Meat birds

[NH Homesteader]

Where are you getting your EE's from? I'm getting rid of mine today actually. Not my kinda birds! But they would probably be better producers than my kinda birds! Lol I got mine from Murray McMurray this spring and they're feather picking little creatures.

 

[treerooted]

I'll probably be getting mine from a small local hatchery/breeder. I'm really lucky to have such a place close by, they have a good selection so I haven't looked at any large hatcheries.

 

[NH Homesteader]

Oh that's awesome. Wish we had something like that! Our Dominiques came from a local breeder and they're the best birds we've had.

 

[sumi]

We have a "poultry merchant" that sells a number of breeds of chickens, ducks, geese etc and he delivers all over the southern half of Ireland. Unfortunately he doesn't have the breeds I'd really love to keep, but I like rare breeds. It's handy and dang tempting to have chickens and ducks delivered to your door though and when I bump into him at the market and he hands me a duckling

Back to topic though, I'm thinking about raising birds for meat, so I'm getting good ideas from you all's experiences here.

 

[NH Homesteader]

We are experimenting come spring with crosses of our 3 main breeds. We want to leg band them and track weights, flavor, etc with male/female crosses of the 3. Well technically 4 because the orpingtons might be an interesting addition. I'll start a thread when we start incubating!

 

[treerooted]

Oh that's exciting! So which 3(4) breeds are you crossing?

 

[frustratedearthmother]

I'll start a thread when we start incubating!

Cool - I like people who actually keep records, lol. I'm baaaaad about that - always think I'm gonna remember. I don't!

 

[NH Homesteader]

Dorking, Dark Cornish, Dominique are our primary birds. We have a roo/hens of each. We're super into heritage/rare breeds. Then we let DD choose a breed out of the catalogue and she picked White Orpingtons. They're pretty solid birds so we'll cross them in there also. We only have hens of that breed.

It's DH's pet project. That and our heritage turkeys. But I am a list maker, experiment designer, number cruncher type so I'll keep records for his ADHD self lol!

 

[treerooted]

Cool - I like people who actually keep records, lol. I'm baaaaad about that - always think I'm gonna remember. I don't!

That's my 2018 goal!

The only thing I've kept track of is egg production; I have a chalk board with "today's egg count" that I mark through the day, then that night I transfer to an excel sheet with the date and daily count.

 

[NH Homesteader]

I've never kept track of egg production. I think I would be depressed lately, lol!