. From what I have read there are a lot of regulations and expense in meat birds when done correctly. For my CSA I want to sell “large eggs” with my produce. Which breed would be best suited for this? I am not concerned with the color of the egg: White vs. brown or what ever color they come in.

 

[CrazyTalk]

When choosing birds do you plan to buy chicks or hatch your own from eggs? If you plan to hatch out chicks yourself then you want to choose a "dual purpose" laying breed so you can eat the cockerels that will be hatched out. For instance Leghorns are considered one of the best layers however they are small birds, if you bought pullets you would be fine but if you hatched out your own leghorn eggs the cockerels wouldn't produce a good sized meat bird.

Raising dual purpose birds so you can eat the occasional cockerel (which is going to be a poor meat bird, and take a lot of food to get to the point of being reasonable) is a recipe for wasting a ton of money on food. Big heritage dual purpose birds eat a ton more than smaller layer breeds - it's just not worth the excess food expense unless you're going to be raising several crops a year of birds with the purpose of eating them (hens, roosters, everyone) - and if you're doing that, you're still better off with leghorns and cornies. Spent hens usually end up as soup meat anyways, so quality of carcass isn't really a big factor (unless you're going to be eating hens before they start laying)


Eating 3lb leghorn roosters feels like a waste - but having 7lb hens wandering around eating you out of house and home for years is more wasteful. Dual purpose birds don't make sense unless you're going to eat a ton of them, and you have some sort of ethical issue with Cornish X.


Edited by Staff

 

[Sonya9]

Raising dual purpose birds so you can eat the occasional cockerel (which is going to be a poor meat bird, and take a lot of food to get to the point of being reasonable) is a recipe for wasting a ton of money on food.

My point was if he plans to hatch out his OWN chicks he needs to think about what to do with the cockerels and choose a suitable dual purpose breed.

 

[Sonya9]

From what I have read there are a lot of regulations and expense in meat birds when done correctly. For my CSA I want to sell “large eggs” with my produce. Which breed would be best suited for this? I am not concerned with the color of the egg: White vs. brown or what ever color they come in.

Yeah if you plan to sell meat there would be a ton of regulations. I thought this was for your own use.

Why "large" eggs? Do you mean unusually large or just good sized? Generally brown or colored eggs sell better. Leghorns lay large white eggs like you find in the grocery store, they actually kill all of the birds in production laying houses at around a year and a half in part because their eggs get TOO large and also because their egg production decreases a bit.

Heavy production brown egg layers include red stars, production rhode island reds and a bunch hybrids such as Golden Comets, Dixie Rainbows, and other production layers that go by different names depending on where you buy them.

 

[Scruffyfeathers]

Quote:
Thanks. No, not unusually large. I have always bought large eggs so that is the size I am referring to. I will look into the breeds ytou mentioned. Thanks.