Any experience with keeping and breeding meat bird pullet?

Probably a crazy question! I just feel so bad for the poor meaties when the other birds can get out and around on hot days and fine shady places to scratch and enjoy life. The last couple days it has been really hot and I have opened all my pens and let everything just run together outside. I opened the meaties door not knowing whether they would actually come out, but since their pen is under a shade tree I figured they would at least get some breeze. They did actually come outside but just plunked themselves down on the ground and stayed there. Every time I get meaties I feel so bad for the poor things. Tonight when I went down to shut them in, one of the pullets actually made her way into another pen and was roosting on the roost like a normal chicken. Got me to wondering - would it be possible to keep a pullet long enough for her to lay? Is it possible to actually breed pullet - cross with another breed - so as to try to develop a cross that is fairly meatie but has a better quality of life. I wouldn't mind keeping them a few weeks longer if I could raise a fairly meatie bird that could actually get around and enjoy life during its stay on this earth. Just seems like the industry has gone to far with these birds.

So, I guess my question is, has anyone tried to keep one and breed it? Do you think it possible or worth trying or am I just having a pipe dream??

From everything I've been told, they are too heavy to breed by the time they are old enough. I am going to keep one of my Mistral Gris cockerels and try him with my Cornish. I say, give it a try anyway! That's what makes life fun. You may be interested in the Mistral Gris. Its a step up from the white broilers. Probably a week or 2 longer to butcher weight.

I tried keeping a pullet that survived a shunk attack, but eventually put her down when her legs gave out. Letting them out to flop down in the shade is probably the best they can have.

I have a friend, down south, that did this to help improve his white rocks. If you restrict their food so they don't grow as fast or as big, it can be done. I don't think it is easy, but his pullets acted like 'real' chickens and lived close to 3 years. They laid, but not well and he was able to use them how he wanted.
Good luck, I would like to hear your progress with this, I think it is work a try for sure.

I agree - definitely worth a try. Do keep in mind, though, that meat birds are the result of a four-way cross of highly inbred lines, so are about as far from the "breed true" idea as possible. If you cross a meatie with a purebred, the chicks could be highly variable. Still, each of the the four lines has been selected fro meat production, so there should be something that will come through consistently.

I think I will give it a try, although I'm wondering if I've waited too long as this girl is about 7 weeks old and very heavy. Thinking that if one restricts their feed from a younger age it may be more successful. Yet if she can fly enough to get up on that roost, she must have something going for her that the others don't. Most of them didn't even walk around enough to go to another pen let alone to fly up that high. I'll let her stay with the flock she is in now and free range her and see what happens.

I've had some success with this.
but I started right off the hop not treating the meatbirds as meatbirds.
I had 3 über broody hens, and I gave them 3 baby meat each which they totally did an awesome job of raising up and teaching how to be a chicken.
They still grew superfast and were much bigger than their "mom" by about 6 weeks.
They learned to forage, and dust bath and could get onto the lower nesting perches, I still have one. I think she's about 3.5 years now.

Wow non-d-plume what a good idea. I've never thought of doing that but I'll have to try that next spring.

Several times I kept Meaties through the winter. A couple of the females even laid a few eggs. Since this was in winter, I wasn't ready to hatch any. By the time March came, the girls all had heart attacks and died.
My meat birds free range, until this year, and are not listless eating machines. Some are even quite agile
Since they tend to becoming tripping hazards, and leave large, nasty droppings all over, my husband has insisted they be contained this year

I have tried a few times. One runt I kept back did well and layed eggs consistently. She lived a normal life. I kept her with the regular birds so she had to free range etc.

auntieevil wrote:Several times I kept Meaties through the winter. A couple of the females even laid a few eggs. Since this was in winter, I wasn't ready to hatch any. By the time March came, the girls all had heart attacks and died.
My meat birds free range, until this year, and are not listless eating machines. Some are even quite agile
Since they tend to becoming tripping hazards, and leave large, nasty droppings all over, my husband has insisted they be contained this year

My sister just told me she kept one over a winter and it laid a few eggs but by spring had died - probably from a heart attack as well  

bckev wrote:I have tried a few times. One runt I kept back did well and layed eggs consistently. She lived a normal life. I kept her with the regular birds so she had to free range etc.

Did you ever try to hatch any of her eggs?

happychicks wrote:Wow non-d-plume what a good idea. I've never thought of doing that but I'll have to try that next spring.

It would probably be best to do it in the height of the summer heat.
Meat birds are especially susceptible to getting chilled. when that happens in a meat bird under 2 weeks of age it exacerbates a condition that the breed is prone to which is right ventricular hypertrophy. This will quite often kill them sometime between the 6-8 week mark. People call it flipping, they walk into their barn or pen and find a bunch of birds on their backs. If they survive to processing weight this issue presents itself as ascites (water belly) during processing.
If you can minimize their exposure to cool temps during that first two weeks you'll have a higher success rate with having these birds live longer than their commercially grown counterparts.