Well, I have been reading my chicken books. I have been searching on the Internet and I have narrowed my chickens down to the following breeds.
This handsome fellow is a Rhode Island Red.
They are a duel breed. Meaning that that they are used both for eggs and meat. I have gotten conflicting information on then though. Some say that the hens will go broody and some say that they hardly ever go broody. Broody meaning that the hens will lay and hatch the eggs ( be a good mama)
This is a Barred Plymouth Rock. They are also a duel breed.
The information I have found on this one is that they will go broody.
Both breeds are hearty breeds that do good in northern states. Both lay brown eggs.
I have been asked why I don't go for 2 breeds. One just for laying and one just for meat. Well, the layers really lay eggs and the meat one get real big. I don't want a chicken that when it goes to the chicken ranch in the sky to be weighing in at 7 or 8 lbs! That's a lot of chicken! Some of the meat chickens get so large that they can not walk cause the get so big. That's a lot of dry breast meat.
The breeds that lay a lot of eggs? I can sell the eggs but I want to get about 25 chickens and if they are layers I will have eggs coming out my ears and the layer breeds tend not to go broody. My big chicken plan is to send about 20 of them in the fall to the chicken ranch in the sky and only keep maybe 5 over winter ( and a rooster ) and see if a few of the hens will go broody and have chicks.
I also plan on letting all my chickens be free range. I have been told by some that if I do that then the meat will be tough. But I have ate a lot of tough moose meat and I can't see how a chicken that's only 3 or 4 months old can get tougher then moose meat! It's all a learning curve.
I just like the ideal of chickens running around the yard eating bugs and stuff.
Anybody out there in blog land that has some chickens and has information that they think I should know about? Speak out and let me know.
I think the dual breeds is the way to go too. That's what I plan someday too. So, now I want to hear about the two nubian goats you got? I'm sorry I was so busy today, I never got back to you.
ReplyDeleteHey Krissy, My nephew raised chickens here in Anchorage. He had a lot that laid brown, but some laid white, green and I believe blue. I will check with Garrett on some of his breeds.
ReplyDeleteJanice
My grandparents raised both types of chickens. They also had a solid black hen that laid pale blue eggs. I don't know what sort of chicken she was, but "Blackie" (wasn't I an original 4 yr old?- lol) was my pet and she lived to the ripe old age of about 12.
ReplyDeleteI support both breeds you picked. I would completely trust my grandparents' choices and would pick the same if I had chickens.
Hi Krissy, just a couple of things to mention....
ReplyDeleteFriends raised the dual purpose birds, they were the Barred Rock. They were terrible to pluck, they have black pin feathers, which are the dickens to get out....they did it once and then moved to the white meat birds.
There is no reason you couldn't just butcher the meat birds at a younger age, if you don't want them to be so big. You could also order just pullets (they will be smaller at butcher time than the cockerels)
Enjoy your layers! Hope you'll put up pictures! And, if you do end up with too many eggs, don't forget that you could always cook them up and feed them back to the hens....goats probably too, tho I don't know for sure.
Cheers
Annie
PS You've got goats already? Pics please!
We just had plain ole white chickens (no roosters). If they quit laying or got too old to fry/bake they were then used as "stewers". We let them have free range in hayfield in summer but always had to round them up at night and lock up due to coyotes etc... I forget what kind of chickens the "Easter Chickens" are that lay the colored eggs. With the coyotes, foxes, skunks, racoons etc we have around here, having chickens not worth it for us. Would like to get a couple peacocks tho' - friends who have them said they would do fine as there are lots of pine trees for them to next in and get away from critters.
ReplyDeleteOh the good ole days of the fire pit in back yard, 5 gallon bucket of boiling water and dunking/plucking chickens with stinky feathers stuck all over ya!!!
Been seeing 6 cow elk below the house this past week - dang, one of them should have been in our freezer last fall!!!
Ameraucanas.
ReplyDeletehttp://ameraucana.org/scrapbook.html
Goats? You got some Nubians?
To All. I don't have the goats yet. A lady at the church I go to breeds and shows Nubians. She says that she will give me 2 of them. Females. I will be able to breed them to her buck at a later date. The one hitch is that they test positve for CEA. It's a goat virus so I'm learing about that.
ReplyDeleteAnnie, thanks for the info in the plymouth chickens. I dont wnat no plucking problems! As kids my dad had us plucking ducks and geese. I want a easy plucker!
Colorful CO, that makes me laugh! You have color in CO? In a drought? Ha, you know I think that Co is brown!
I wouldn't advise getting just the meat chickens, we had so many problems with them, and they got so fat they couldn't even walk!
ReplyDeleteThe dual breed is the way to go. We had both Rh Reds and Barred Rocks. I liked both. The barred rocks I thought were so pretty with there black and white pattern, but a little more shy than Reds. You could get some of both.
We have to go through our chicken stuff and then I'll you know what we have. We'll be glad to see it put to use.
Oh, free range is good, just to know they love sratching up loose dirt, so sometimes flower/garden plants when they are small might have a tendancy to get buried if a chicken has to the urge to forage for grubs by new plants. That was one thing I just hated about having chickens. They were always in my flower bed!