It has been said by many that “chickens are the gateway drug to homesteading”. In many ways, this comical statement carries a lot of reality with it. Chickens are often times the first livestock that aspiring homesteaders aquire, and the joy and production they receive from these amazing animals often times kicks off much grander projects with livestock. It is so much fun to watch beginning homesteaders explore the many ways that chickens can be combined with other livestock as part of a fully integrated, soil-building system.
On our farm, we have raised (and bred) many breeds of chickens: Rhode Island Reds, Buff Orpingtons, Black Australorps, Barred/Plymouth Rocks, Leghorns, Silkies, Cornish Cross, Freedom Rangers and, in more recent years, American Bresse. With all this experience we are often asked by fellow farmers and homesteaders what the best egg layers are or what the best meat breeders are. Which breed is the best dual-purpose breed, both egg and meat production? Another question we commonly get is, “what is the best breed to raise for self-sufficiency, SHTF, TEOTWAWKI situations”. There are lots of opinions out there, but when we experienced a breed that was above the rest, we put our money where our mouth is and cashed out of every other breed we owned to put sole focus on the ULTIMATE HOMESTEAD BREED, the American Bresse. While it is true that no one breed is the best of all worlds, the American Bresse is what we found to be the best overall, dual-purpose breed on the planet.
Do not feel surprised if you havve never heard of this breed. They have only been in the United States for abnout 12 years. The breed actually hails from France where they have been bred for hundreds of years and are considered to be the best tasting chicken on the planet.
Egg Production:
While the American Bresse egg production is among the best, it does fall a bit short of some super high-production layers such as Rhode Island Reds or White Leghorns. The compromise is, the American Bresse yields a far superior meat carcass. That said, the breed is no slouch in the egg department. They commonly lay around 250-eggs per year (more than enough for most families and small farms), and some hens will certainly top that average. We always try to be transparent, so it’s easy to admit that if your sole focus is on egg production there are a few better breeds as mentioned above. We’re happy to recommend some local breeders to you, so feel free to reach out and ask.
As homesteaders, seldom is our goal solely on egg production; we want to breed our own lines and provide BOTH meat and eggs for the table, and this is where the American Bresse breed really shines as it laps these other high-egg production breeds. Also, it is worth mentioning that many breeds are considered to be dual-purpose, but make no mistake, from our experience they do not have anywhere near the carcass quality of the American Bresse and in our opinion can hardly be considered “dual-purpose”.
Meat Production:
Nothing on the planet has the feed conversion rate or overall meat production capacity of the Cornish Cross. Holy cow do they grow, and if your sole focus is on meat production then you simply cannot beat them. However, they do not win in every category; in fact, they simply lose in every other category which is why we are no longer raising them. You get zero eggs from them, they are not rubust (since they’re only designed to live 8-weeks) and since they are a hybrid bird with closely guarded parent and grandparent stock, you cannot breed them for your own supply. You’re beholden to the hatcheries and the shipping companies for your supply… every year, every batch, every bird. This may be fine for large production farms, but as homesteaders this is simply not acceptable. It’s imperative that you can continue producing food for yourself, your family and your community, even if the trucks stop running. Therefore, the Cornish Cross is not a worthy homestead bird. Neither are the other hybrid birds or high production layer birds.
The problem becomes, if we are to avoid mutants hybrids, then what are the options? To be honest, we continued raising Cornish Cross for years before we found a worthy solution, when we discovered the American Bresse breed for ourselves. No, they don’t have the meat production of Cornish Cross, but they’re a heritage breed that you can continue to cultivate on your own homestead, AND THE MEAT TASTES SIGNIFICANTLY BETTER!!!
With all this exciting information in mind, we will tell you that from our experience, not every American Bresse chicken is the same. It is critical that you get your foundation flock from a breeder with strict culling practices and who focuses on meat production (and then egg production) above all else. I wish it wasn’t so, but some breeders have lost sight of this important aspect of the bird and are propagating sub-par meat-producting genetics. That is why we explored every breeder we could find and settled on purchasing our foundation flock from someone we believe to be one of the very best breeders in the country, North Star Farms in North Carolina. We always highly recommend them as breeders if you’re looking for top-quality stock. With the foundation flock we purchased from them, we are working hard to continue the improvements they have already invested years into. We do this so that our customers can also start out with top-quality birds and will excitidly agree that they are the ultimate homestead bird.