Chicken ONE Delicious…our meat birds are Bardrock/Orpington mix. Free range with non-GMO scratch supplement. They dress out at 2.5 to 3 lbs. The meat is tasty and there is no fat.
So, what did we find out? Well…dressing more birds we found out that heavy on the Bardrock mix gives substantially more breast meat than the straight Orpington…who knew?
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Somebody has to keep watch while the others attend to scratching and pecking! |
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‘Don’t look at me!’ |
In Jan 15th 2015 we got 6 Orpington hens from a hatchery in Georgia. At the same time we got 6 Orpington BardRock mix hens from Blue Hen Farm. We intended to have the hens for meat but the Cornish Cross that we had also gotten at around the same time were so superior to these hens, which weighed in at just under 3 lbs, that we decided to keep the Orpingtons for eggs.
A year later (Jan 2016) we are getting approximately 5-6 eggs a day from 10 birds. We are deciding whether to keep them or not, as the feed costs more than we get for the eggs.
We are keeping them in with the 7 Pekins that we hatched last month (June 2016) so their access to pasture is limited for another couple of weeks.
Happy HOmesteading,
T.
