Sagitta Chiken

I am wondering because of the cross of the Cornish in the breed, how long do the hens live? Does the cross in the breed make them have healthier, longer lives? I have 2 Sagitta hens for eggs and just want to make sure they are going to live as long as a regular breed- 5 years or so

I am new at this and wanted dual purpose that did well in heat. I live in FL and it was very hot this year. They did very well in the heat. When they were 6 weeks started free ranging them hardly have to feed them. with 25 of them went through only one bag of feed this month. They are 3 1/2 months now so have not started laying yet. They grow faster than my RIR and better temperament.

Great birds. The only chickens I have!

I got 20 of these hens last year that were about 5 months and just beginning to lay. I had never heard of this breed before but was looking for some adult hens for a friend and these were all that I could find at the time. When my friend decided to wait a while to get chickens, I ended up keeping them myself. Soon they began to lay and they laid A LOT of eggs. LOTS of really big eggs that were consistently beautiful in shape and color with quite a few double yolked eggs. Of the many breeds I have, the Sagittas provided the eggs that made the prettiest sale eggs. I only had hens so don't know about roo temperament but the hens are calm and very curious. They are heavy birds so I am sure these hens would dress out nicely when their laying was over. I still have about 10 of these girls and they are right at a year old. They laid good through winter and are still laying a lot of eggs. I wouldn't hesitate to buy more Sagittas as my experience with them has been very positive. Based on the size and meatiness of these girls, I would expect the roosters to make excellent table birds. From what I have read, they are a cross of Rhode island Red, New Hampshire and Cornish. It's a mystery to me as to why I haven't heard more about this breed as I wouldn't hesitate to buy more or recommend them.

Wehave 15 of these birds. Great birds. Females are friendly. Fairly docile. Can be flighty. Roo's are beautiful, docile and active. Great egg production.

Got two of these for meat. They took forever to reach a decent size. They were very nice birds and not afraid of people but they fought with each other...not viciously, but enough that I would watch over them. When we did butcher, there was very little meat...all fat.

We bought ten of these for meat last year. Because they grew more slowly and we wanted more eggs we decided to keep them around. We expanded our coop and they started laying very well about October. Our original flock started to molt and so we were happy to have the 8 or so eggs we would get a day from the 10 sagittas. Our original six started laying again after we melded the flocks and we were getting more eggs than we could use. It was great. Suddenly in January egg production from all of them dropped off to about 3-6/day from all fifteen hens. It has been that way fro the past five months with no sign of getting better. When they were producing the 15 hens would eat 40 lbs of feed a week. Now they are down to about 20 lbs but producing very little. We will butcher them this weekend and update this post with how they taste.
One other thing is that if you are doing these for meat, they grow very slowly for a meat bird. It seemed to take as long as our Amber whites or our Reds. It seems this dual purpose is so named because it is good for neither meat or eggs.