Livestock Slow White Broiler Question

[JMG91]

For those on here who own or are familiar with this breed, can you tell me whether or not it will affect the broilers' size if I reproduce them using a non-broiler roo? I have a Polish rooster who's very *Ahem* studly, and he does a good job fertilizing. Would I get less meaty birds if I used him to fertilize the Slow White hens?

I decided I'd like to get some after Summerthyme mentioned them on another thread, but I've heard that the males are quite lazy. How well do they make more babies? If it's difficult to get more, would my suggestion above work, and if not, how would you get around this issue in a SHTF situation? I do not want to have to buy more every year; I'd like to be able to keep production going. Meat is the most expensive thing we buy at the store, and I'd rather not be dependent upon it anymore--especially considering what happened during these last food shortages.

 

[summerthyme]

Well, yes... the rooster is HALF the genes of the babies. Your crosses will definitely be smaller and less meaty... IIRC, Polish chickens tend to be quite stringy and lightweight.

I'm not sure where you heard the SW roos are "lazy"! They aren't... I've had absolutely zero problems getting fertile eggs. The ones I've had ARE very much "gentlemen"... I haven't had an aggressive one yet.

The whole point of the Slow Whites (for me, anyway) is that they ARE very much "self sustaining" and are the best option I've found for "home produced" chicken that doesn't require purchasing new chicks every year, yet still give you a decently meaty bird which reaches a nice 5# dressed weight in under 10 weeks. ANY other breed I've tried (many, over 30+ years) take closer to 6 months to get to 5#, if they ever do. The next closest breed I found for fairly rapid growth and at least enough meat on the bird to be worth butchering is the Cuckoo Maran, but they're scrawny compared to the Slow Whites.

Summerthyme

 

[JMG91]

Well, yes... the rooster is HALF the genes of the babies. Your crosses will definitely be smaller and less meaty... IIRC, Polish chickens tend to be quite stringy and lightweight.

I'm not sure where you heard the SW roos are "lazy"! They aren't... I've had absolutely zero problems getting fertile eggs. The ones I've had ARE very much "gentlemen"... I haven't had an aggressive one yet.

The whole point of the Slow Whites (for me, anyway) is that they ARE very much "self sustaining" and are the best option I've found for "home produced" chicken that doesn't require purchasing new chicks every year, yet still give you a decently meaty bird which reaches a nice 5# dressed weight in under 10 weeks. ANY other breed I've tried (many, over 30+ years) take closer to 6 months to get to 5#, if they ever do. The next closest breed I found for fairly rapid growth and at least enough meat on the bird to be worth butchering is the Cuckoo Maran, but they're scrawny compared to the Slow Whites.

Summerthyme

Thanks so much for that info! I realized after I read your post that I crossed my wires and mixed up Cornish roos with SW roos. Whoops! Sorry, new mom brain! Out of curiosity, how many chicks do you reliably hatch in a clutch, and do you use an incubator? (I wasn't sure how often one can expect SWs to go broody, or if I should just get my banties to do the job since they seem to like it so much. )

I know that you had mentioned you like SWs because they lay well, too. Do you generally keep separate groups of them--one for meat and one for eggs--or do you just let them lay until it's time for the table? Also, when do you feel is the best age to slaughter?

I apologize for my ignorance; I've never raised birds for meat, and especially not broilers.

 

[summerthyme]

No problem!

I use an incubator. Reliable broody hens aren't common in the breed, and I don't have a good broody pen set up, so too often the nest gets fouled with broken eggs, or if chicks do hatch, they get stepped on by other hens. My bantam hen is aging, and only hatched one clutch this year... I've been able to replace her eggs with 8-9 full sized eggs up to 4x a summer.

But if you want optimum growth rates on the SWs, you'll do better feeding lots of chick grower. They *can* be raised by a good free range hen... I tried it once as an experiment and the little speckled hen raised 6 chicks, which were all larger than she at 3 weeks old! But they were definitely not as heavy or meaty as the grain raised birds.

What I do is hatch out one or two incubator batches... I generally can count on 25 chicks (out of 42 eggs) and last summer I had one hatch with 37 live chicks! I keep as many pullets as I need for laying eggs, and feed the cockerels and extra pullets to finish as meat birds.

Optimum slaughter weight is 7 1/2# *live weight*. This should give you a carcass that dresses right around 5#. In general, the SW cockerels will reach this by 9-10 weeks (about 2-3 weeks l9nger than the Cornish X), with the pullets taking 1-2 weeks longer.

The old laying hens make the most incredible soup! And a hen makes a BIG pot full!

Summerthyme

 

[JMG91]

Thank you so much, ST! I will make sure to write all of this down, so that I'll have it on hand when I get my chicks.

 

[Freeholder]

Bumping for the Slow White information. I just ordered 25 of them from Welp, and 25 Speckled Sussex from Cackle. I still have some Icelandics but they are semi-feral and we get almost no eggs from them. Not that they don't lay, but they don't lay where I can find the eggs. My plan is to keep a small pen of the Sussex for broody hens, and raise a few batches of the SW's every year for meat and layer replacements; I have an incubator, but just in case we can't use it at some point, we'll have the broody hens for backup.

Kathleen