Flyboy,
You won't be able to have a sustainable flock of meat birds as folks have discussed above.
The slow white broilers described by HaikuHeritageFarm, and the white rocks sound good and may be the route for you. From my limited experience, if you're looking for a good meat bird for a suburban setting I'll recommend Freedom Rangers . I've just started raising my second batch of 25 (splitting with a neighbor). We raised them last spring and after growing out for just under 12 weeks, stocked the freezer with 5 - 6 lb birds. the roos were just starting their first feeble crowing when we sent them off to freezer camp. We got a late start on this fall's batch or I was planning to grow out the hens and let them get to about 8- 9 lbs before butchering.
IMHO this hybrid breed is a good compromise as it takes longer to grow out than the standard Cornish Cross (CX) meat bird (7 - 8 weeks) but only about half the time of the standard heritage dual purpose and meat breeds (20 - 24 weeks). They free range but aren't nearly as adventurous as our hens (see our breeds below) and are also relatively docile.
If you do some searching around here you'll find plenty of info.
Good luck!
-DB
You won't be able to have a sustainable flock of meat birds as folks have discussed above.
The slow white broilers described by HaikuHeritageFarm, and the white rocks sound good and may be the route for you. From my limited experience, if you're looking for a good meat bird for a suburban setting I'll recommend Freedom Rangers . I've just started raising my second batch of 25 (splitting with a neighbor). We raised them last spring and after growing out for just under 12 weeks, stocked the freezer with 5 - 6 lb birds. the roos were just starting their first feeble crowing when we sent them off to freezer camp. We got a late start on this fall's batch or I was planning to grow out the hens and let them get to about 8- 9 lbs before butchering.
IMHO this hybrid breed is a good compromise as it takes longer to grow out than the standard Cornish Cross (CX) meat bird (7 - 8 weeks) but only about half the time of the standard heritage dual purpose and meat breeds (20 - 24 weeks). They free range but aren't nearly as adventurous as our hens (see our breeds below) and are also relatively docile.
If you do some searching around here you'll find plenty of info.
Good luck!
-DB
