Portage River Farm

I'm a big fan of spreadsheets. Any time that I plan to make a major purchase or reach a decision, I create a spreadsheet to evaluate all of the options and rank them as to how they stack up against my requirements. This tends to drive Janet crazy since she somehow has the ability to make decisions quickly and without a need to analyze things to death. Since I don't have that ability, I created a spreadsheet to select the breed of chicken we are going to raise.

Our intentions for raising chickens have evolved a bit. Originally, we thought that we would simply buy chicks in the spring, fatten them up, slaughter them all and continue filling up the freezer in this way until fall. After I realized that we would get few eggs this way, I decided instead to establish a small breeder flock to keep year-round. From them we would get eggs and raise some of the offspring for slaughtering as well. This method will also help us avoid constantly paying the hatchery to supply us with chicks.

I started by gathering information on twenty four "dual purpose" breeds of chickens. Dual purpose breeds are used for both meat and eggs. I evaluated them according to the following list (from most important to least): winter hardiness, weight at maturity, growth rate, egg size, behavior (easily handled, flighty, aggressive, noisy, etc.), skin color, laying frequency, and brooding tendency. After tallying up the results a clear winner stood out, the Orpington. The second runner up was the Jersey Giant closely followed by the Plymouth Rock.

The Orpington is an English breed that was developed in 1886 by crossing Minorcas, Langshans and Plymouth Rocks. They are considered a heavy chicken, weighing in at about 8lbs. They are covered with fluffy feathers that insulate them well against the cold and give them a stocky puff-ball appearance. They are a very docile and quiet breed, considered very suitable for families with small children.

The Orpingtons are also said to be more intelligent than many other chicken breeds. They can be taught to recognize individual names and come when called. They are said to be easy to handle and affectionate birds. Each hen will lay 110 - 160 light brown medium to large eggs per year.

This breed was thought to be unsuitable for use in this country due to its white skin. Americans traditionally prefer yellow-skinned chickens as opposed to the Brits who prefer white. We decided that the skin color really wasn't an issue for us and figure that they will just look like little turkeys once dressed for the cooking pot.

Having made our decision, I called the hatchery and placed an order for twenty-five chicks. They are shipping them out to us today so I assume we will have them sometime tomorrow. We have been busily preparing for their arrival, buying feed, a heat lamp, a waterer and other equipment. Tonight I plan to build a brood box that will be their home for the next month or so.

We are all very excited with the anticipation of opening up a box of peeping yellow chicks. I can only imagine the troubles we may get into in the future over the ultimate purpose of getting the birds. Maybe when I open the box I'll say, "Mmm! Chicks! Should we eat them now or wait until they grow up?!"