dual-purpose bird feed conversion ratios?

[Puck-Puck]

Hello!

I've been lurking on the Meat Bird forum, planning to experiment with growing birds for meat next year, and I'm wondering if anyone can tell me the approximate feed conversion ratio of any of the following dual-purpose birds: RIR, Barred/Plymouth/Columbia Rock, Orpington, Brahma. (These are ones I can get hold of.) I know that if all goes well, Cornish crosses can do 2:1. But with the dual purpose birds, is it more like 3:1 or 4:1? I also know that dual purpose birds grow more slowly, but time is not an issue for me.

Thank you for any help you can provide.

 

[Harp Turkey Ranch]

I would say that the dual purpose breeds are closer to 5:1 to 6:1 and they will take 16 weeks to get any size on them and they will not have much meat compared to a meaty. IMO

 

[nicalandia]

Quote:
close to 5 to 1 for Roosters...

 

[Puck-Puck]

Yikes! 5:1 ? I need to re-think this. Thanks for your input!

 

[nicalandia]

Quote:
hey why dont you do what I will be doing in the future? you see one of the big advantages Broilers have over standard DP breeds is Gluttony, they eat and eat and eat some more, I think this is one of the big factors of their weight gains, if you see other breeds they don´t eat that much, so in a period of 16 weeks the Broilers weight twice as much but I am almost shure they eat twice as much too...I want to test this in the future, maybe just introducing the Gluttony trait to a normal breed say RIR will improve their performance...

 

[Harp Turkey Ranch]

hey why dont you do what I will be doing in the future? you see one of the big advantages Broilers have over standard DP breeds is Gluttony, they eat and eat and eat some more, I think this is one of the big factors of their weight gains, if you see other breeds they don´t eat that much, so in a period of 16 weeks the Broilers weight twice as much but I am almost shure they eat twice as much too...I want to test this in the future, maybe just introducing the Gluttony trait to a normal breed say RIR will improve their performance...

This is not true. The broilers actually eat less food per lb gained then any other chicken. How can this be one asks ??? Well a broiler just eats twice as fast as a normal chicken does. On a broiler you can get a 5 lb bird on 10lbs of food and on a regular bird you can get a 5 lb bird on 25lbs of feed or so. The broilers actually use their feed more efficient then a normal bird does as far as weight gain goes.​

 

[nicalandia]

Quote:
I am NOT arguing that my friend..

All I said was: broilers eat and eat and eat some more,while a standard breed wont be as Glutton...you know what I am talking about, mix broilers with other breeds, the broilers fall asleep in their feed and the other breeds dont...so if one introduce the Gluttony trait to the standard breeds the breed´s weight gain performance should go up..