Mini meat chickens: breed description and characteristics, pros and cons, content

Breeding mini meat chickens is a profitable and fairly simple activity. Possessing small size, high productivity and unpretentiousness to the conditions of detention, representatives of this breed can be grown by both medium and large farmers, as well as simple owners of private farmsteads. Also, another advantage of this poultry is its calm and docile nature.

History of Breeding

Mini meat chickens were bred in the SGC Zagorsk experimental breeding farm, in the 80s of the last century. In this case, individuals of such key foreign breeds as Leghorn (Leghorn), Rhode Island (Rhode Island Red), Plymouth Rock (Plymouth Rock), Cornish (Cornish) were used as parents.

Thanks to the selection work done, mini meat chickens of 3 main colors were bred:

• fawn;
• snow white;
• brown-black (red-black).

General description and characteristics

Compared to other breeds, mini meat chickens have a specific appearance, character, and have a number of advantages and disadvantages.

Appearance

Mini meat chickens are characterized by a compact body, small limbs with the size of the middle part (pluses), on average, 30-35% smaller than that of other breeds, dense and even plumage. In addition to short limbs, a distinctive feature of such chickens is a leaf-shaped, small comb. Such chickens reach sexual maturity already at the age of 6 months.

Character or temperament

The birds of this breed are characterized by a calm character - released from the house into an unsown garden, they do not arrange total "excavations" in the beds and paths; they do not emit a loud cluck, quite rarely, from impatience, the hands of the owner who brought the food peck. Mini meat breed roosters do not have a lively disposition and rarely attack a person.

Productivity

Chickens of this breed have the following productivity characteristics:

1. The maximum weight, when grown for meat products, is that the weight of chickens can reach 2.7 kilograms, males - 3.0-3.1 kilograms.
2. Egg production - with proper feeding and care, one chicken of this breed can produce up to 170-200 eggs per year.
3. The weight of one egg - the weight of one egg, depending on the conditions of keeping and feeding, ranges from 55-57 to 60-66 grams.
4. Hatchability of chicks - when hatching chicks in an incubator way, this figure is, on average, 85%.
5. Survival of chicks - with proper care and feeding in the first days of life, about 94-99% of hatchery-produced chicks survive.
6. Survival of adults - for various varieties of this breed, this figure is more than 90%.

Advantages and disadvantages

The main benefits of mini meat chickens are:

• convenience of keeping compact chickens in small cages and aviaries;
• rapid growth of young in the first 6 months;
• large sizes of egg products;
• calm character.

The disadvantages of such chickens include:

1. Susceptibility to diseases when walking in wet weather - due to short limbs, hens released into the open yard touch the damp ground with their stomach, which further leads to severe contamination of feathers and the appearance of various diseases;
2. Frequent diseases of the limbs due to unbalanced feeding or improper care and maintenance.

Variety of chickens

The main varieties of this breed of chickens are such as P-11, B-33, B-66, B-76, B-77.

P-11

P-11 is a mini meat variety of the famous Rhode Islands. Differs in fast growth, resistance to diseases, calm character. As a generalist, dwarf Rhode Islands have both high egg production (capable of producing up to 200 eggs per year) and great meat flavor.

B-33

B-33 (dwarf Leghorn) - egg mini meat chickens with snow-white plumage, tightly adjacent to the wedge-shaped body of the bird, legs shorter than the previous variety, legs, a small rounded head. The comb of males in this species is strictly vertical, while in laying hens it is slightly lowered to one side.

B66

The adult of this species has a pure white plumage, has a strong skeleton, a wide, well-formed chest, short, but at the same time fairly strong and well-set limbs.

Mini-meat chickens of this variety belong to the universal type of use: the egg production of an adult chicken per year, on average, is 180-200 eggs; the weight of a bird, when grown for meat, at the age of six months is 3.3 kilograms for cockerels and 2.7 kilograms for hens.

B76 and B77

Individuals of these varieties have the same characteristics as B66. They differ from the latter only in the color of the plumage - in chickens of the B76 variety, the white plumage has fawn hues, while in the individuals of the B77 variety, the feathers have a pale brown color, with a characteristic golden hue.

Bird keeping

High egg production and excellent palatability of this breed directly depend on the correct keeping of the bird.

Walking

For walking dwarf chickens, a small walking yard is used, adjacent to the chicken coop and surrounded on 3 sides by a 150-centimeter chain-link fence with a cell of 50 × 50 millimeters. The size of such a yard is determined depending on the chicken population - 1 square meter is enough for 1 mini chicken.

In order for the yard not to be dirty, it is covered with sawdust; in the place where the container for food and water will be located, they make a small shed roof from a piece of slate.

In early spring, you can release such chickens for walking in the garden - having a calm character, they will not make a lot of holes and will not create discomfort with loud cackling.

Chicken coop

For mini chickens, as a rule, a small frame house is built with 3-4 perches, 40 centimeters high each, located on the south side with a walking yard connected to the main room by a square hole. The height of the chicken coop should be at least 160 centimeters - this is necessary so that you can enter it without bending and collect eggs from perches. When raising chickens for meat, they are kept in cages.

Important. Since mini chickens are very sensitive to cold weather, a year-round chicken coop must be insulated, all cracks through which cold air can enter the house must be sealed.

Care

Care for this breed of chickens consists of activities such as:

1. Timely walking.
2. Maintain house cleanliness, frequent change of bedding in perches and cages.
3. Ventilate and disinfect the coop once every 6 months.
4. Checking the availability of enough clean water in the drinkers.

Also, when growing this breed of chickens, it is necessary to carefully monitor the condition of the limbs of the bird

Food

They feed such a bird with ordinary chicken feed for broilers and egg breeds. In summer, green herbal mass, mineral additives (chalk, limestone, finely ground meat and bone meal) are additionally added to the compound feed. The average feed consumption per bird per day is only 120-130 grams.

Breeding

This breed of chickens is propagated in two ways:

1. Natural incubation of eggs by the mother hen.
2. Artificial production of chickens in homemade or special incubators.

The first way, although not expensive, but risky, since not every chicken will incubate eggs. The incubator method, while maintaining the required temperature, allows you to get a large number of he althy chickens in a relatively short period of time.

What diseases are prone to

This breed of chickens is prone to infection with infectious diseases such as:

• pasteurellosis;
• salmonellosis;
• pullorose.

From viral diseases, mini meat chickens are affected by neurolymphatosis, nephrosonephritis, chicken pox, bird flu.

In order to avoid infection of the bird with the diseases described above, it is necessary to keep the chicken coop clean, change the litter, water and feed in the drinkers, prevent soil contamination of the feed, and prevent wild animals from entering the chicken coop.

Important. If signs of dangerous viral diseases are found in birds, you should immediately contact the local veterinary service for recommendations on the localization of the disease and the further fate of an uninfected bird.

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