What breed/s to have

  • Thread starter Thread starter Anonymous
  • Start date Start date
A

Anonymous

Guest
Hi All,
We are complete chicken newbies and are working out what we will need when we get the space when we move.
I have worked out a rough yearly plan to keep us in eggs and meat but would like to email it to someone with more knowledge. It is in a microsoft excel format.

From what I can work out from the internet and a book we have the Sussex breed seems to be a good dual purpose breed and tolerant of multiple cockerels.
To keep our cycle going year after year we would hatch out about 16 chicks (roughly half being male).
The males would be separated to their own enclosure and coop to grow for meat. They would be eaten as soon as big enough. Would they tolerate each other for this time?

The father cockerels would be removed for meat and then the pullets would be introduced into the group to prevent cross breeding. A couple of unrelated cockerels would be introduced.
Each spring we would hopefully have a couple of hens broody to sit on eggs for that years youngsters.
Having a look on the internet the Dominique breed seems to be good for broodiness. We will not need all the eggs laid so having a couple of Dominique hens might be a good choice for our 'incubators'.
We will be off grid so using hens to incubate rather than electricity would be better.
We are not sure about the Dominique breed. They seem rather rare.

Being complete newbies and unable to do anything until we move, other than researching, is somewhat difficult.

Rob
 
You will be very lucky if you find any Dominiques because they are very very rare but there are other broody breeds around.

If you go for the Sussex breed or indeed any breed, seeking out the right stock is vital. Dual purpose Sussex are not easy to find. Some types are very rare and are not good for eggs or meat any more. The Light Sussex would be your best option but there are some poor specimens about. The show types will not give you many eggs, though they might have a good carcass so you need good utility stock. If a constant supply of eggs is essential, you night need a few out and out layers as well as the Sussex. Unfortunately these layers do not make good broodies !

You might be disappointed in the carcasses on the non specialist meat breeds such as the Sussex as there is not that much meat but the flavour is better.

If you do manage to find a good strain, I would not be too anxious to bring in new stock unless you can be equally sure that they are as good or better than your originals.

Young males can live together but they need space to get away from one another and fights do break out. I don't think there is a breed that are truly tolerant of multiple cockerels.

Be careful where you get your information from as some sources seem to have little or no practical experience. Not many people seem to understand the concept of utilty and breeding for production.

There is usually some good advice available on here but again you need to sift through as some of it will be very conflicting.
 
Hi,cockerels that I have hatched out together, have lived together amicably,with no squabbling,not sure why,unless it is because I don't keep them in a pen of just cockerels.I let them run round with hens and other cockerels.
I've also successfully introduced new cockerels,I've just made sure that they are younger than my established cockerels.
As to finding good quality,dual purpose light sussex,I'm not sure where you would find these.As Chuck mentioned in his reply,show quality may not be good layers,I guess you will just have to contact some breeders to find out about their individual lines.
If they have a breed club,contact the secretary and see if they can help.
 
Breed Clubs are the last place I'd go as they are primarily interested in show stock.
 
Lydia said:
Hi,cockerels that I have hatched out together, have lived together amicably,with no squabbling,not sure why,unless it is because I don't keep them in a pen of just cockerels.I let them run round with hens and other cockerels.
I've also successfully introduced new cockerels,I've just made sure that they are younger than my established cockerels.
As to finding good quality,dual purpose light sussex,I'm not sure where you would find these.As Chuck mentioned in his reply,show quality may not be good layers,I guess you will just have to contact some breeders to find out about their individual lines.
If they have a breed club,contact the secretary and see if they can help.
Click to expand...

We were wanting to prevent cross breeding so would not let the cockerels run around with the mothers and sisters. I think we might give keeping all the young cockerels together in a big pen. If fights do break out then the instigator will be the first in the pot.

Can anyone suggest a good breed/s? To keep us in meat we will have more chickens than we would need for eggs alone so do not need particularly good layers. We are used to eating pheasant so small carcases would not be a problem. We would need a couple / few hens that would be reliably broody to maintain the cycle.

Rob
 
Silkies go broody at the drop of a hat and make excellent mothers. I've only had bantams but of course you can get L.F. version. On the rare occasions when they were not broody they also laid nice little eggs.
 
We have just rescued a 6ftx4ft garden shed. I shortened it to about 3 ft tall to use just as a 'sitting', chick and jouvenile hut.

Is it possible to encourage hens to go broody?
I was wondering if I could leave dummy eggs in the nice cosy corners of the hut would the most broody hens decide to go and sit?

We plan to have the broody hens and, once hatched, mothers and chicks in a large separate enclosure separate from the main group until they are sexed and the males separated.
If we then moved the hut would the broody hens leave the eggs?
I think we could achieve what we want to do with two separate enclosures next to each other with doors between the two.
One enclosure would be fully enclosed and would contain the broody hens, chicks and then after that the 'spare' cockerels. The other enclosure might be just a wire fence around a big area around buildings, trees, hedges etc.
Does that sound sensible?

Rob
 
Hi, I have suusex for the purpose you would like. I live in France so the birds I have are real meaty and my Sussex hen has just started laying so cannot vouch for how regular they are, but if it they not a regular as I would like I would just have more hens, obviously space may be an issue for you. With regards to problems with cockerals living together, I have had no problems, I have a pen for my cockerals for meat which is not big and I had 12 boys in there together with no problems. Obviously if they are brothers and grow up together that helps. For problems with inbreeding father mating and having chicks with daughters is not a problem and same as sons with mothers, but you cannot go beyond that. I have it so that my cockeral and hens produce chicks, the chicks in the first year all go for meat. In the second year female chicks are replacement stock for old hens (egg prductipn goes down after second year so old hens go for meat) and the boys are meat. In the third year cockeral produces chicks with daughters and all go for meat. In the fourth year female chicks replace old hens (chicks from second year) boys go for meat. In the fifth year I have to get a new cockeral as the old one cannot have chicks with granddaughters and the cycle repeats. That way you don't have to bring in new bloodlines that often. Just make sure your breeding cock is a very nice meaty one and I would be selective of the female chicks produced to ensure you get real nice meaty birds. If you don't mind not having massively meaty birds you should be alright, I have maran cross black stars and had table weight of 1.5 kg which isn't bad for a bird which isn't really a meat breed at all, it's just that there wasn't much breast meat but more on the legs. As for a broody to do the hatching I have a pekin bantam which lives quite happily with them and I a baby making machine! I also have an incubator in case but much prefer broodys. I hope this makes sense. If your interested too, crossing a wyandotte with light Sussex produces a good meat hybrid which will grow much quicker than the Sussex. I think the Sussex take up to 30 weeks to produce a good table bird, but nothing stops you from doing the seen sooner when you feel there's enough meat on it for you, plus you will find the meat more tender. Hope this helps and good luck whatever you decide to do :-) by the way it's well worth having your own eggs and chickens to eat, very satisfying, like tonight I just finished eating a bird that was done a couple of weeks ago very tasty and yummy!
 
Thankyou for the reply.
That answered a few questions we had.
Our thoughts and plan came up with similar ideas so it is encouraging that we were not miles off the mark.
We had not concidered fathers mating with daughters, brothers / sisters etc we had it planned in our newbie way of replacing the main cockerels each year.
We will think about that more.

Rob
 
I just had a look at our plan to see what I had thought up for replacing cockerels.
I had it so that at the same time as sexing the pullets/small cockerels we would buy in two unrelated young cockerels and also have the 'old' cockerels for the pot.
The bought in young cockerels would then live with the hens and pullets until the next spring and would be about 12 months old before we allow the eggs to be incubated by a broody hen.
Hopefully the cockerels would have worked out what to do by then ;)
I figured we could buy unrelated young cockerels easily enough and the 'old' ones add another two to our food supply.

Rob
 
Hi there - I find my English Cuckoo Marans an excellent dual purpose bird. I have kept them for around 25 years now., and most of that time they were just for my own "house" use, so I simply selected for nice big meaty birds, as fast growing as possible, and selected my best layers of the nicest large brown eggs.

They were originally imported into this country from France back in the 30's by Lord Greenway who then did a lot of work to make them an excellent dual purpose bird. Nowadays many strains of Cuckoo Marans have been crossed in with other birds to improve the ability to select out the males at day old, which is why often people judge male/female on size of head spot. The result of this crossing has been to dilute the depth of colour of the eggs.

They are a brooding breed and make excellent careful and protective mothers, and being large will cover a good clutch of eggs. The cockerels mature quickly for a traditional breed, and mine dress out at around 5-6 lbs at 24-30 weeks, plus hens that need to be culled make a good meaty carcass.

The meat is gourmet quality, being fine textured and white with a wonderful taste. I raise my spare males by allowing them total free range and feeding them straight wheat (after around 6-8wks on starter crumb) this results in almost fat free meat. The last week to 10 days they are penned and fed boiled wheat and rice.

And of course the quality and beauty of the eggs is wonderful, if you are intending to sell eggs, even one in a mixed box will increase your sale

I can't help it - I do just love my English Cuckoo Marans :D
Sue
 
I see Tim has Black / Copper Marans for sale which brings me to another question..

Would a Black / Copper Maran be the same with regards to size, nature, behaviour as your Cuckoo Marans?
Is the difference just colouring or are they distinctly different breeds?

Rob
 
Sounds like a plan. By the way if you did keep cockeral for longer brothers and sisters mating and having chicks is a no no. Just mum and sons or dad and daughters. Something to look into if you change your cockeral regularly as someone mentioned before in England it can be a bit difficult to get pure breeds that originally were a dual purpose breed to have the meat you require, a lot of them seem big but just have a lot of 'fluff', which was why I didn't go for the buff orpingtons here as they didn't seem all that meaty. One thing for sure is that having a good plan will save you a lot of time an money. When I first bought mine I had a maran and hybrids and bought 10 naked necks for meat. Now one year down the line I have decided it would be far easier having one dual purpose breed. So I now have 44 chickens/chicks to get rid of before I can really get going on my new flock! We will be doing a lot of plucking over the next few weeks!! Good luck and have fun which Im sure you will, I love having my chickens they bring so much and that's not just the eggs and meat, chicks are really cute and they can be funny creatures at times. Just don't get to attached as in the end they all end up on your dinner plate. I learned the hard way when I had to pluck my first chick I had hatched :-(
 
Hi RobnRuth
If you looking for dual purpose bird I would suggest you Green Legged Partridge Fowl.Why you may ask?
-very hardy orginally from Poland where gets to -30during winter
-eggs are low in bad cholesterol and high in good
-very tasty meat
-exellent forging bird low to feed it if has a lot of space to roam
-good mothers too
-do not get sick to often
You can definytly get hatching eggs in England or chicks,somtimes adults you need to look at the places which deals with rare breeds
Good Luck
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Back
Top