Farm Dreams
Homesteading, Organic Gardening, How to Farm, Preparedness, Self-Reliance
Meat birds?
Any recommendations on the best meat bird or things I should be aware of before raising a few flocks this year?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Diane Kendrick-Adey on -
My husband and I have a homestead in Alaska, south of Fairbanks. Our summer seasons are short but intense. We tried the Cornish Cross years ago and were appalled at the leg problems and also the fact that they were so slow on picking up any foraging skills. We switched to Cornish Reds the next summer with great results. No leg problems and they were quite adapt at grazing on bugs and plants, although they did require supplemental feed in order to get their weight up so we could butcher them in the fall. I do agree that Bard Rocks are also great meat birds, and layers, just take longer to get up to butchering weight. Have never heard of Freedom Rangers. We used to overwinter birds, but due to our long and very cold winters (-35 - -55 being the norm from November - March), we have decided to butcher everything in the fall. Just too expensive to keep the hen house heated.
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Permalink Reply by Old MacDonald on -
Two months ago, I received about 10 cornish x chicks from a friend's 4-H culls. They are all females and were 4 wks old. I had a thick oat patch near the house and put them outside and only fed them chicken scratch. Two months later they are in the pasture looking great. They have not gained weight like my previous cornish x chickens that I feed higher protein feed, but still look very healthy. Now they are running in the pasture with our laying hens. None have leg problems.
Rather than butcher these I think I'll wait a couple of months and see if they lay eggs. I'm thinking about getting a white rock rooster and trying to start hatching my meat birds. Have any of you had success breeding cornish x hens with roosters? If so, what breed rooster did you use? How were the results?
Thanks,
Mrs MacDonald
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Permalink Reply by J Green on -
Diane Kendrick-Adey said:My husband and I have a homestead in Alaska, south of Fairbanks. Our summer seasons are short but intense. We tried the Cornish Cross years ago and were appalled at the leg problems and also the fact that they were so slow on picking up any foraging skills. We switched to Cornish Reds the next summer with great results. No leg problems and they were quite adapt at grazing on bugs and plants, although they did require supplemental feed in order to get their weight up so we could butcher them in the fall. I do agree that Bard Rocks are also great meat birds, and layers, just take longer to get up to butchering weight. Have never heard of Freedom Rangers. We used to overwinter birds, but due to our long and very cold winters (-35 - -55 being the norm from November - March), we have decided to butcher everything in the fall. Just too expensive to keep the hen house heated.
I know people who keep chickens in AK without heating their coops and have done so for many years. Maybe you could give it a try also?
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Permalink Reply by Diane Kendrick-Adey on
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I have and it didn't work in our area. I would be interested in what part of the state they live. Alaska is a big state. In Southeast it rarely drops below freezing, Southcentral may see -15 a couple of times a winter, or the Interior, where we live, can drop below -50 and stick for weeks. I know there are people who keep their birds in Alaska without heating their coops, although I wonder if they have a heat lamp or light in the coop which I would consider to be a heat source We use to overwinter our birds without heat but ended up bringing them in when temps dropped. We have no electricity, being in a remote area, so we use propane lights in the coop, which provides light and heat, keeping them from freezing off toes and wattles, but it is expensive. The chickens don't lay and their food consumption goes up, making it expensive to overwinter and easier to just get new birds every spring.
J Green said:
Diane Kendrick-Adey said:My husband and I have a homestead in Alaska, south of Fairbanks. Our summer seasons are short but intense. We tried the Cornish Cross years ago and were appalled at the leg problems and also the fact that they were so slow on picking up any foraging skills. We switched to Cornish Reds the next summer with great results. No leg problems and they were quite adapt at grazing on bugs and plants, although they did require supplemental feed in order to get their weight up so we could butcher them in the fall. I do agree that Bard Rocks are also great meat birds, and layers, just take longer to get up to butchering weight. Have never heard of Freedom Rangers. We used to overwinter birds, but due to our long and very cold winters (-35 - -55 being the norm from November - March), we have decided to butcher everything in the fall. Just too expensive to keep the hen house heated.
I know people who keep chickens in AK without heating their coops and have done so for many years. Maybe you could give it a try also?
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Permalink Reply by Deborah @ Antiquity Oaks on -
Most of the hatcheries will tell you that those chickens are a hybrid, and if you keep them and try to create your own, they will not breed true, nor will they have the kind of weight gain that you see in the chicks you buy from them. They are also very poor layers. This is why I like my heritage chickens. I raise my own replacements. I have fryers and roasters from the boys, layers from the girls, and stew meat from the girls when they are older and no longer laying well.
This is why I'm suspicious of the genetic make-up of those birds. I understand the science behind hybrids, and I've had both Plymouth rocks and Cornish, and there is no way that simply crossing those two will result in a chicken that will literally eat itself to death within a week or two of hatch, nor one that will gain weight at the rate that they gain. They gain weight as fast as they do because they will eat whenever there is food in front of them -- exactly like the genetically modified salmon that reaches processing weight twice as fast as a "real" salmon.
Old MacDonald said:Two months ago, I received about 10 cornish x chicks from a friend's 4-H culls. They are all females and were 4 wks old. I had a thick oat patch near the house and put them outside and only fed them chicken scratch. Two months later they are in the pasture looking great. They have not gained weight like my previous cornish x chickens that I feed higher protein feed, but still look very healthy. Now they are running in the pasture with our laying hens. None have leg problems.
Rather than butcher these I think I'll wait a couple of months and see if they lay eggs. I'm thinking about getting a white rock rooster and trying to start hatching my meat birds. Have any of you had success breeding cornish x hens with roosters? If so, what breed rooster did you use? How were the results?
Thanks,
Mrs MacDonald
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Permalink Reply by Deborah @ Antiquity Oaks on
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I disagree with just about everything here. I have raised barred rocks and Cornish cross side-by-side -- same feed, same treatment -- and they were very different. I actually had to stop giving the CX feed 24 hours a day because they did start dropping dead at one week of age. Without feed, they drink themselves crazy. They are very different birds genetically.
The taste of the CX was very bland and mushy, and we tried them in a variety of different recipes. They have no chicken taste of their own.
As for the meat of heritage chickens and turkeys, which I've been raising for ten years side by side, it is darker than modern chickens and turkeys, regardless of age. I've raised broad-breasted turkeys to the same age as I butchered the heritage turkeys, and the leg meat on the heritage is a dark chocolate brown. The legs on the broad breasted didn't even come close to being so dark. The leg and thigh meat on CX was so pale, it was hardly distinguishable from the breast meat. Not only do I have my own observation of this, but I also have the observations of many customers over the years.
Comparing eggs to chicken meat is apples and oranges. Feed does make a difference in egg color, but breed plays a much bigger role in the difference you see in the meat.
J Green said:CX from the store are going to be mushy and bland because of the method by which they were raised. If your turkens were penned and fed commercial feeds and gained weight like the CX until they couldn't move, their meat would be mushy and bland also.
Store bought eggs are pale and bland for just the same reason. They aren't that way because of the breed of chicken from whence they came, they are that way because of how the bird was raised and the diet it was fed.
Chicken meat darkens as a chicken ages, so if you butchered a 2 mo. old Barred Rock(or any breed) her breast would be just as pink as a 2 mo. old CX...no mystery there.
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Permalink Reply by Deborah @ Antiquity Oaks on
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Barred rocks tend to be very nice, but it does not matter if the breeds are mixed. When my daughters were in 4-H, we always had four breeds running around our farm because each girl wanted to show two different breeds. When it comes to predators, just stay away from white birds. They always disappeared first the few times we had them. The meat on all of the heritage breeds is good, but if you like breast meat, stay away from Salmon Faverolles because they have a tiny breast -- it's what they were famous for in France when they were the #1 meat breed raised there in the 1800s. And the breast is still petit in today's faverolle.
In addition to nest space, you also need to consider roosting space and space for free ranging or you could wind up with pecking problems. If there isn't enough nest space, you'll just be finding eggs in other places. They need at least 1/2 foot roosting space, but 1 foot is better. As for ranging -- more is better, but my roughly 50 chickens don't usually use more than an acre or two, even though they have lots more available to them.
Ellen Samek said:How "kid friendly" are the barred rocks?
Does it really matter in the long run if you mix breeds? I am wanting a heritage breed that will have pretty decent egg production, but also have decent meat when we butcher old/roos, but at the same time, I don't need ones that will charge and attack the kids. I'd like ones that are easy to work with and good foragers, but also ones that are less susceptible to predators. Yes, I'd like it all!
I have a coop with eight nest boxes - what is the max number I should keep my flock to?
Thanks,
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Permalink Reply by Old MacDonald on
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Thanks Deborah. You have good points. I had switched over to heritage birds, but then someone gave me the Cornish X. My family is still not used to the new way we're eating (but they are being great about our change), so I thought maybe I could raise something a little more similar to the Cornish X. So many decisions in chicken world.
Right now I'm incubating eggs, but they will not be pure breeds. Last Spring I went crazy at the feed store and got an assortment of chicks because they were all so cute. Now I have a barred rock breeding with everything but a barred rock. I've read the mixed birds are hardy. We'll see. I don't want to spend the money buying one breed so we're going with what we have.
Deborah @ Antiquity Oaks said:Most of the hatcheries will tell you that those chickens are a hybrid, and if you keep them and try to create your own, they will not breed true, nor will they have the kind of weight gain that you see in the chicks you buy from them. They are also very poor layers. This is why I like my heritage chickens. I raise my own replacements. I have fryers and roasters from the boys, layers from the girls, and stew meat from the girls when they are older and no longer laying well.
This is why I'm suspicious of the genetic make-up of those birds. I understand the science behind hybrids, and I've had both Plymouth rocks and Cornish, and there is no way that simply crossing those two will result in a chicken that will literally eat itself to death within a week or two of hatch, nor one that will gain weight at the rate that they gain. They gain weight as fast as they do because they will eat whenever there is food in front of them -- exactly like the genetically modified salmon that reaches processing weight twice as fast as a "real" salmon.
Old MacDonald said:Two months ago, I received about 10 cornish x chicks from a friend's 4-H culls. They are all females and were 4 wks old. I had a thick oat patch near the house and put them outside and only fed them chicken scratch. Two months later they are in the pasture looking great. They have not gained weight like my previous cornish x chickens that I feed higher protein feed, but still look very healthy. Now they are running in the pasture with our laying hens. None have leg problems.
Rather than butcher these I think I'll wait a couple of months and see if they lay eggs. I'm thinking about getting a white rock rooster and trying to start hatching my meat birds. Have any of you had success breeding cornish x hens with roosters? If so, what breed rooster did you use? How were the results?
Thanks,
Mrs MacDonald
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Permalink Reply by SELAH Farm on -
I want to retract part of what my earlier statement.
I have contacted Kendall Fox of Freedom Ranger Hatchery, Inc. and he said:
"We buy our breeding stock from Hubbard breeders in France. It is a hybrid/cross, but a much healthier and livelier alternative to the cornish x. Our breeders are raised and kept in barns, but breed naturally. They range and have a scratch area and nesting boxes to lay their eggs in. We do not artificially inseminate them. Let me know if you have any other questions."
So apparently the Freedom Rangers are NOT artificially inseminated.
I am actually considering giving them a try.
I just wanted to be clear that I may have misstated where Freedom Rangers come from. I had been misinformed and I want to apologize to freedom rangers everywhere.
SELAH Farm said:I personally recommend that you stay away from "breeds" that have to be artificially inseminated such as Cornish X and Freedom Rangers. These breeds have always been much more disease prone in my experience and just plain stupid. I have found that patience really pays off (eventually) when raising heritage breed birds. I raise many breeds of chickens, but for meat my favorite is Bard Rock. They forage for themselves very well, they do not eat much of the grain that I supply them, and their meat to fat ratio is outstanding.
But having said that, you should understand that they are 5-6 months old (up to 16 months old) when I butcher them. I raise them completely free range (no fence at all) and I supply them with a minimal amount of store bought grain and a constant supply of water. They take care of themselves and the hens that they oversee.
I recommend Bard Rock because of all of the heritage breed birds I have butchered they develop the most meat on their bones and the most fat content.
Others have their own opinions ... those are mine.
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Permalink Reply by Deborah @ Antiquity Oaks on
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If you just want cheap, you can get a mix of heavy heritage boys a lot cheaper than that from Cackle, 50 for $32.50 --
http://cacklehatchery.com/page10.html#specialheavyassorted
I got this a few years ago, and it worked great. Out of 50 rooster, there were even three or four pullets that we kept for layers.
J Green said:If price is a consideration, I ordered CX chicks from Central Hatchery in Madison, NE, for $.12 per chick. Paid $60 for 50! This is the absolute cheapest I have found for any breed, let alone a meat breed.
I will be using fermented feeds, unpasteurized vinegar in their water and true free range for these birds, feeding just once a day like I did last time. A friend of mine has been feeding her CX chicks clabbered milk along with their chick ration each day and reports they are having normal feces and growing well. I'll probably do the same for the first week.
Research of the fermented feeds makes me believe it is the healthiest and most cost effective feeding method one can find for these birds and I'll be interested to see how it all comes out.
http://www.ajol.info/index.php/ajb/article/viewFile/60378/48610
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Permalink Reply by J Green on
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No, I really wanted a meat breed at a cheap price and, now that many people are getting into raising their own, the prices have sky-rocketed out of reach.
The heavy heritage breeds won't gain as quickly, won't be as tender at finish and I have a dead line on raising these meaties. I love a heritage breed for my layers but for meat in large quantities I'll stick with CX.
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Permalink Reply by Deborah @ Antiquity Oaks on
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I won't repeat everything I've said in previous posts in this thread, but there is more to chickens than fast weight gain. I've raised heritage and CornishX side-by-side, and will not raise the CX again -- unless I'm doing it for another experiment. The meat was quite tasteless, and I didn't care for the mushy texture either. I also prefer to be completely self-reliant, which means raising my own meat birds from egg to plate.
J Green said:No, I really wanted a meat breed at a cheap price and, now that many people are getting into raising their own, the prices have sky-rocketed out of reach.
The heavy heritage breeds won't gain as quickly, won't be as tender at finish and I have a dead line on raising these meaties. I love a heritage breed for my layers but for meat in large quantities I'll stick with CX.
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