cornish game hens

[sydney13]

are cornish game hens pure cornishes without being crossed with a rock? If thats true then an hey live normal lives without being slaughtered

 

[FordFamilyFarm]

If you are talking about the cornish game hens you get at the grocery store. Those are 4 to 5 week old cornish rock cross hens. same birds just younger hens. At least thats what I have read and been told. Hope this helped.

 

[CARS]

FFF is right, they are Cornish X's raised to be about 2 lbs.

They are the chicken version of veil.

Not entirely sure what you mean when you say "live normal lives without being slaughtered ?

 

[Illia]

What Sydney is asking is if they're real purebred Cornish, not crosses. The answer sadly is no. However, REAL cornish DO live out perfectly healthy lives. They're very similar to Oriental Game Fowl.

 

[CARS]

Quote:
Still baffled. Why sadly?? What mis information about the way I raise my Cornish X's are you refering to???

And this is the meat section so how can any bird live out a perfectly healthy life??? They all taste like chicken

 

[rhoda_bruce]

I understand that this is the meat section and I'm all in, but I can't see the feasibility in always having to order meaties from hatcheries. I also would want to breed my meaties. I am considering getting some cornishes and white rocks and possibly having a little project of my own. Just with about 5 or so breeders. I may go with pure cornishes, white rocks or combine to make a hybrid. Hubby has been discussing this with me. He sees me working on plucking and although he is satisfied with the outcome, he would like us to get more for our investment and work.
I think that possibly when someone asks about long lives, they are just wanting to set up with breeders to replentish on their own.

 

[Bossroo]

Raising your own chicks will cost you more $$$ in the long run since you have to keep , feed, and house the breeders year round. If you intend to crossbreed, the resulting chicks will be all over the place as far as meat production as well as time to reach acceptable size goes. Good, Bad, and Mediocre.

 

[Buster52]

Quote:

 

[Buster52]

Quote:
Meaning if they weren't slaughtered, could they live out long, normal, healthy lives. The answer is no, they can't.

But we have already gone over that, haven't we.

 

[slc]

Quote:
So many people have said the same thing and gone back to scratch and didn't get very far. First the cornish rock is no longer cornish nor rock. That was sixty plus years ago. Back then farmers had gene pools of rock and cornish that were different than the "bred to standard" or "hobby" birds we have now. At the time of the cornish rock experiments Delaware was the commercial meat chicken. Only when the cornish x rock was perfected as its own "sub breed" did the commercial farmers stop using Delaware.

Now days there are much better breeds to start from namely the Freedom Ranger (JM Hatchery) which is actualy Redbro, a real broiler bred by Hubbard-ISA for the French and European "label rouge" program. These are crosses but because of the nature of the label rouge program they are more like real chickens than other broiler gene pools we have today. The Redbro can reach the same weight as a cornishX in only two or three more weeks but retains the "real chicken" qualities of standard breeds including foraging, health, vitality and mating behavior. They grow at a rate that allows their bones and organs to be in better balance. The label rouge program requires this. There is a CSA in Georga that has flocks of label rouge range broiler types that they are hatching their own eggs from right now. (Nature's Harmony Farm)

I think a person would get to a stable broiler faster by starting with a Redbro type broiler and working backward selectively breeding to de-hybridize rather than working forward from non utility gene pools to create another hybrid.

I intend on going with Freedom Rangers for our homestead and holding back a small breeding flock each season until I get something I can call stable that works for us. Maybe even a turken line. If I'm hatching eggs I might as well keep the best and cull the rest. One thing about culling is that it is easy with a meat flock