Future of meat production

We got the 25 Cornish X birds back from processing today.  Yes, we did manage to get all 25 to the age of 10 weeks without a single death or broken hip.  I'm pretty darn proud of that.  We're pretty sure we got the slow growing strain (assortment pack, so not sure what the line was).  Combine that with rationed food and we got moderate growth on the birds which led to a flock that could still run around at 10 weeks old.

With an average of 4.6 lbs, a maximum of 6 pounds, and a minimum of 3 lbs, 7 oz, these birds were very similar in size to the red broilers we raised in the spring.  We could have grown them more aggressively, but there would have been loses and health issues.  We went into it with the plan to raise the birds as naturally as possible.  They lived in a pasture and had limited food in their feeders.  This kept them from breaking their hips or having heart attacks, but it also made them hungry, cranky birdies.  By the end, they would swarm me and bite my legs any time I went in the pasture.  They had enough room and distraction to keep them from turning on each other, but I can see why they are frequently debeaked.  Bad personalities.

We haven't eaten any of them yet, but I can tell by looking at them that they'll be much closer to the commerical birds.  They look pretty much identical to the whole, young chickens you see at the grocery store.  About 4.5 to 5 pounds a pop, though the commercial birds get there in seven weeks.  Lots of breast meat, I'll get pictures for comparison.

Compared to our red broilers, the Cornish X birds were not easy on the eyes, didn't work the ground well, and were always on the edge of getting sick.  Prone to diarrhea and made a terrible mess of their coop.  Overall, I'd rather raise the broilers.  It takes a bit longer, but they're actual chickens instead of freaks where we have to balance food with them killing themselves by eating too much too fast.  They choked almost every time I fed them because they would try to jam all of their food down their throat at once!

So now that we've raised the commercial lines and the backyard line, we've decided we want backyard birds.  We also want to be able to breed them ourselves.  This whole deal with buying chicks and paying for shipping each time really gets expensive.  The Cornish X birds and the broilers are both hybrids, so not really starting points for breeding our own.  That means that we need to look elsewhere.

This is where I've landed for the future of our chicken flock:

Behold, the dorking!  It's a fun breed name, I'll admit it.  This is a heritage breed that is known for it's excellent table qualities, decent laying abilities, and being wonderful mothers.  They're supposed to be friendly and quiet birds with sweet, well behaved roosters.  Slower growing than the birds that we have raised before, but we're not in a great hurry.  They're also good foragers, so that cuts down on the feed bill while providing more bug control for us.  It's a rare breed, so I'll be maintaining a pure bred flock.  There's the possibility of trading or selling some of the youngsters to others interested in the breed.

This does mean we'll be phasing out the mixed laying flock we have.  It will take some time, since the dorkings will need to be raised to laying age (probably 8 months).  Assuming the starter flock shows up in spring, they would start laying the next winter.  That would put the barred rocks at two years old and the new layers at just over a year old.  The dorkings will want to sit on their eggs in spring, so we'll need some commerical birds to boost production while that's happening.  The dorkings are well known to lay through the winter, when the commercial birds drop off.  I suspect we'll always have a couple of production hens in the group to even out production, but only the dorkings will be sitting on clutches and raising offspring. 
The first emails have been sent out to secure a starter flock for the spring.  Between the dorkings and the muscovies, we should be all set for meat and eggs.  Exciting!