Old Fashioned On Purpose

S15: E9: My Half-Baked Plan to Never Buy Chickens Again

• Jill Winger • Season 15 • Episode 9

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For several years, I’ve been asking myself… how can we close our chicken loop? And by that, I mean how can I reduce the outside inputs in our home food production. It's easier said than done when it comes to livestock, BUT I've hatched a new plan for our chicken operation and I'm excited to share it with you. 

Listen in to hear me answer the question: "What is the BEST dual-purpose breed?" along with the breed I decided upon and how I plan to close our chicken loop once and for all (maybe).

Podcast Episode Highlights

  • How I've been successful on the homestead in "closing the loop"
  • Why I have been reinspired to figure out how to close the loop with chickens
  • The challenges I have had so far with closing the loop with chickens
  • Step #1: Find a dual-purpose chicken breed
  • Step #2: Get better at hatching eggs
  • Step #3: Adjust our personal expectations when it comes to meat birds
  • My wish list for a dual-purpose breed
  • The top dual-purpose breeds I learned about
  • Final thoughts on finding the "perfect" chicken

Resources Mentioned in This Podcast Episode:

Learn more about Meal Craft here: https://mealcraftmethod.com/meal-craft-main177846-9453

My podcast chat with Kate from Venison for Dinner about closing the loop: https://www.theprairiehomestead.com/tph_podcasts/s4-e3-closing-the-loop-with-dairy-eggs-with-kate-schat-2

OTHER HELPFUL RESOURCES FOR YOUR HOMESTEAD:


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Speaker 1:

For several years now, I've really been intrigued by the idea of closing the loop in our home food production systems, and by that what I'm referring to is this idea of reducing the amount of inputs that I'm using on our homestead and trying to be completely self-sustaining Well, completely is a little bit of a misnomer but as self-sustaining as we can and not being quite so dependent on outside companies, the feed store, etc. So I've had some success on this in a number of different areas, primarily in the garden. So here are some examples, so you kind of know what I've been working on. Number one I've been trying to save more seeds in my garden not all the plants, because some are pretty tricky, but on the simpler ones, like the tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, squash, I've been saving those back. So it's reducing the amount of seeds I have to buy each year. Plus, it's allowing me to select for certain traits in my garden, whereas hopefully, after a couple of years of doing that, I'll start to have plants that are more suited for my climate. Another thing I've been doing is I have been really creatively shuttling seedlings around the homestead when I find volunteers, and so that has really allowed me to eliminate a lot of purchases at the garden store in the spring.

Speaker 1:

I've been doing this a lot with flowers. I'm not a huge flower person but I have some marigolds, a strain of marigolds I've been growing for a number of years and they are prolific, and I have a strain of calendulas that has converged. That I've been growing for a number of years, and they kind of pop up all over and so often they're in places I don't really want them. So I've been practicing really moving them around, transplanting them, putting them in pots, putting them in different places, and so this summer we had a lot of beautiful flowers that I paid $0 for. I've also been doing that with volunteer vegetables I found in my raised beds and in my greenhouse. I had some peppers pop up, some tomatoes pop up. I didn't really want them in those spots. So I've been just transplanting those and moving them around and it's amazing when you start to pay attention to what's coming up and not just pulling everything. I was able to fill a number of beds just with volunteer plants, which was kind of cool.

Speaker 1:

And then another way I've been closing the loop is to continue to really work on understanding cover crops and implement them more aggressively in my gardens, especially in the absence of dependable compost, and so I've talked about it before. I have some herbicide contamination I've been dealing with for a couple of years in my manure, which is really unfortunate. So instead of going to the store and buying nitrogen fertilizer to get that nitrogen level back up in my soil, I've been trying to use the cover crops. I've been trying to use some rabbit manure and some chicken manure and other options. So I'm not buying to help with my fertility, I'm just using those natural systems. So it's a process. I do it imperfectly, but I've really enjoyed just buying less from the feed store in the process.

Speaker 1:

All of that said, I have found that closing the loop with our livestock is a little bit trickier, especially when it comes to our chickens. Now, I had a conversation about this back in season four, episode three, with Kate from Venison for Dinner. She is brilliant with this concept and we talked about how she has really reduced the input she needs on her homestead with her chickens and I was so inspired by that and I was working to implement some of those ideas. But I kind of fell off the wagon since that conversation and so I went back to buying bagged feed at the store buying meat chicks, buying replacement hens, and it just felt like our chicken operation was requiring a lot of cash and not always making sense financially in the output. Now, sometimes that's just how homesteading goes, and I accept that because we're getting higher quality food, we're getting the quality of life. But the business woman's part of me still likes to know that you know it's somewhat cost effective or at least it's rational in what I'm putting in and what I'm getting out of it.

Speaker 1:

The other side of that is that, as we all know, back in 2020, a lot of these inputs were just not available. It was hard to find seeds, it was hard to find seeds, it was hard to find chicks, it was hard to find different types of feed in some areas, and so that independent streak that I have I've always had just can't abide by that. I want to know that if I have an operation, I'm not a sitting duck on different industries, I'm not dependent. I hate being dependent on anything and I would like to reduce that dependency. So, all of that to say, I've been re-inspired for a number of reasons, to really work on closing our chicken loop, and I'm titling this episode, my half-baked plan to never buy chicks again, because I probably will end up buying chicks again. But here's what I'm working on at this moment in time. I've done some different things. I want to share that with you today. I've done some research and I think this might be helpful for you on your homestead as well, if you are fascinated by this idea of closing the loop.

Speaker 1:

All right, so that was a long intro, but welcome to the Old Fashioned On Purpose podcast. I'm your host, jo Winger. On this show we'd like to talk about what we have left behind as we have raced towards progress as a culture and how we can get the good stuff back. So chickens are obviously a big part of homesteading. I like to joke and call it the gateway drug to homesteading. It's where most of us started. It's where most of us continue to play in this world of home poultry ownership. It's almost become a cliche over the years with backyard chickens and backyard chicken coops.

Speaker 1:

But what I really find is I mature into my homestead journey and I really like this phase. Honestly. I've talked about this before on previous episodes. But there's that honeymoon period of homesteading when you're just getting into it and everything's new and exciting and then you kind of settle into that more mature phase, I guess, if you will, where it's not quite everything's not quite as new and exciting, but you're able to start getting really strategic with what you like, what you don't like, what works and what doesn't work. And I'm really enjoying being in that phase now, because we've been doing this homestead thing for a long time, so I don't get Twitter pated really anymore when we bring home chicks. I remember those early years was so fun and so magical. Now it's a little bit more of a business relationship with the birds, but it's still just as rewarding in the end. So now we get to not just get chickens willy-nilly like we used to although we do that a little bit still potentially but now I'm working on becoming very strategic. So here's the challenges I have found that I have run into as I have attempted to close.

Speaker 1:

The chicken loop is what we're calling it today. So, number one hatching your own birds is a big part of that. A lot of people hatch successfully. There's lots of information online on hatching your own chicks, but it has a lot of variables and so you have to really be prepared. If you are going to hatch your own birds, you're going to have to become educated in that world. This is not something that you can kind of just completely fly by the seat of your pants on, not as much as you can in other homestead areas of knowledge.

Speaker 1:

And so honestly, I gave up hatching. I've had an incubator for years. We've tried it in the past, somewhat successfully, somewhat not. I gave up on it because I could not keep up with all of the details and the variables with the pace of our life, and so that was a big reason that I kind of just shoved this chicken loop conversation over to the side. That was rekindled a little bit this past spring when my son who's 11, he asked if he could hatch some goose eggs and I was like I don't think it's going to work. But I said, hey, buddy, go for it. And he figured it out. He watched the videos, he read the manual and he hatched goslings and then he went on to hatch chicks and in his excitement for learning how to use the incubator again, I kind of got excited again and we started learning together and figuring out some different little tips and tricks with that, and so now I'm starting to see that hatching our own can be a possibility once again. But again it's just something that takes some time to learn and you're going to have failed hatches and you're going to have things that happen that don't necessarily make sense at first glance, and you have to be ready for that.

Speaker 1:

The second challenge of closing the chicken loop is that the classic meat chicken that we all associate with a broiler is a hybrid. It's a Cornish cross. Now, I always this is my spiel it's not genetically modified folks, it is a hybrid. Everyone gets really weird about this breed. It's not an evil breed. There's nothing wrong if you want to raise this breed. We have raised many batches of Cornish cross.

Speaker 1:

Yes, they're a little weird. Yes, they're a product of modern breeding. They have giant breasts. Their legs don't work very well. They have a lot of missing chicken characteristics because they've just been bred for fast meat production. But that's honestly what a lot of our modern palates are accustomed to. We like lots of meat on the breast. We are looking for that texture and that size. So if that's what you have in your mind is a classic meat chicken, you can't breed those on your own very easily, like I don't know a single soul who does that. I think it's basically impossible unless you have a really big operation because they are a hybrid and they aren't going to hatch their own eggs right, and so there is that little bit of a roadblock there.

Speaker 1:

Challenge number three is that if we're going over to the laying breeds, the egg producers that we often think, you know, oh well, great grandma would go out and butcher a chicken before supper. You know she probably was culling her extra roosters or her old hens. They are not meaty like we think of a meat chicken in our modern times. They are just not the same. They're never going to be as meaty. You're not going to get that quantity that you may be expecting. Then it may not be as tender, especially if you're processing an older bird, and so that's another challenge. We have the meat birds that are a little bit different and weird in how they grow, but that's what we're used to. And then we have our laying breeds, which are not what we're used to, and a lot of people are turned off by them. So, no, it's not impossible to create a sustainable chicken system, but it definitely has those challenges that you have to keep in mind, and you have to be willing to give and take a little bit and maybe not expect perfection in this process.

Speaker 1:

So, knowing all of this, I have hatched pun intended a three-pronged strategy as we work to close our loop, and I've been working on this, thinking about this, for a couple months now and this is what I've come up with. So step number one my goal, is to find a dual purpose breed, a chicken that can do the meat and the eggs that we can hatch on our own right. So that way I'm not buying chicks. We can hatch those eggs, collect those eggs, hatch them and then we can process any extra roosters or any hens that are not desirable for our program. So I want to find that unicorn breed that will allow us to have good meat, good eggs and good hatching. So that's step one. Step two I want to get a lot better at hatching and my son is way better at it than I am. He's way more detail oriented. He's in there candling, he's got it on his calendar. He's watching the days when the goslings and the chicks hatched last spring. It was completely nonproductive because all of us were just captivated by the incubator Super fun, but I want to get our hatching rates a little bit higher. Captivated by the incubator Super fun, but I want to get our hatching rates a little bit higher.

Speaker 1:

And then step three is a big one that I think most modern folks could stand to adopt is we need to adjust our personal expectations when it comes to meat birds, and you know, my family is not really any different than any other modern family. We're used to the modern meat chicken and the way that meat looks and tastes and the quantity, and we need to start thinking of that in a different way in order to be okay with these dual purpose breeds. Because, like I said before, we're going to have to give and take. I'm not going to be able to. You know, if I'm going with a dual purpose breed, I'm not going to be able to have the perfect egg production and the perfect meat production as it stands and with my current setup, which requires so many outside inputs, I'm going to have to give a little on each of those fronts. So those three goals, those three steps, has really led me down a rabbit hole.

Speaker 1:

When I started asking the question okay, what is the best dual purpose chicken breed? And of course, as you can imagine, there's a bazillion different thoughts and opinions on that. I asked my Instagram followers one day on Instagram stories. You know what they like. And I got all sorts of answers, everything from you know, listing out the new trendy breeds, listing out the old standby breeds, and then a bunch of people saying it's not possible, don't even waste your time. So welcome to the internet. Right, lots of opinions.

Speaker 1:

But I did do a lot of research on this and I have a list for you today. I also did some impulse buying because that's how I roll with chickens and I'm going to share what I impulse bought and how that's going for me at this moment. And all that to say you could absolutely keep and hatch multiple breeds. You know you could have a strain of chicken that you're hatching. That's a meat strain. You could have a strain that's more of a layer. There's nothing wrong with that. I just know, with our operation and my limitations and I know my limitations I'll start things strong and it's hard to keep up long-term. And I know my limitations. I'll start things strong and it's hard to keep up long-term.

Speaker 1:

I am most intrigued by the idea of a single breed, just for the sake of efficiency. Also, just with how my pins and coops and runs are set up, having two isolated pins of breeding stock is going to be a little trickier for me. So I'd rather just have one breed that we really work on and we really work on improving, and we are breeding selectively and going from there. Okay, so here are my wish, this is my wishlist for a dual purpose chicken breed, and again, I'm going to give you my list of what I discovered here in a minute. But this is what I was really hunting for.

Speaker 1:

So, number one I want a chicken that still produces a solid number of eggs, so I don't need them to produce as much as a factory chicken or a leg-earned chicken. You know, those are the ones that you're going to see in those commercial operations that are just egg-laying machines. I kind of think of them in the same category as a Holstein cow. They have been so selectively bred just for maximum production. We sacrifice other characteristics. So I don't need 300 eggs a year per hen. I'm not selling my eggs, it's not my goal. But I also don't want to feed a flock of vanity chickens with just a few eggs a week or a few eggs a month, just to say I got an egg. I need a workhorse. That's reasonable in terms of egg production. Course, that's reasonable in terms of egg production.

Speaker 1:

Number two. What I'm looking for is a chicken that can reach butchering weight quickly-ish. Right, it doesn't have to grow at that same insane rate of growth as a Cornish cross, which is like eight weeks and they're falling over dead if you don't butcher them by then. Right, I don't need that speed. But I also would prefer a chicken that doesn't take six months to feed out, because you know what you get when you have that dynamic is a lot of feed costs and you have a $30 chicken or more and that gets a little pricey Now that my standard spiel here is homegrown food, nutritious food, local food is going to cost more than industrial food.

Speaker 1:

That is just something we have to accept for multiple reasons. But also there is a reasonableness that I try to find and that I can't have a $97 roast chicken to feed my family. That's like a little bit crazy, okay, crazy, okay. So another goal within that is I need the chicken to have enough meat on it. That's worthwhile.

Speaker 1:

Now, a couple years ago we tried raising freedom rangers. We raised them alongside Cornish cross. I made the mistake of butchering them, probably a little too early. I waited till 14, 15 weeks on the freedom Rangers and there just was hardly any meat on that bird, and so I understand that potentially, this dual purpose unicorn breed I'm looking for isn't going to look like a Cornish cross in terms of quantity, but I still need to have some meat on the bones, otherwise it just isn't worth my time. Right, I'm feeding a family of five. I'd like one chicken to feed them at least for a meal and not have to have several just for the sake of efficiency. All right, so all of that to say. My goals again are decent number of eggs, reasonable-ish grow out time and then a reasonable-ish amount of meat on the bird.

Speaker 1:

Here is what I found after research, reading and asking a bunch of people on the internet. Hey, friends, so I'm interrupting this episode for just a second to talk about something that I actually used to be really embarrassed about, so much so that I never talked about it publicly, and that is the fact that every summer, I would basically completely fall out of love with cooking, so much so that I just didn't want to do it anymore. And I was thinking that I was the only one who felt like that until recently, when I started to share my deep, dark secret online and I found out that many, many of you feel the same way. I think it's just because we have so much going on in the summers that it's just really hard to find that motivation to get in the kitchen and put food on the table. The problem is our people. Well, they still want to eat, unfortunately, so we still have to find ways to nourish them and ourselves in a cost-effective and healthy way. So I've been wrestling with this problem in my own life and for those of you for many years now, trying different things, experimenting with different ideas, and I finally have created something that I think may just help. I know it has helped me. It's called Meal Craft and it's not your typical meal planning system. Rather, it's a set of customizable frameworks that are endlessly flexible, based on what you have in your gardens, your pantries, your freezers, your larders. You don't have to go to the grocery store to do specific shopping trips or anything like that. We're just using what you have, which really is what homesteading is all about. So Mealcraft gives you four new frameworks each month and I'm personally having so much fun with these because they can be different every time Saves me a lot of money, it's reducing the leftovers and the waste that's coming out of my kitchen and it just makes it a lot more enjoyable. So if you'd like to join us over in Mealcraft over 600 of you have already joined the fun you can visit the link in the show notes to learn more. Now back to our episode.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so the number one breed that came up in conversations and that is really intriguing me right now is the American Brisse, and I'm probably pronouncing that wrong. I Googled it and listened to the pronunciation guide. It's a French word, it's B-R-E-S-S-E and for a long time I was calling it Bresse and that's wrong. It should rhyme with dress, I was informed. So, american Bresse, and this is a breed from France. It was imported a number of years ago and it's a lot of attention. I'm trying to figure out if it's catching that attention because it's really that amazing or it's just trendy. Tbd on that, still determining that exactly. But it came up a lot on the American Breasts website.

Speaker 1:

They call them a triple purpose chicken, which I love the sound of that, and they call them that because they are prolific egg layers approximately 250 eggs per year on average, which is on the high side, right. They are faster growing than some other dual-purposed breeds, so maybe a little bit faster than some of these other heritage heirloom guys and they have a super rich flavor. And they have a super rich flavor and honestly, this is interesting because the flavor is what is getting the most attention, which is not something we see a lot with chickens, but apparently they are so rich in their taste and they really capture what an old-fashioned chicken that our great-grandparents would have eaten, kind of what that flavor is, and that's really getting foodies' attention. So again in my internet travels welcome to the internet I found some people singing their praises, people who are absolutely obsessed with them, and then a bunch of other people saying they're overrated and pointless. Yes, we'll see, but from what I can tell, it seems like the people who like them are slightly outweighing the naysayers, and so I am excited to try them and so, yes, I am trying them.

Speaker 1:

I initially I started this process back in May June I think it was May actually and I was researching it. One day for this article, I wrote and I impulse bought a box of 25 chicks that day, which is a problem I have. I recognize this is a weakness of mine, as I impulse buy farm animals, but I did it and then actually I was kind of thwarted in my impulsivity because then they didn't even mail me the chicks till like two weeks ago, end of July, and so I had to wait. Okay, so I know a bunch of people are going to ask where I got them and I don't want to tell you right now because I'm not sure if it's a good breeder or a good supplier. After I impulse bought and this is a good case for not impulse buying I found some reviews and information on this farm that was not favorable and I didn't really love their complete lack of communication with me in terms of when they were shipping.

Speaker 1:

I kind of thought for a minute they were a scam and kind of ghosted me and took my money. They didn't. They ended up mailing the birds, but I had to check in with them and their communication wasn't great. So I got the birds To be determined if they're quality birds. I only had one die and I don't think that was their fault. It died a few days after I got it, which just happened sometime with chicks, but the rest of the 24 look fine.

Speaker 1:

Again, I don't want to post the name until I know what these are going to grow out to be. I saw some reviews that potentially this hatchery gives birds that are not true to type, not true to standards. Again, if you want that information, I'm happy to give it to you privately. You can message me on Instagram or email me, but I don't wish to blast information about this farm at this point in time until I know more information. Anyway, I have the brace breast brise. Oh my gosh, I have these birds on my property at this moment and I'm excited to see what happens.

Speaker 1:

Now, as I have read a little bit more about them, it would appear that that flavor that we're looking for really comes as a result of how you feed them, and there are different plans for feeding. I have found a lot of them involve soaking the grains in dairy of some sort whey or yogurt or milk, and there's a pretty specific pattern of where you bring the birds in and you confine them the last few weeks before you process them and you give them this certain diet. So I've heard people say if you don't do that, they taste like a regular bird. So I'm excited to try. I'm going to be very intentional with this. I have it on my calendar and I'm just excited to see.

Speaker 1:

And it's kind of cool because in the middle of this project I have been reading two books simultaneously, because that's how I roll. One is Nourished, by Fred Provenza and then another is called the Dorito Effect I can't remember the name of the author, but you can find it if you Google it and both of these books kind of are talking about the same thing in a roundabout way and they're talking about flavor in food and they're talking about the phytochemicals and the secondary compounds in our food, or the lack thereof, and how that has really affected our nutritional wisdom and being able to listen to what our body is telling us that it needs. So I highly recommend both of these books. They're fantastic. These will be books that will be going in my list of foundational reads in this homestead lifestyle, but especially in the Dorito effect.

Speaker 1:

It was interesting because one of his goals as he was writing this book was to find a really good tasting chicken and he told stories of older folks who said they'd never tasted chicken as good as what they had when they were children. And then, as he was going through different suppliers and having different experiences, he came across this a barred rock breeder and he was able to get a barred rock chicken that was fed really well and they made fried chicken. And he just was talking about how it was like this supernatural experience of eating this chicken that actually tasted like a chicken. I don't think many of us modern folks in my generation or younger have ever had that experience. I just don't think we have. And so, anyway, there's lots of information on why foods taste good or not. There's some really disturbing information about artificial flavorings and how that can mess up our bodies, that wisdom and that ability to communicate what it needs. It's just fascinating. But all that to say, it was really underscoring my goal in creating not creating, but raising these chickens in a way that makes them more flavorful, it makes them taste better, it's more satisfying and just healthier.

Speaker 1:

So, anyway, side note, but I'm excited for this. I'll keep you guys posted. Now that I have the chicks, hopefully they are a good representation of the breed If this batch is not I have. I'm in a breast Facebook group and I found some other breeders and we're just. I just want to keep working on this. I'd like to get kind of specialized into this breed if it pans out, and start, you know, culling aggressively and selecting for type and seeing if I can just do this well and not only raise or grow them out well, but breed them in a way that is really true to what they should be. So, anyway, that's my update on that. Yeah, it goes All right.

Speaker 1:

Breed number two so the American breast was the first one that came up over and over. Another one that came up was the Australorp. Australorps are not going to be as hard to find as a breast. You're probably going to be able to find some of them in your feed stores. They're an older breed. They came up a lot when I asked on Instagram and I have found we've had Australopes over the years, just as egg layers, and they have been great for egg production. They've been chill. They have not been crazy, which I do. Care about that, because there's some breeds that just act psychotic and I like the ones that can handle me being in their bubble, not like screaming and flapping their wings and freaking out, and they're good in the winter months, which is important for us.

Speaker 1:

So we haven't butchered Australarps personally, but I did see a lot of folks online say that would be their first choice if they were going for a dual purpose breed. They are going to be laying anywhere from about 200 to 250 eggs per year Takes about 16 to 20 weeks to get them mature to finish, which is a little, you know. Obviously that's longer than your Cornish cross, which to be expected, and their finished weight is around seven to 10 pounds. So they're a little bit bigger. Now we contrast that with the breasts. Their finished weight's about five to eight pounds, so that's a much smaller chicken, right. So the Australorps are going to be a little bigger bodied but again, if you don't want to hunt down an exotic, quote unquote breed, that would be a great one.

Speaker 1:

To start with. Number three that came up a bunch. It would be Orpingtons. There's all different colors of Orpingtons lavender, blue, black, white, buff. Doesn't really matter what their feathers are colored, but they can be a really strong dual purpose breed. From what I could tell, it looks like they are around 200 eggs per year, although more is possible. They are going to be longer to finish. So 20 to 30 weeks to maturity and a bigger body, though if you've ever been around an Orpington, they're a nice, big bodied, classic looking chicken. Eight to 10 pounds is what you're looking at for a finished weight.

Speaker 1:

I've really enjoyed our Orpingtons Again. We've just had them as layers. They are always my kids' favorite because they're so gentle and quiet. They're great in the winter. They don't suffer when we get cold very much, they seem like they just take it in stride and they are good, strong layers. When I think about the type of chickens that our great grandmas would have butchered, they would have kept as layers, you know. And they're culling the ones they don't want. I think of Orpingtons. I think that's just going to be your classic breed for that. And again, those are super easy to find. So you can find those in your feed store. You can get them at your favorite hatchery. That would be a great option if you don't want to go hunt some exotic who knows what down on the internet like I did.

Speaker 1:

Okay, number four Jersey Giants. Now, these are big bird, hence the name. You're going to sacrifice a little bit on egg production. Potentially, from what I could tell, 150 to 200 eggs per year. You may have more. Some people were claiming more. The egg count is so subjective depending on so many things, but just know that's just a rough guesstimate. Longer on maturity 25 to 35 weeks, the long time. So this is not one you're going to be, you know, trying to get done in a short period of time. I picture, you know, getting something like a Jersey giant where you get your flock, you're managing your flock and you're just keeping an eye on the ones that you want to butcher as you cull. So this is because it is such a long period of time.

Speaker 1:

I also discovered in my research that the Jersey Giants have a tendency towards broodiness. Now that can be annoying if you just want them to lay eggs, but it also can be really handy if you don't want to fuss with an incubator, and it hasn't happened to us a lot, but over the years we've had a couple hens who have hatched out their own eggs. And man, if that, if you can get that to happen in a in a way that you like, it's so much easier. You're not babysitting humidity and moisture levels on an incubator. The hens do such a good job taking care of those babies. You don't have to worry about heat lamps as long, of course, as long as it's not the dead of winter, right. So I love that idea If you could get it to work. The problem is sometimes, when you get those broody hens, they don't have the instinct strong enough to carry them through the whole hatch. So we've had it happen so many times where they get up to like two weeks or 18 days on their sitting and then they just ditch the eggs and I have a bunch of rotten eggs to deal with. So but again, if you can get a broody hen that really works well and you can get that system figured out, that's fantastic.

Speaker 1:

Now these are interesting, these Jersey giants, because they were a heritage breed that was originally bred for commercial meat production, so that was their mission or purpose. But when the Cornish cross came on the scene a number of years later, they got bumped out right. Just when the Cornish cross came on the scene a number of years later, they got bumped out right Just because the Cornish cross are so much faster. So all that to say, if you have a source of affordable feed, jersey giants could be an awesome option for you. They're also good foragers. Cornish cross are not. They forage a little bit, not much. So if you have a good source of feed, it's not going to break the bank. They may be a great option for you to look into.

Speaker 1:

Okay, and the last breed that I don't have personal experience with, actually, but it came up a ton in my Instagram conversations is the Bielefelders, and this is a lesser known heritage breed from Germany and I've noticed that they are getting more and more attention. So with these guys, you're looking at 200 to 230 eggs per year Again, just rough averages A little bit less time than the Australorps or the Jersey Giants. We're looking at 15 to 22 weeks for maturity and a bigger body bird nine to 12 pounds finish weight. Another cool thing about the Bielefelders is they are auto-sexing, which means you can tell the males from females when they are chicks. That's kind of cool. You don't have to, you know, get a box of random birds and wonder what you're going to get. They're also reported to be docile, really good with cold weather and they are good for free ranging. So again, I don't have personal experiences with them, but a lot of people that they really, really liked them and I think it'd be worth looking into them if you can find a good breeder or a good hatchery for those guys. The downfall, I think, again, is there a specialty breed. It's going to be a little harder to source, but who knows, they may be growing in popularity enough over the years that they start to become more easily available.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so those are my top five, but what I want you to know is that when I was compiling this research and talking to different folks, I feel like the concept of the best dual-purpose chicken is very, very subjective. Basically, when I asked this question at some point, every breed under the sun came up other than Cornish Cross, because they're definitely not a laying breed. So other breeds that were mentioned Bard Rocks came up, a bunch Rhode Island Reds, stuck Thustic, chanticleers, wyandottes, morans, brahmas, buckeyes, delawares One person even told me that they kept back their Freedom Rangers, which is that meat breed, and they laid decent eggs the following year. So I think it just depends. That's really the answer to most things, isn't it? It depends. It depends on your situation, it depends on your variables and it depends on what you prioritize.

Speaker 1:

Like I mentioned earlier in the Dorito effect, the author was raving about barred rocks. I've kept barred rocks for years as layers. I've never thought to eat them, and he just said that flavor was so fantastic. With the way that that farmer was raising them, they just soar up and down. That was the ultimate meat bird.

Speaker 1:

And so, again, I don't think there is a right or wrong answer here, but what I want you to keep in mind is that if you are committed to raising a dual purpose breed of some sort, you're probably going to have to sacrifice something right. And that's where we get to adjust our expectations as homesteaders, and it's also where we get to divert once again from the industrial food paradigm. And I find that and I'm guilty of this just as much as anyone else, even though I'm, you know, I love being a rebel and I love going off the beaten path and I'm definitely proud of my different thinking around food. This industrial food system still influences a lot of what I perceive to be normal or what I expect out of what I'm eating, and I think that definitely happens here in this world of chickens, where we start to think well, a normal chicken has giant breasts and a ton of meat and it grows in eight weeks and I need this many eggs and it has to be like this, whereas if we can step outside of that paradigm and think about what works best with our operations, or what works best with nature, or what's going to give us the most nutritious food, it opens up a lot of possibilities. So if you're coming into this world of dual purpose and you're wanting to produce the most eggs or the most meat, you're probably going to be disappointed, right? But if you can come into it knowing that I'm willing to sacrifice a little bit on egg production and I'm willing to sacrifice a little bit on my time to finish or a little bit on the body size of my birds, that's when you may have more possibilities.

Speaker 1:

So if you prefer a strong layer, I would stick to an Orpington, a Bardrock or a Wyandotte or one of those really standard laying breeds, but know that the breast meat isn't going to look anything like a Cornish cross, right? If you're really hunting that depth of flavor, which is something I'm interested in at the moment, I would try a Bress or a Chanticleer, knowing that it's going to take more effort to source those breeds. You're going to have to feed it a little bit differently, but you're going to be able to get that flavor, hopefully, that you desire. If you desire a bigger quantity of meat, and that's your priority, I'd try a Jersey Giant, knowing that you're probably going to have to invest more in feed. And at the end of the day, we just have to realize that there is a reason that modern chicken breeds right, wrong or indifferent, are so specialized. In an industrial food system versatility is not profitable, but on a homestead it just might be right. Just depends on what is important to you.

Speaker 1:

So that's my spiel, friends. That's my half-baked plan to never buy chicks again, although I probably will. I'll keep you posted on how these American breast says breast say, breast dress breast chickens turn out and hopefully I'll have some more tips and tricks for you if you're interested in this breed or you just want to try feeding out a chicken in a different way. So thanks for listening to my ramblings today. I hope this inspired you to figure out how you can close the loop on your own homestead in some way, shape or form. Maybe not with chickens, maybe in your garden, maybe in some other way, but it's a fun exercise I find. I enjoy the challenge and it saves me some money in the process and really just kind of broadens my horizons. So thanks again, friends, and I will catch up with you next time on the next episode of Old Fashioned On Purpose.