The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Poultry & Waterfowl => Topic started by: langdon on July 01, 2010, 06:31:54 pm
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when having chucks for meat like for example light sussex which we are getting
can we allow the bird to live a long life to the best of both e.g. eggs and meat.
or do you kill the bird earlier to get the best out of the meat?
hope i have made myself clear ;)
langdon :chook:
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There's no eating on spent layers. If you hatch LS eggs and get cockerels, you can eat them at 20 weeks or so. We killed some at 26 weeks - they tasted OK but they were a bit tough and there wasn't a lot of meat. For best meat, we've used meat strains.
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meat strains ???
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birds breed for meat like the sasso.
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Or the Hubbards.
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Or Welsh Blacks.
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I thought light Sussex were a traditional meat bird? What do you feed yours to finish them?
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:chook: i can't remember this but mum tells us she used to boil her old hens and then roast them for the sunday roast when money was tight. she says it was the best of both worlds the hens gave her the eggs she needed and then at the end of lay they would boil and roast them giving them a decent meal.
so no reason you cant do the same eggs & meat from the same bird a good way of dispossing of old layers imo ;)
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we just take the breasts and thighs from the egg laying cockerals. a very good meaty bird was a batam crossed with a egg layer. it took two to feed a family of 8. but there was lots of meat.
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Did anyone else see the River Cottage episode when Hugh FW took people to look at a "farm" that produced birds for really cheap meat? They were genetically modified to grow superfast and they were kept in terrible cramped conditions. I'll never eat cheap chicken again. I was in our local Sainsburys yesterday banging on at the manager about stocking free range chicken portions (which is what I wanted) rather than just free range whole chickens.
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In reply to Langdon's post and his reply to my PM.
Light Sussex were, along with Rhode and Plymouth Rocks and a few others, used as a dual purpose breed in the past. They were reasonable layers and the cockerels were run on for the table, but mainly concidered as un-profitable,but a few things have change since those days I'm afraid.
Firstly everybody has got used to seeing Jordans (birds with big breasts) since the commercial poultry producers started using 'meat strains' these have taken over from the traditional farmbirds of old along with layers in the form of hybrids.
You will not get any more meat on a bird than that type/strain/breed is bred for and most of the best strains have been lost through bad breeding practices. Any traditional breed once it has filled it's potential the rest goes to subcutaneous fat and usually disposed of.
Unless crossed to a double mustled breed like an Indian Game you will not get a very good return on a feed for flesh ratio.
All the commercial meat breeds are a hybrid of more than 2 breeds.