American Bresse as Market Chicken

[Phunktacular]

Is anybody using the American Bresse chicken to sell as whole or pieced out at Farmers Markets? Everybody that I'm aware of who sells chicken at the market raises cornish cross. I'm curious if anybody is having any luck with a more heritage breed of bird. If you're not selling Cornish Cross or Ranger bird, what breed are you selling?

Thanks

 

[mandelyn]

There are some folks doing that, but not very many. I know someone in TX who's getting $22/lb for breast meat, or $19/lb whole. Some with restaurant agreements elsewhere, prices all over the board depending on the area/scale.

We raise them for ourselves and another large family, that's all we can keep up with.

There's a HUGE range in growth rate, fleshing, yields, etc, depending on the genetics. Some grow fast, others don't. Some sellers are putting out small, narrow birds. So you want to source your stock carefully and get them from someone breeding them for their table traits.

How they're fed/finished makes a difference in growth and their final fat content, to maximize their genetic potential. They do best on a high protein feed with a good amino acid profile in the Lysine and Methionine.

We've been breeding ours with a focus on growth rate, fleshing, body width and it's taken 7 generations to get a more consistent carcass like this, between 15-18 weeks for cockerels. This one was 18 weeks, enjoyed him for Christmas dinner.

But early on, we had to do a lot of breeding work and eat our way through a whole lot of birds like the one on the left, while we dialed in the width and body structure. They'll grow as meaty as their frame allows.

There's a lot that goes into raising good ones. I weigh chicks as they grow and handle them for getting a feel for their fleshing, selecting out those that grew consistently, meaty, good frames for potential breeding stock. When the pullets start laying, I look for them to weigh a minimum of 5lbs, since growth essentially stops/slows when laying begins. Then we monitor rate of lay and egg size for their first 6 months of lay, before doing the final pick for breeding females.

In the males, I avoid thick legs and heavy bone, those tend to grow much slower and flesh in much later on, which reduces the feed conversion and drives the cost to grow up. I avoid overly tall birds as well, the more compact, shorter legged birds grow faster. The profit potential reduces after 16 weeks of age, they keep eating a bunch but with slower gains.

Here's an example of width, the pullet on the left is a much better breeding choice than the more narrow pullet on the right. The females tend to hold the most impact on the growth of the offspring and their type. Their body structure impacts their body capacity, which also has an impact on their overall health and laying ability. The bird on the right is definitely a cull for poor structure.

How decent the carcass is would ultimately impact if they're "worth it" or not, for marketability. Being a sustainable purebred won't be enough, they have to be able to fill in the shrink bag well.

If I had a 2nd barn, on a bigger farm, I'd have a dedicated finishing space and a more rigid method for market birds. Our scale is so small that I spend most of my time learning about the breeding and experimenting with different methods to dial it in further. The fat development that they're capable of takes them to next level juiciness that I've not encountered in another breed yet. If I do 6 weeks of finishing, starting at 10 weeks old, that yielded a thick fat pad on cockerels that was similar to the fat an older hen can have. Like a "self buttering" bird that doesn't require added water when cooked inside a dutch oven. SO good! They've been worth all the effort for us.

 

[Brisephine]

There are some folks doing that, but not very many. I know someone in TX who's getting $22/lb for breast meat, or $19/lb whole. Some with restaurant agreements elsewhere, prices all over the board depending on the area/scale.

We raise them for ourselves and another large family, that's all we can keep up with.

There's a HUGE range in growth rate, fleshing, yields, etc, depending on the genetics. Some grow fast, others don't. Some sellers are putting out small, narrow birds. So you want to source your stock carefully and get them from someone breeding them for their table traits.

How they're fed/finished makes a difference in growth and their final fat content, to maximize their genetic potential. They do best on a high protein feed with a good amino acid profile in the Lysine and Methionine.

We've been breeding ours with a focus on growth rate, fleshing, body width and it's taken 7 generations to get a more consistent carcass like this, between 15-18 weeks for cockerels. This one was 18 weeks, enjoyed him for Christmas dinner.

View attachment 4021105
But early on, we had to do a lot of breeding work and eat our way through a whole lot of birds like the one on the left, while we dialed in the width and body structure. They'll grow as meaty as their frame allows.

View attachment 4021109

There's a lot that goes into raising good ones. I weigh chicks as they grow and handle them for getting a feel for their fleshing, selecting out those that grew consistently, meaty, good frames for potential breeding stock. When the pullets start laying, I look for them to weigh a minimum of 5lbs, since growth essentially stops/slows when laying begins. Then we monitor rate of lay and egg size for their first 6 months of lay, before doing the final pick for breeding females.

In the males, I avoid thick legs and heavy bone, those tend to grow much slower and flesh in much later on, which reduces the feed conversion and drives the cost to grow up. I avoid overly tall birds as well, the more compact, shorter legged birds grow faster. The profit potential reduces after 16 weeks of age, they keep eating a bunch but with slower gains.

Here's an example of width, the pullet on the left is a much better breeding choice than the more narrow pullet on the right. The females tend to hold the most impact on the growth of the offspring and their type. Their body structure impacts their body capacity, which also has an impact on their overall health and laying ability. The bird on the right is definitely a cull for poor structure.

View attachment 4021127

How decent the carcass is would ultimately impact if they're "worth it" or not, for marketability. Being a sustainable purebred won't be enough, they have to be able to fill in the shrink bag well.

If I had a 2nd barn, on a bigger farm, I'd have a dedicated finishing space and a more rigid method for market birds. Our scale is so small that I spend most of my time learning about the breeding and experimenting with different methods to dial it in further. The fat development that they're capable of takes them to next level juiciness that I've not encountered in another breed yet. If I do 6 weeks of finishing, starting at 10 weeks old, that yielded a thick fat pad on cockerels that was similar to the fat an older hen can have. Like a "self buttering" bird that doesn't require added water when cooked inside a dutch oven. SO good! They've been worth all the effort for us.

Such good info, thank you! I recently learned about them for dual purpose and have been considering trying it out. I'm new to meat birds or even considering breeding for sustainable meat so I appreciate your insight with selecting birds to keep and cull. Did you get yours from one source? Or have you tried different breeders to try and find better birds?

 

[mandelyn]

Or have you tried different breeders to try and find better birds?

I've been selectively breeding from our originals (2nd Greenfire import line) for 8 years now and have experimented with other sources. The most correct so far, of the larger scale operations, came from Recreational Homestead in Michigan.

Of all that we've brought in, I only ever ended up using 1 or 2 birds for breeding, to help fix traits that our originals were lacking in, like whiter earlobes or fuller/lower tails, since I spent so much time on structure and growth rate.

The Recreational Homestead birds didn't quite have the structure or fleshing that ours did, but they wouldn't have been a bad place to start a flock from.

The breed is highly variable from one source to the next. The growth rate can vary by as much as 50% and it's evident as early as 8 weeks old. Bresse Farms tends to have the smallest. Northstar Farms is all over the board.

Greenfire Farms brought over a new line and so far I've heard good things about them but haven't tried the new line yet. I'm waiting on a couple of friends to get them grown out and the extra cockerels processed, to see the dressed results.

There's a LOT of folks breeding/selling, more than before, and a lot of them are new to chickens. So variable quality will likely persist, but that's true in all breeds.