Heritage breed that has a decent amount of breast meat?

[777funk]

After raising chickens for 6 years now from CX meat birds to chickens as pets in the yard. I reached a point where I'd like for them to make sense financially. I was sort of fed up with ordering the meat hybrids and paying as much as a store bird (4lb bird for $4-5) and having to do the work myself.

So I had planned to just raise heritage breeds and butcher all unwanted roosters about the time they start crowing. I did the math on this and it also does not make sense. I can't handle the toughness of the hind quarters (by tough, I mean steak knife for a crock pot cooked bird) so I just pitch them back to the animals with the guts when cleaning a bird. ALL I keep is the breast meat. This makes for a fast cleaning session, but... it means that I have $5 of feed for a measly 1lb of meat. And this is free ranging for 2/3 of the bird's feed intake. Financially, it would make sense to just cull off any cockerel chicks and not bother wasting feed on them. I consider myself too much of a farmer and too little of a business person for this type of practice (not that I'm opposed to it for those who do so)... but moving on.

I've tried:
-Barred Rock, Buff Orpinton, Delaware, Rhode Island Red, and I'm sure a few more. All seem to have a similar narrow breasted carcass with tough drumsticks at ages with any size to them.

I'd like to try:
1. Jersey Giants
2. Breese (just learned of these tonight)
3. Freedom Rangers

Is there a heritage breed that has a better amount of breast meat at 20 weeks (maybe 2# for the $5 of feed I have into the bird)?

 

[All4Eggz]

I have some jersey giants. They have a good amount of breast meat - definitely more than barred rocks or orpingtons.

I would not kill the little cockerel chicks if I were you.. If you really want to get rid of them - sell them or give them away. Give them a chance

 

[777funk]

I have some jersey giants. They have a good amount of breast meat - definitely more than barred rocks or orpingtons.

I would not kill the little cockerel chicks if I were you.. If you really want to get rid of them - sell them or give them away. Give them a chance

You'll note, that's exactly what I was saying in my post. From a business stand point, culling would make sense. But from a farmer's standpoint (one who is connected to the animals as a caretaker), I could't bring myself to do that.

I'm sure hatcheries (who truly are running a business) have to do this as part of their own survival (as a business). I would do the same if I couldn't give them away or sell them. What else could they do as much of a bummer as it is. They'd be swimming in chicks in just a day or two much less letting it go on for the long term. It's very hard to even give away roosters around here.

But I'm not in the place of having a logistics issue (swimming in cockerel chicks with nowhere to go). I would however like to make the roosters a little more efficient monetarily vs what I'm now paying to feed them long enough to process ($5/lb before factoring in losses to predators etc).

I will look into Jersey Giants.

 

[Molpet]

Jg take a long time to fill out.
Standard Cornish have the biggest breast of all the heritage breeds. They are half of the CX mix. They also are a slow growing breed. But finding a good line is difficult.

As far as tough legs, I pressure cooked a 2 year old roo for over 2 hours and he was fork tender and tasted great. Not sure if you have tried that yet.

I kept a CX pullet , restricted feed and lots of exercise, and bred her to a random mix roo. She laid the first fall and died before she started again in spring. Cockerels from the descendents, dress out around 6 lbs at 16 weeks. With large breasts.

 

[Egghead_Jr]

You should try an actual breeder bird. You say "heritage" but I get the feeling you are purchasing hatchery birds. Make no mistake, hatchery birds and breeder stock are night and day different. It's possible to get 3.5 lbs dress weights when the birds are still 12-14 week tender age with breeder stock.

It's still going to cost more, feed to meat, than cornish X. There is no way around this. If your feed and chick costs is too much for your effort then it will be more so for any other option. The difference is you can hatch your own and recapture feed costs in selling extra pullets.

Historically Brahma were a good option for 12 week butchering. Great winter layers though not as many eggs for year total. Being ornate would have decent pullet market.

New Hampshire are an excellent all round dual purpose bird. Fast growth, good layers and not a large adult bird so less in feed to maintain adults. Breeder stock are much more interesting to look at than the plain looking hatchery birds but perhaps not great resale.

Obviously there are more breeds with Buckeye being a top contender too but it comes down to the stock you can obtain and what resale market is in your area. You want to do some research and get the best stock you can. Plymouth Rock are fair, I can get 5 lbs + live weight at 13 weeks of age but they are lanky. Wyandotte are more proportional at slaughter age and a smaller adult bird than the Rocks. Quality Wyandotte pullets would sell well anywhere as long as that market isn't already filled in your area.

 

[Tre3hugger]

I nominate New Hampshires from Henry Noll Line. I am processing a few this week. This is m first go around with them but they have exceeded expectations. See details here.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/my-attempt-at-a-dual-purpose-heritage-flock.1489689/

 

[Egghead_Jr]

I read that thread Tre3hugger. I know you purchased New Hampshires but those weights on your birds are definitely Freedom Ranger. The hatchery you purchased from sell both.

"TLDR: 10 week old heritage NH cockerels weighing in at about 7 lbs. Pullets 5lbs."

No heritage chicken will have those weights at that age. You have the Freedom Ranger hybrid.

 

[All4Eggz]

Upper 50s (F), VERY humid. Fall is coming!

 

[nicalandia]

Dark Cornish have the biggest breast muscles. Only second to production type lines

 

[U_Stormcrow]

I'm questioning your inputs. For the vast majority of us, our scale ensures we can not compete with the stores on an economic basis. That's regardless of breed chosen. My own experience with free ranging suggests a trade off is occuring - what I save in feed costs is partially offset by increased activity of the birds, and thus both slower weight gain (meaning longer time to a given target weight, and thus more total feed) *AND* more flavorful meat (with greater chew).

If there were a more perfect answer, not only would the majority of us be doing it, but the commercial facilites would be doing it too, at scale.

The only time I've seen people "break even" on small operations is when they lie to themselves, or they have some combination of low feed costs (i.e. I have a local mill providing good quality feed at under $0.28/lb) and high valuation of the final product (several $/lb). If you are judging value of your end result at $1.29/lb, you need to be under $0.50/lb feed costs with a feed efficency better than 2.3 FCR. [ /edit actually, you need a better FCR than that, since your yield will only be about 70% of live weight). Those numbers are individually pretty easy to hit, if you aren't buying 50# bags of Purina/Nutrena feed at the local farm store, you only look at cockerels, you pick the right breeds, you have no losses, hatch your own, have no equipment or maintenance costs, and pay no labor.

I know that's not an answer, but I think you would benefit by going thru all your figures again, see where you are best able to "bend the curve" based on local conditions. (finding good feed at great cost was how I finally made it work - but to be fair, I have to consider the cost of feeding all the hens that provide replacement stock, but don't end up in the pot themselves, which severely impacts my overall flock FCR - offset by average egg production for consumption). Its a delicate balance, with low margins, even in the best of situations.

For what its worth, I have a "culling project" going, early losses are going to my start up costs as investment and consuming virtually all of my "entertainment" budget. I'm already looking at what I might bring in for refresher genetics in Spring, 2023, but as I'm making progress still with my starting stock (honestly, that was a VERY low bar), maintaining biosecurity of the flock is more important than new genetics right now, where allowing backbreeding provides me some distinct benefits.

/edit and as I look at buying another 500# of feed tomorrow, I'm going back thru all of my numbers, to see if losses are still in the acceptable monthly range.