Tip 5: do you want to support a heritage breed? It’s an somewhat unscientific claim, but I estimate 90% of the people who talk to me about getting poultry say they want ‘the brown layers’ and that they aren’t interested in the old breeds of poultry – as outlined in NZ Lifestyle Block magazine’s breed guide.
But then they see them. The bright green sheen of an Australorp, the warm lacy, browns of a Barnevelder or the outrageous hair-do on the Polish and the Houdan and they fall in love, and with good reason.
The heritage breeds may not have the incredible production values of the commericial hen but some will lay around 200 eggs per year.
They also tend to live longer and be more robust than commercial breeds which can only lay at an optimum of about 300+ eggs in their first 12 months of laying, slightly less in subsequent years if kept in optimum conditions (good quality layer feed and decent housing), but tend to only live 3-4 years at most. However 700 or 800 eggs in four years is probably more economic than 800 in eight years.
Good heritage breeds for meat include Dorking, Sussex, Cochin, Barred Rocks, Orpington and Rhode Island Reds. You may go for crosses of good meaty birds, and some people swear by the recommendation of Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall of River Cottage fame, who swears by the Indian Game-Dorking and Indian Game-Orpington crosses as very tasty meat birds.
However, these may be hard to source unless you breed your own.
What’s their attitude?
Some breeds are known for being more aggressive, like the Indian Game, a bird that was traditionally bred for fighting and maintains a more aggro nature than other breeds. Others can be more flighty or nervous. Talk to a breeder about the temperament of any birds you are thinking of buying. While a hen may be small, she does have spurs on the back of her legs and she can fly up and hit you with them. It does hurt.
What are the best breeds of all?
Mother Earth News magazine did a survey of thousands of poultry-owning readers and found the breeds with the highest overall scores (including temperament, maturity, cold and heat tolerance, egg production, egg size, meat utility and meat flavor) are all dual-purpose, brown-egg-laying breeds:
• Rhode Island White (not available in NZ, but Rhode Island Reds are highly rated)
• Plymouth Rocks
• Orpingtons
• Australorps
• New Hampshires
Read part one here and part two here
Nadene Hall
NZ Lifestyle Block magazine
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