There are reasons that your foreparents had gardens and the exact things they grew in them. It was to keep them from starving and they only focused upon the crops which did not take up so much land, so you were working your ass off to death as hoeing ground burns more energy than sitting in the shade.
For that reason, turnips, beets, carrots, cabbages, pole beans, lettuce, squash, chard and potatoes were what was raised as they kept and had nutrients a human body needed.
Corn, wheat and melons were crops which took allot of land, allot of threshing or allot of water and they were not user friendly.
The same holds true for livestock in sheep were kept because you could eat them, wear them and they stayed in a pen so you did not lose them to the Indians looking for a meal.
In that, the chicken is something people should be thinking of in this Age of Obama to try and survive. A half dozen hens and a few roosters will provide for most 2 people households enough protein to supplement the garden to survive upon.
As a caveat though starting out, if you are interested in eggs and not self sustainability, just go buy those things in your farm supply stores as they will not set, will not hatch chicks and will die on you in a few years, so you can spend your money again.........well on nothing, because when Obama collapses the American system you aren't going to be able to buy even corporate eunuch chickens to raise in your incubators.
For that reason, I have been in the process of wasting hundreds of dollars on chickens which die, die and die, because the breeds available are so interbred now, and so weak that they are not hardy and in order to gain genetics like Grampa used to have, Darwin natural selection takes it's toll.
This is not easy, as I just had a beautiful little crowned English Game hen I planned to have as a foundation hen die on me. satan does have a part in murdering dreams and doing all it can to murder you.
There are things to know about chickens, and the first is they fly. Duh.
The smaller breeds like Kriaenkoppe's which are hardy, have a small comb, also will be flighty, and will fly out of pens unless completely enclosed, whereby hawks, owls and other Obama predators will eat them and leave you with nothing.
If you try to kill the hawks and owls, you will find 10,000 dollar fines awaiting you and prison. America is completely f*cked up now and Americans are f*cked in their self made prisons.
So flighty chickens are not what you want unless you have space and resources to dig deep holes to bury your assassins in.
There are certain breeds and one is the Cochin from China. They have feathered feet which means your pens must be clean or their feathers get poop on them, but the ones I have are very docile and the black variety are quite large.
They do not lay a great many eggs which is fine with me, as I'm not in the egg selling business and I do not gauge the size of my breasts in how many eggs I can force a chicken to lay.
If you think that is odd of me to say, for some reason people who keep chickens are manic about egg laying. They think they are cheated if the hens are not laying eggs and sitting on eggs. The poultry industry has fricking screwed up the bloodlines with non setting Mediterranean foul like the Leghorns in all the heavy breeds, so you get chickens which are supposed to set, and they just stand around breeding and laying eggs.
Murray McMurray Hatchery has very pretty chickens, but they do not set. The green egg layers though they have are some of the toughest chickens I have ever seen. I'm working on making them into setting hens and have one which did set last year. I will hopefully breed these into some others I have which spent the winter in my goat hutches and are starting to lay in 15 below weather.
That is beside the point, but it just shows you that it will take you five years with good blessing to undo what the hell these idiots have screwed things up with.
Cochins are docile, like many heavy breeds, and being heavy, they do not tend to fly out of pens when full grown. They though being this tame will make easy kills for fox etc... So you pen them up and keep them penned up like the old days..........along with running live traps to pick off the skunks, coons, possums, feral cats etc....
And you kill them, because if you turn them loose you have turned loose an educated killer for someone else to have a problem with from quail to humans. There is nothing humane about turning Gitmo terrorists loose in your neighborhood, so do not turn Gitmo coons loose in someone else's neighborhood.
You might be surprised if you happen to make friends with some grocery, baker or restaurant in how cheaply you can feed a few chickens, as chickens are meat eaters as much as grain eaters. They will literally pick most of the insects out of a yard, and that includes if you have them penned up......but they love old fruits, veggies, stale bread and whatever else you can find. We used to when I was a child feed skinned out raccoons to our chickens in winter as they just loved the supplement of the fat and meat.
It is what they do for a living.
I will not go into a great deal about breeds, but I will state, I do not raise the rocks class, because their feathers are usually off and chickens without feathers sunburn or freeze to death.
I like chickens, well I like all poultry from turkeys, ducks, guineas, pea fowl, geese to Muskovy ducks. Each though have their problems compared to the lowly chicken which is quite tasty in it's original form. You will find that your different chicken breeds taste different also. Some will be more greasy like the barred rocks to some will be more full flavored like the games.
There is though something there though for everyone, but this posting was about the person wanting a pretty hardy chicken, which will reproduce..........I still am working on the reproduction end on my heavies, but even like the Brahmas you hopefully out of 25 hens would have three which will set. That is your start in life.......it is just easier starting out life if you have a chicken which will brood eggs for you.
It doesn't take long as one hen should average 7 chicks. 6 hens is 42 chicks hatched and probably 40 making it through to butchering phase most years, which is what most households will consume.
Pen the little ones up with the hen in a brooder and it is a summer project to unwind with after work.
I cringe at how all the problems of the asinine breeding programs American government has descended to in not maintaining corn to chickens in viable numbers for a national emergency.
Oh well is your ball park and you decide what your score is.
agtG
