im a black rock agent firstly you are right the black rock is bred from old stock that have had all problems and thats why breeding off selected stock they last to 6 or 8 yeres old .the cross to road will give the bird more road than Plymouth barred rock so the balance wont be the same naw cost a black rock sells for £15 to 20 pounds a road rock sells for £8 think off a ford car and a bmw next will they be fully vaccinated like the black rock .the best pound for pound is the shavers that arbro sell £6.50 point off lay very good bird onley half as good as the black rock .im putting black rock to other breeds at the mo black rock cream leg bar black rock light Sussex and black rock Cornish game i will sell them local for £1 per chick and go back and have a good look haw they have done .i would like to build a good Hardy bird but can they last 5 to 8 yeres old road island red light Sussex etc Plymouth rock 3 yeres at the most .whot is youre oldest birds ..................there are black rocks 7 yeres old i no 200 off them and stock is still coming from them .Why is this chicken better than pure breeds for domestic egg production? - this is because she will lay more than any pure breeds in the UK nowadays, and she is more cost effective in terms of the amount she eats for each egg. Unlike the pure breeds who have had little consistent selection for good productivity in 90% of the current strains, Peter Siddons, the original breeder of the Black Rock in the country, maintained an exceptionally high standards of breeding, which, now Peter has finally retired, has now been taken on by his family and Eddie Lovett.
The Black Rock is a consistently good bird in all kinds of free range conditions. Over the past decades we have sold birds around Scotland and they have coped, nay thrived, in some of the most inhospitable places.
It is very unkind to put the commercial hybrids, with their weak feathering, poor immune systems, limited ranging, and high food value demands, outside in some of our exposed garden, croft and smallholding situations. It's a terrible thing to do to ex-battery birds, which have known only a completely protected environment for all their lives. Few gardens in most of the UK provide anything like the sort of environment they need.
Unfortunately chickens are far too stoic for their own good, and put up with so much humans throw at them, in the name of providing us with food and then in salving some sort of anthropomorphic conscience about it.
In contrast the likes of most pure breeds and birds like the Black Rock have been given the qualities by our breeding over the generations to really be able to thrive in the vagaries of the outside world.
Living outside is not without its significant challenges -- weather, wild birds and disease, food quality, and if badly managed mud, mites and other stresses.