Frey’s vs White Rock
At this point, it’s safe to say that I’m no fan of White Rock Cornish X chickens. Without a doubt, they convert feed to meat incredibly…efficiently—compare the lone Frey’s Special Dual Purpose at the top center of the pic, surrounded by hulking, waddling White Rocks two and three times its size. What they gain in meat, they lose in basic chicken-ness… This first flock of mine are lumbering birds, with no taste for the outdoors, no built-in scratching skills, they’re definitely not up for dust baths or foraging through tall grass. They sit around, eat like crazy, drink, and, here and there, just kinda spontaneously DIE. I’ve learned a lot from this first go-round with meat birds, and I haven’t entirely rejected the White Rocks—I’m saving my final…evaluation for after they’re off to the slaughter in 2-3 weeks. More to follow…
Somewhat related posts: • Catalog shopping: chickens on order! • Chickens just wanna eat… • Chickens to the slaughter • Roosters: alive and kicking • Scary?
I think that you should get a few friendly laying hens! I just read about a friendly breed in a magazine, but I’m not sure if they are available in Canada…Have you read Carrots love Tomatoes yet? I will bring it out next time I come out if you want! It is really great!
:)
Mike,
You’re having the same feelings I had last year about the chickens. I did find however that the hybrid broilers will forage more on pasture if they are put out early and always. I put mine out at 3 weeks and kept them in chicken tractors (google it) made popular by Joel Salatin. They would eat a fair amount of green stuff it seemed. They did however die very easily and seem quite sensitive overall. On the other hand, they taste really good and reach 4 lbs by 8 weeks. The Frey’s dual purpose weren’t 4 pounds even at 15 weeks and by that time had eaten a LOT more feed than the broilers. They tasted good in the end but needed to be slow cooked only (pressure cooker or slow cooker) and definitely didn’t look like what people are used to in a meat chicken. They had very yellow fat and a lot more dark meat. We found the taste was quite good in the end, but the meat is definitely more “textured”, by which I mean chewy.
I second the thought on laying hens. They are a joy to raise compared to the broilers. I have 50 this year of various breeds. They’re easy to raise and it seems like it won’t be hard to sell the eggs.
Chris
I had raised the White Rock Cornish for 3 years. I hate them for just being fat and lazy but you can’t beat the feed to meat ratio and they taste pretty good! This year I heard of Freedom Rangers, grow like the rocks but more chicken like (forage etc)…went online looking and found the company went out of business this year. Sadly I ended up with the rocks again.
I have been there on the cornish/rocks. They can’t be beat for feed conversion and length of time to raise them. If you want the qualities, why not just get a Cornish rooster and a few white rock hens. White rock hens are a nice bird and bred with a rooster produce really nice meat birds.
That way you would have real chickens, meat birds, and plymouth rocks lay quite well. It does involve a small incubator but I have built incubators and it is quite a simple task to build an incubator. Some aren’t even that expensive. Hatching chicks is awesome for kids too.
Kelly: Thanks for the ideas. That’s something I’ll almost surely try. The efficiency of the White Rocks is hard to forget, but so is their unsettling lumbering around and unchicken-like behavior. I also want to try getting White Rocks outside from an early age, instead of just constantly feeding them.