Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens (4 page)

LAYER BREEDS

The most efficient layers are small bodied and flighty.

Commercial brown-egg hybrids lay nearly as well as Leghorn-based strains and are not as flighty, because they’re derived from breeds in the American classification, which tend to be more laid-back than the Mediterraneans. A popular brown-egg strain is the Hubbard Golden Comet, a buff-colored bird called “the brown-egg layer that thinks like a Leghorn.” You can expect 180 to 240 eggs per year from a commercial-strain brown-egg layer.

Purebred brown-egg layers generally lay fewer eggs than commercial hybrids but still lay respectably enough for a backyard flock. Shell color ranges from pale tan to dark brown. The darkest eggs come from Barnvelders, Marans, Pendesencas, and Welsummers, although none of these breeds lays spectacular numbers of eggs.

Many breeds originally developed for laying did quite well in their time, but their laying abilities don’t stack up to the production rate of scientifically bred modern strains. Then, too, many breeds that once had superior laying abilities are now bred for exhibition, where production is less important than appearance and therefore not high on the list of traits considered necessary for breeding-stock selection. If you have your heart set on a fancy breed that doesn’t lay well, your options are to look for a strain bred for production as well as appearance (which is rare), expand your flock to obtain the requisite number of eggs (requiring the expense of more space and feed), or develop your own laying strain (an option that may take years but could be fun as well as rewarding).

The most efficient laying breeds all tend to be nervous or flighty. Kept in small numbers in uncrowded conditions, with care to avoid stress (such as being chased by dogs or children) and extra time spent ensuring their comfort around people, these breeds can work fine in a backyard setting.

After a few years, layers become
spent
, meaning they slow down in production. At that point they don’t have much meat on their bones, since their energy has been concentrated on laying. A good layer fleshes out slowly and never would have made a good meat bird in the first place. If your poultry interest leans toward grilled chicken, consider a meat breed instead.

People who raise chickens for meat enjoy better-tasting, more healthful, and safer poultry than is generally available at the supermarket. Any healthy chicken may be prepared for dinner, although some breeds are more suited to meat production than others. Efficient meat strains share four characteristics:

They grow and feather rapidly.

They reach target weight in minimum time.

They are broad breasted.

They have white feathers for clean picking.

The more quickly a bird grows to butchering weight, the more tender it is and the cheaper it is to raise. The most efficient meat strains were developed from a cross between Cornish and an American breed, such as New Hampshire or Plymouth Rock. The 1- to 2-pound (0.5 to 0.9 kg) Cornish hen (as a commercial marketing ploy sometimes called a Cornish game hen, even though it’s not a game breed) is nothing more than a 4-week-old Rock-Cornish hybrid. A commercial meat bird eats just 2 pounds of feed for each pound of weight gained. A hybrid layer, by comparison, eats three to five times as much for the same weight gain.

MEAT BREEDS

Meat breeds are broad breasted and tend to be more laid-back than layers; Shamos, although friendly with people, are aggressive among themselves and toward other chicken breeds.

Raising a hybrid meat flock is a short-term project. You buy a batch of Cornish-cross chicks, feed them to butchering age, dispatch them into the freezer, and enjoy the fruits of your labor for the rest of the year. Since these birds aren’t around long, performance as a meat bird (the ability to grow quickly on the least possible amount of feed) takes precedence over appearance.

Purebreds are not as efficient as hybrids at converting feed to meat, but some are heavy bodied enough to make respectable meat birds. Because of their slower growth, their meat is more flavorful than that of a fast-growing hybrid. Breeds originally developed for meat include Brahma, Cochin, and Cornish. Although the Jersey Giant grows to be the largest of all breeds, it does not make an economical meat bird because it first puts growth into bones, then fleshes out, reaching 6 months of age before yielding a significant amount of meat. Many backyard chicken keepers, regardless of their chosen breed or purpose in having them, hatch an annual batch of chicks and put the extra cockerels into the freezer.

If you want the best of both worlds — eggs and meat — you have two choices: keep a year-round laying flock and raise a batch of meat birds on the side or compromise by keeping one dual-purpose breed. Dual-purpose chickens don’t lay as well as laying hens and don’t grow as fast or as big as meat birds, but they lay better than meat birds and grow faster and larger than laying hens.

Dual-purpose breeds
are the classic backyard chickens. Their chief advantage over a laying breed is that young excess males and spent layers are full breasted and otherwise have an appreciable amount of meat on their bones. Their advantage over a meat breed is that the hens lay a reasonable number of eggs for the amount of feed they eat.

DUAL-PURPOSE BREEDS

Dual-purpose breeds are ideal for family self-sufficiency because they lay better than meat breeds and grow bigger than layer breeds.

Most breeds in the American and English classifications are dual-purpose, although many others, including some of the breeds typically considered ornamental, are equally suitable for this purpose. Among these dual-purpose breeds, some are slightly more efficient at producing eggs, while others grow bigger and tend to go broody, tilting them more toward use as meat birds over layers. These characteristics vary not only from breed to breed, but from strain to strain within the same breed. As among egg-laying breeds, dual-purpose strains developed for show are generally prettier than they are useful.

A few hybrids have been developed as efficient dual-purpose birds. The most popular of these hybrids are the Black Sex Link and the Red Sex Link (so-called because the chicks’ sex may be determined by the color of their down). The Red Sex Link lays about 250 eggs a year. The Black Sex Link lays slightly fewer but larger eggs and weighs 1 pound (0.5 kg) more at maturity. If your purpose in keeping a dual-purpose flock is for self-sufficiency and to that end you plan to hatch your own future replacement chicks, hybrids are not the way to go, since they do not breed true.

Some breeds are inherently more self-reliant than others. Chickens that have been bred in confinement for generations are generally less aggressive foragers than breeds that have been allowed to exercise their foraging instinct. In the South, for example, you commonly see Old English Games wandering along country lanes. As the closest domesticated kin to the ancient wild jungle fowl, they are not as plump or prolific as the dual-purpose breeds but compensate by being almost entirely maintenance free.

Breeds that are not aggressive foragers, or should not be required to forage, include those with heavy leg feathering or large crests. Leg feathers inhibit scratching the ground to turn up food. Crests offer head protection in cold weather but inhibit vision, making crested breeds easier prey. Crests are also known to freeze in wet winter weather. In freezing weather, breeds with tight combs such as cushion, pea, or rose cope with the cold better than breeds with large single combs. If you plan to pasture your birds, choose a breed suitable for your prevailing climate.