Samar Morgan

My fiancé and I were at odds over the chickens, he leaning towards the standard tractors and CC and I wanting a happier, healthier, less input heritage breed. He is focusing on cattle, goats, fencing etc so I get to attempt to come up with a profitable poultry system. Yes overall we have less birds to sell, but we are going for diversity on our farm, not a chicken operation.  

Definitely not interested in a "show bird", bred to look a certain a way by a set of arbitrary human rules. I want a heritage meat bird where the focus has not been just to create a larger carcass that matures quickly, but firstly for foraging ability and overall health. I've found a couple prospects on the APPPA so far. I'll have to check the APA as well, all I saw for them was a show bird directory, Ill have to dig deeper. I hope it's not part of a membership fee.

Thank you for the recommendations!

We are wanting to raise heritage meat chickens in our orchard and I need help finding a breeder!

We want to grow a premium, beyond organic, slow-grow chicken that will free range and have as few inputs as possible. I have not heard good reviews from a lot of the major hatcheries which are being accused of not doing proper breeding or culling, having weak birds, and poor genetics, even with heritage breeds. I am looking for a breeder who cares deeply about promoting the health and production of their birds. Ideally, they need to be raised on pasture with heavy foraging pressure so that I am getting birds that will grow on pasture, not grain. They should cull heavily and understand how to pick birds for health and production. I want to start with superior genetics to build my own broiler flock from. The size of the hatchery/breeder does not matter, I am just concerned with the quality of birds. Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated, ty!  

We are in the process of doing something similar.

A piece of land can support on average 10-15 birds per acre in groups of no more than 80 free-ranging with no additional feed (obviously depends on the quality of land). We are intending to create multiple movable coops that can be pulled throughout the orchard/pasture to rotationally free-range the birds.

The CC was bred to get huge off of grain and is an inherently fragile bird with little flavor and nutrients. Heritage breeds do not need as much protein daily and are better foragers.

Bottom line, you need a lot of land to support the numbers of raising thousands of birds at a time in a natural system. Our goal is to create a superior table fowl with the profit being in the low inputs, happy birds, and charging a premium; not in the numbers raised.