Unless you raise your own meat birds (often called "broilers"), you have probably only eaten one kind of chicken in your life --- Cornish Cross.  This hybrid is a wonder of modern breeding since it can reach a carcass size of nearly nine pounds in just eight weeks.  The Cornish Cross also has a lower feed conversion rate than any other variety of chicken, which means you give the birds less grain for every pound of weight they put on --- a boon for your wallet and for the environment.

Homesteaders groan about the Cornish Cross because of the multitude of health problems that come along with their rapid weight gain, but what prevented me from raising these efficient birds is their proprietary genetics.  Not only is the Cornish Cross a hybrid, the parent lines are owned by corporations, so the only possible way to get Cornish Cross chickens is to buy the chicks from a hatchery.  I want our flock to be as self-sufficient as possible, and that means raising our own chicks, so Cornish Cross are off the table, as are other hybrid broiler varieties like Freedom Rangers.

On the other hand, there are two problems with raising heirloom chickens for meat, and both are so serious that you probably won't find heirlooom broilers for sale even at the farmer's market.  The first problem is aesthetics.  Since we all grew up with big, plump-breasted chickens on our plates, we think that heirloom chickens look odd, with their big thighs sticking out and their skinny breasts.  I crunched some numbers from one of our batches of Black Australorps and discovered that they gave me twice as much dark meat as light meat, which would be a problem if I was afraid of animal fats.  Luckily, I believe that fat from pastured animals is good for me, so I cherish both light and dark meat from our homegrown birds.

The second problem with heirloom chickens is the real sticking point --- feed conversion rate.  The chicken industry claims that factory-farmed Cornish Cross chickens have a feed to meat conversion rate of 2:1 meaning that you feed the chickens two pounds of feed and get back one pound of meat (and bones.)  Third party studies of pastured Cornish Cross chickens report a rate of 3.5:1 at the best, so this is what I'm aiming for.  And I fell far, far short --- more on that tomorrow.