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Not sustainable by the home producer. Sustainability has to do with the ability to save parent stock, in the case of animals, or seed, in the case of plants, and breed more. or re-plant more, yourself. Since I, for example, can't produce Cornish X chicks by breeding my own chickens, I would have to always and forever buy more chicks from a hatchery. I can't keep some and breed them to get more.
Just like hybrid seed for crops, such as a hybrid corn, can't be saved for seed and re-planted the next year, not and get the same thing anyway. Some hybrids, particularly genetically engineered crops, (not the same thing as an ordinary hybrid. Cross-breeding is NOT genetic engineering) now won't grow at all, (thanks to the terminator gene that may escape into other varieties and really screw up the food crops for everybody, can you say 'famine', boys and girls?). This makes them unsustainable by anybody who wants to save seed for re-planting.
My own dual purp chickens, and my heirloom, open pollinated vegetables, are sustainable. My chickens can breed and I can raise the chicks and eat them. I can keep some to raise as breeders for later. I don't have to order more chicks every time I want to raise some birds to eat. I can hatch my own. That's sustainable. My vegetables, if I don't plant two varieties of the same species, too close to each other, I can save the seeds from and re-plant the next year, and get the same as the year before. I'll be able to save seed from squash, okra, green beans, peas, cabbage, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, sunflowers, and onions, this year. That's sustainability.
I won't be able to save seed corn, from either of the kinds I planted. One is a hybrid sweet corn, and the other I mis-timed on the planting, and the two have crossed. So neither will be produce the seed corn I wanted for next year. the sweet corn would not have been sustainable in any case, but the heirloom meal corn would have been, if I hadn't goofed it up. My tomatoes and peppers will not be good to save seed from, either. They're all heirloom types, but I have several varieties of each, right next to each other, so they'll pretty much all be crossed. That's not sustainable. But the seed from the tomatoes and peppers would still grow and produce good food, they just wouldn't be predictable. I may plant some of those seeds anyway, just to see what I get. So I suppose they're still sustainable, in a sense, because the seeds will produce, good, edible food. They just won't be the same as the parent plants.
With Cornish X, they rarely live long enough to breed, as you well know, and since they are a highly specialized hybrid from years of breeding, we aren't going to be producing our own strains at home. If you can keep them alive long enough to breed, and keep the weight down enough to breed, you can certainly get more chickens, but you know they won't be the same as the parent stock. You could call that sustainable, but a lot harder than if you just start with birds that normally live long enough to breed.
Not sustainable by the home producer. Sustainability has to do with the ability to save parent stock, in the case of animals, or seed, in the case of plants, and breed more. or re-plant more, yourself. Since I, for example, can't produce Cornish X chicks by breeding my own chickens, I would have to always and forever buy more chicks from a hatchery. I can't keep some and breed them to get more.
Just like hybrid seed for crops, such as a hybrid corn, can't be saved for seed and re-planted the next year, not and get the same thing anyway. Some hybrids, particularly genetically engineered crops, (not the same thing as an ordinary hybrid. Cross-breeding is NOT genetic engineering) now won't grow at all, (thanks to the terminator gene that may escape into other varieties and really screw up the food crops for everybody, can you say 'famine', boys and girls?). This makes them unsustainable by anybody who wants to save seed for re-planting.
My own dual purp chickens, and my heirloom, open pollinated vegetables, are sustainable. My chickens can breed and I can raise the chicks and eat them. I can keep some to raise as breeders for later. I don't have to order more chicks every time I want to raise some birds to eat. I can hatch my own. That's sustainable. My vegetables, if I don't plant two varieties of the same species, too close to each other, I can save the seeds from and re-plant the next year, and get the same as the year before. I'll be able to save seed from squash, okra, green beans, peas, cabbage, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, sunflowers, and onions, this year. That's sustainability.
I won't be able to save seed corn, from either of the kinds I planted. One is a hybrid sweet corn, and the other I mis-timed on the planting, and the two have crossed. So neither will be produce the seed corn I wanted for next year. the sweet corn would not have been sustainable in any case, but the heirloom meal corn would have been, if I hadn't goofed it up. My tomatoes and peppers will not be good to save seed from, either. They're all heirloom types, but I have several varieties of each, right next to each other, so they'll pretty much all be crossed. That's not sustainable. But the seed from the tomatoes and peppers would still grow and produce good food, they just wouldn't be predictable. I may plant some of those seeds anyway, just to see what I get. So I suppose they're still sustainable, in a sense, because the seeds will produce, good, edible food. They just won't be the same as the parent plants.
With Cornish X, they rarely live long enough to breed, as you well know, and since they are a highly specialized hybrid from years of breeding, we aren't going to be producing our own strains at home. If you can keep them alive long enough to breed, and keep the weight down enough to breed, you can certainly get more chickens, but you know they won't be the same as the parent stock. You could call that sustainable, but a lot harder than if you just start with birds that normally live long enough to breed.
