Crossing the Old Local Breed Deutsches Lachshuhn with the Layer Breed White Rock: Effects on Laying Performance of the Females and Fattening Performance of the Males

SIMPLE SUMMARY: For the production of chicken meat and eggs, specialized chicken genotypes are almost exclusively used today. Males of layer lines do not have a satisfactory fattening performance and are usually killed immediately after hatching. Due to ethical concerns, this practice has recently been forbidden in Germany and France and alternatives have to be implemented. One such approach is the determination of the embryos’ sex while in the egg, and keeping only those which contain female embryos. Another alternative is the use of dual-purpose genotypes, where the females can be used for laying and the males for fattening. In this trial the suitability of an old dual-purpose breed (Deutsches Lachshuhn) and its cross with a layer breed (White Rock) for organic egg and meat production was compared to two already established dual-purpose genotypes. Fattening and laying performance of the cross of Deutsches Lachshuhn and White Rock was comparable to that of the other dual-purpose genotypes. This opens the possibility to conserve the genetic resources of an old breed and use them to produce crosses that have a good production performance. ABSTRACT: We tested the novel cross of the old local breed Deutsches Lachshuhn and the layer breed White Rock, as well as purebred Deutsches Lachshuhn, for their suitability as dual-purpose chickens under 100% organic husbandry conditions, and compared their performance and welfare with the two dual-purpose crosses New Hampshire × Bresse and Bresse × White Rock, which are already established in Germany. Chicks were reared in mixed-sex groups until slaughter of the males at 15 or 18 weeks of life. Data on laying performance and animal welfare were recorded until the hens’ 72nd week of life. Laying performance of Deutsches Lachshuhn × White Rock was almost twice as high as that in purebred hens, while fattening performance of the males did not differ. Deutsches Lachshuhn × White Rock, New Hampshire × Bresse and Bresse × White Rock realized a balanced performance profile of 242–250 eggs per hen alive and a final live weight of the males of 2924–3105 g after 18 weeks of rearing. The efficiency of a pair of chickens (one male and one female) was very similar for the crosses (3.69–3.77 kg feed kg(−1) marketable product), while purebred Deutsches Lachshuhn was less efficient (6.35 kg feed kg(−1) marketable product). Crossing the breed Deutsches Lachshuhn with a layer breed therefore improved laying performance and overall efficiency of the birds compared to purebred Deutsches Lachshuhn.