Are Cornish Good Pets?

eating cornish is like eating veal. not much taste. it's all true what you wrote about them as a breed; unsustainable.
 

You are confusing the Cornish with the Cornish cross broilers.  Cornish (also known as Indian Games) are a totally different breed than the cornish-x birds that are heavily used as meat birds.  They are not built even remotely the same, aside from both having larger breasts than say mediterranean breeds like leghorns or more streamlined game breeds.  Cornish, both bantam and large fowl, have significantly longer lifespans than the cornish-x.  They may have some health problems that other dual purpose breeds don't have (I've never done much research on them as I was not interested in them when we first got into chickens), but they don't suffer from the weight and heart issues that the super-fast growing cornish-x broilers have.  Cornish-x are a hybrid bred to grow so fast that they reach butcher size around 8 weeks.  Because of this rapid growth, they are prone to issues with their legs and with their hearts.  Cornish/bantam cornish breed true and grow at a similar rate to other dual purpose breeds, and would be a tad on the scrawny side if you butchered them at 8 weeks.

These are Cornish (from feathersite.com) that are several months old at least (the site doesn't give an age for these two).  The two pictured here are dark cornish, although the breed comes in several other colors.

This is an 8 week old Cornish-x broiler (also from www.feathersite.com).  As you can see, they are clearly two completely different types of birds!  Cornish-x are pretty much exclusively white, although "freedom rangers" and other colored broilers grow nearly as quickly and are supposed to have fewer problems with legs and hearts.

Buy from a breeder - you will get birds truer to the standard, and in the long run will spend less money to get birds you like. Cornish actually make good pets - all the ones I've met have been very sweet, my neice used to have a bantam cornish hen that was a total sweetheart. Not the best layers, and they are very hard feathered so they might need a bit more warmth in the winter depending on your location, her bantam did just fine in the Williamette Valley of Oregon.

I have some large size dark cornish. Mine are big pets. They jump up on my lap and eat out of my hands.

.....Mark

i thought you were talking about cornish rock meat birds. the indian game cornish are fine for pet or livestock