Best Chickens for Meat/Eggs??
 

We are building a new chicken coop to expand our flock. I would love to have a great all-around chicken for meat and eggs. Any suggestions?...or do you all have some varieties for meat and others for eggs?

I have Pearl White Leghorns for eggs and White Rocks for meat. I will be breading some Golden comets next year for eggs.

The best we have ever had for meat and eggs are freedom rangers from JMHatchery.

They grow very well, have a lot of meat on them, free range great and are wonderful egg layers if allowed to mature, (lots of double yokes).

Hubby and I were considering order Freedom Rangers, our biggest concern is that we'd wind up with 25 Roosters, we've had that problem before when we ordered Straight run chicks. Those darn roosters had a 'Who can crow first' competition, the crowing would start at 2 am every morning...~lol~...
We are now looking at McMurray's Brown Egg Layers, good laying Hens that can later become stewing hens. (if we so choose because I don't mind old hens wandering around keeping the bugs down and the lawn mowed)

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YAY! We have 25 of them out there right now that are schedule for processing next weekend. I planned to let a few live so we could reproduce naturally (25 at once did not work well for our little space) and I love hearing they lay double yolks! We got them from JM Hatchery and had to wait a few weeks since they seem to be fairly popular. The only thing I've noticed is that they aren't really consistent in size. A few of them out there are a lot smaller than the rest.

If that goes well I can get rid of the other hens; we have RIR, Americaunas and Barred Rock for eggs. I wanted to grow green eggs since we've been looking at brown ones for so long.

We keep a small flock:

Buff Orpingtons - a large meat breed laying large brown eggs and excellent setters
White Orpingtons - same as buff
Black Australorps - a large meat breed laying large brown eggs and excellent setters

The only rooster we have was one "fancy" McMurray sent us as a gift for ordering. We kept it because it is great at protecting the hens and is quite gentle to human contact.

We let this herd free range all day, locking them up only at night into a housing with attached fenced area (all utility wire nothing can dig under, go thru rafters or get in thru the top).

Each year we order 25 cornish "straight run" (sometimes the "jumbo cornish x rocks"; sometimes the "cornish roasters") as they make good use of food, grow quickly and are heavy with meat & yellow skin for ease in dressing. (Example: One leg will produce a very large meat dish for 2 people!) We never let these out to roam but keep them in a brooder that extends as the birds grow into an 8' x 16' area (utility wire with wire top for safety).

We added Brown Chinese Geese that free range as well and are great at letting us know if something unusual has come onto the place. (Had some Muscovy ducks at one time; but they fly too well to keep safe.)

There isn't a single breed that will do both jobs well. If they are large enough and fast growing they will not lay very many eggs. If they lay a lot of eggs they will not be a good eating bird.
If you don't really need a lot of eggs and don't mind eating smaller tougher birds you might be able to find a breed that will do.

In the past I have favored Buff Orpingtons for layers and Cornish for meat. This year someone gave us some young Barred Rocks and I was thinking maybe we could switch over to one breed and use them for both meat and eggs. We butchered a few this week and the meat was pretty tough. I have never heard of Freedom Rangers, I'll check that out, but I may just stick with my Buffs and then separately have Cornish for meat.

Is anyone raising Delawares? I understand they were the commercial meat bird before the cornish x, and that they are also good layers and easy to have around.

We're getting ready to switch out our flock to Black Australorps in hopes of having a dual-purpose flock. We almost went with one of the Buff Varieties... but chose the Australorps because they were bred for the harsh climate of the Australian outback... which seems to be not too different from our climate here in the high desert of Northern Arizona.

Never heard of Delawares, I'll check those out, too.

Byexample...please excuse my stupidity, but, by harsh climate do you mean extreme heat, or do they also do well in cold weather?

Buff orphingtons here. Large enough, great egg layers, good sitters and gentle with the grandson.

I've found the cuckoo marans to be a good choice for a dual purpose bird. 5 eggs a week, and they grow fairly well. I've got 2 young roos right now that are getting on my nerves and are MORE than big enough at 5 months to dress out at 5lbs. The 2month old roos are looking to be about 2lbs dressed out. MIGHTY tender, tho.

One of the birds that has LONG been a meat/egg bird is the Plymouth Rock. White or barred..doesn't seem to matter. They're meaty, (rather narrow breast tho) and lay eggs like champs :)

Delawares are cool chickens! They do make good stewing birds once they are too old to lay, but I wouldn't call them a "meat" bird.

I tend to agree with Panch. I have tried several, and none of the laying type birds made real good eaters.

Do the freedom rangers lay green eggs? I have no experience with them, and have considered getting some soon. I like the idea of a meat chicken thats not a dead head.

A couple more good dual-purpose breeds that haven't been mentioned yet are Salmon Faverolles and Buckeyes. Also Wyandottes.

If you want to be able to breed your own replacements and are limited in space, dual-purpose breeds make more sense than keeping two breeds, one for eggs and one for meat. If you are hoping to have a closed flock, you'll need to keep at least three different lines of each breed you keep, meaning with one dual purpose breed, you'll need three roosters (and a spare or two, just in case). But if you have two breeds, you'll have to keep at least six roosters (and a couple of spares). That's a lot of extra birds to feed, and a lot of extra crowing! If you have plenty of space, keeping two breeds is certainly an option, though.

Kathleen

Turkens are pretty good multipurpose birds. They are not pretty to look at though.

I also like Buff Orpingtons and Welsummers...or a cross of the two. They grow reasonably fast and reasonably large.

I'm about to have 3 Delaware "promised pullets" (ha ha!) butchered. Last year we ate another D "hen" days after "she"began crowing; though "she'd" only had laying feed (16%) and freeranged, "she" was very heavy and quite tasty. I'm growing Cornish X right now but would seriously consider raising Delaware roos--intentionally.

You all are giving me great tips. A fellow down the road gave us some Barred Rocks because he got too many this spring, so they were about 3-4 months old. Well, we cranked up the WhizBang Chicken Plucker and butchered them the other night. That was the toughest meat we've ever had...we're talking chain-saw material. And, yes, we are looking to be able to just raise our own meat and eggs without ordering meat chicks every year.

I'm not sure how well Delaware hens lay since I've never had one...did you age your birds in the fridge? Bill insists that we keep them chilled for 3 days before freezing them...all we had processed were tender...they were young but that might make a difference.

I love Delawares, Plymouth Rocks, Cucko marans, buff orpingtons....but none of them make as good of meat as the cornish crosses. YOu will have to change your taste buds a bit to get use to a different flavored meat with the dual purpose birds. They are good, but it is a different flavor to me. And not nearly the breast meat we are so used to.

As a big admirer of Harvey Ussery, I figured he would have researched this out so I got his choice: cuckoo marans as a combi meategg bird. He has silver spangled hamburgs to be broody and hatch and raise their chicks. Last spring I went to a seminar at Airlie in Warrenton where he was and was amazed that he, too, switched to Freedom Rangers. There are at least two articles about them in Backyard Poultry magazine. They were developed by a man in canada who went bust. They are a crossbreed so not standardized yet which accounts for irregularities. I forgot to ask harvey if they are broody. I am thinking that he wrote one of the BYP articles on freedom rangers. If so it will be on his website which no I can't give you the address of. Just google harvey ussery and boxwood and you can find it yourself!
I have been VERY happy with Black Australorps (which seem the friendliest) and some gold-laced wyandottes also.
And after you butcher them, they do go through the rigor mortis stage when if you cook them you need your chain saw. Best to chill and "rest" them in the refrigerator for three days before freezing them is what is generally recommended.

You can tenderize most chickens by penning them up for a couple of months in a small area and over feeding them.

I second that! Marans have been our best dual purpose breed too and we have tried all of the standard heavy breeds at one time or another. I also really like Speckled Sussex, they make a nice meat chicken and they lay pretty well too.

A really easy fix for that is to leave them in the fridge for at least 3-4 days after butchering and then brine them in salt water for several hours before cooking them. We never eat anything the same day we butcher. :) Also freezing them breaks down some of the toughness too.

I like Rhode Island Reds they a good layers and give large eggs.

RenieB

We get lots of extremes here. Heat, cold, wind, sun, low humidity, regular drought, etc.. The highest temp I've seen here in the last 6 years is about 106F. And the lowest I've seen is -12F (although the record is something like -40F!). We get about (on average) 80% of our precipitation from July 15 - August each year -- although that varies widely.

So many of the popular breeds of chickens seem to have been developed in Europe and New England. And our climate here is nothing like the Eastern part of the US. From my reading and research our climate here more resembles some aspects of Australia and/or Africa. The Australorps simply impressed me as a hardier breed (based solely on research).

So far we've worked with White Leghorns, RIRs, and Buff Orpingtons - each of which have really nice traits. Love the Leghorns for egg production... but don't care for their personalities at all. Way too excitable and difficult to handle. LOVE the Reds for their personality. If I wanted a chicken for a pet it would certainly be a RIR. Buffs are so far my favorite chicken. Fairly calm and able to be handled as necessary with a nice size. And I like that many of them will still sit, hatch, and raise chicks.

We just recently had our first homestead-hatched chicks (Buffs) and we've been thrilled. They are very different than the chicks we've ordered, brooded and raised without a momma.

Can't wait to see how I like the Australorps. I'm looking for the right breed for our needs and this environment... although I concede that I may have to play with crosses to arrive at the results I'm looking for.

Great discussion. Thanks to all participating.

This really has been a great discussion and I have learned more than I hoped. I never knew about resting the chicken in the refrigerator before freezing. Thank you all, so much!

Byexample...I just realized you are "Patrick and Mel", which is what I have your website bookmarked as...For quite sometime I have studied some of your homestead designs, specifically your Passive Solar Greenhouse. You inspire me!

I just bought a small flock of Delawares as my homestead breed. They are a mix of hatchery and breeder stock, but the adult hens were laying about an egg a day before the shake up of moving, and I'm pretty impressed with the 4 month old roo. He is BIG, but a lot of it is height. I think he would be pretty good in the pot, though. :)

I posted a picture of them in my blog if you want to check them out. I'm happy so far. :)

Edited to add that some of the things that attracted me to Dels is that they are said to be very cold hardy, and the people up here that raise them tell me they keep laying through the winter. They also sell well, especially if you work to maintain a herd that is both dual-purpose and somewhat meets the standard. They're very attractive and personable birds, as well.

The Freedom Rangers, from JM Hatchery, are primarily used as a meat bird. They take a little bit longer to grow out than the Cornish but they have a higher survival rate, are not so lethargic, are active and engaged with their surroundings, and are yummy. They are from the genetics used in the Label Rouge breeding program in France.

If you are looking for the best overall efficiency, as in food costs matters to you then you would probably be better off using Freedom Rangers for your meat birds and either a White Leghorn or Golden Comet etc for your egg producers.

I've not seen our's lay anything yet but I've read they lay brown eggs.

English Sussex,
Good egg layers and great on the table.
The roos, when made into copans are just to die for on the table.

Light Bramas are used here as dual purpose birds. The hens have a nice meaty breast. I have not found tough meat yet with them. They also lay nice big brown eggs. The Roo's are very docile, have not found a mean one yet. The hens will go Broody and hatch their own chicks.

We got a brahma in our last order as the extra exotic chick and she has hatched out 2 clutches of eggs so far this Summer. We will definitely order a few more.

We let some of our hens live and at 18 weeks they started laying eggs. They are great layers, often laying double yokes. Some of the eggs were huge. Free range well and are very nice birds. Good temperment.

They are used primarily as a meat bird, but we have been very happy with them as layers.