[farmershort]

Hi All,

A quick chickeny question around the dual-purpose viability of chicken breeds.

My partner is equally terrified and fascinated by chickens.... well, maybe not equally actually. Given this fear, she's rightly having a big say in the breed of chicken we go for. Now, I should say at the outset that we've got plenty of land, and have no plans to need to fully stock a farm shop or anything like that. What we would like is to have a rolling supply of meat birds for ourselves and for bartering with others, and a healthy supply of eggs for the same.

My partner has become pretty attached to Buff Orpingtons... I think it's the general soft fuzzy look of them which makes her think they'll be less painful if one was to fly at her (yes I have tried explaining). A second option is Brahmas, as she's read that they're at the docile end of the spectrum.

Now, what I wanted to know was basically this:

• Can we use pure BOs as dual purpose birds, and just feed to cockerals to fatten them up?
• Would a BO cross with an IG be a better option, and rear all cross-bred progeny as a meat crop?
• Would pure Brahmas do a better job of being dual purpose than either of the above?

To be clear, we have no interest in buying the latest modern bird with in-built short life spans, nor do we need the birds to fatten within short timescales.

The plan is that all birds will be free range (subject to the acid-fox-test) and that they will be fed on a home-grown or locally sourced mixed diet - i.e. not grower pellets.

Thanks all!

[Eve]

I have a gorgeous large buff Orpington, all feathers but not much meat (they were 'designed' to be all fluff), though, and doesn't lay that much (though you may not want oodles of eggs).


I have a large white Ixworth boy with white Dorking girls, they produce nice meaty slow growing offspring and are very docile birds.


None can fly high enough to hit someone in the face luckily. Don't get any legbars or so, they'll roost up un the trees given half a chance 


I admire your other half, happy to keep chickens even though she's so scared of them, you'd never see me agreeing to my husband keeping spiders!    But then I guess they would 't make much of a meal, either 

[Bramham Wiltshire Horns]

hi there
i dont have experience with either breed

but i have recently finished a project of IG x LIGHT SUSSEX

i found there where plenty of meat on the birds

the females haven`t started to lay yet but should do at any point and they are chunky little birds too 

they are also sex linked so that you can sex at a day old and seperate as nescesary

but with most livestock the strain of bird is very important so the genes pass on if you get some thing that has come from egg laying back ground you will find that they wont carry much meat

start with a good foundation flock

we currently have another thread going called

breeding for eggs and meat a couple of threads down in the poultry section

come and have a read

this year i am starting cou cou de rennes and will be solely breeding these

[Marches Farmer]

I would certainly recommend considering the Dorking.  We were going to give up breeding them as they're so docile they tend to be bullied by our other soft-feathered large fowl breeds.  We thought we'd better continue as they're on the RBST's critical list, however.  They lay around 6 eggs a week Spring through to the end of Summer in their first year after hatch, although tend to slow down going into Autumn.  They make a good, meaty bird with a fairly broad breast.  They're not a particularly broody breed but if they do go broody they make very good mothers.  Our Speckled Sussex are also very laid back and a good dual-purpose breed. 

[Dave C]

Whichever breed you decide on, start with the best utility strain you can find which maybe difficult with BO and Brahmas and you might be building frame for 6 months and still have disappointing amounts of Breast Meat.

If your sticking with traditional breeds I would go for either Dorking or Light Sussex and definitely cross with Indian Game as they have a wide double breast which they will pass onto there offspring.

Good luck and let us know how you get on 

[big soft moose]

Your wife might be persuaded of the merits of Silkies as they look all fluffy  ( I too have a wife who takes such considerations into account) , but i think all that fluff means that they can be more susceptible to rain and mud.

My wife and I are currently debating between Silkies, Scots Dumpy, and Sussex -  I favour sussex but i also realise who is likely to have the final say

[farmershort]

Thanks for the posts everyone! some good stuff there I think.

I had realised that BO's were all feather, but I didn't know how much they could be improved with the IG. Perhaps that's an experiment for another day!

TBH, I don't know how we've missed the dorking in all of our research. The ixworth certainly came up, but my other half wasn't taken with them.

I really like the sound of the Dorking. A very old breed, on the RBST list, and seemingly proper dual purpose birds. Would you think it's still worth crossing them with an IG to produce the meat birds, or are the pure Dorkings meaty enough on their own?

I think I had in my head that we'd get a handful of hens which we'd keep for eating eggs and fertile eggs, and then rear offspring for meat - of course that would seem to work the same if we went pure dorking, as we just have a dorking cockeral.

Whislt we've a bit of experience with sheep/goats/pigs, we've never done chicken breeding before, and have only kept a handful of layers.

Thanks

Adam

[macgro7]

I had red dorking untill fox ate them all last week...
They are fantastic birds. Fairly large (in comparison to standard egg laying breeds). Quite heavy and meaty.
Interestingly first broilers in the UK were cross of dorking and indian game!
Was going to try that cross myself but Mr Fox changed my plans a sadly

[clydesdaleclopper]

We have a Brahma boy that we cross with our girls to get boys for meat. Our girls are now mongrels with a bit of Scots Grey a bit of Dorking and a bit of Andalusian. With this mishmash we get good egg layers and good sized meat birds. They are also pretty docile with the Brahma influence which is nice for my children.