My Cornish X experiment

[duluthralphie]

No real changes this week, except they did grow a lot, I hope to weigh a couple today.

I am noticing way smaller chest/breast on these birds. Last time they were top heavy and reminded me of a duck when they walked. These look like normal chickens, almost.

I am happy with the weight gain they made this week. I have been feeding them a little heavier. Yesterday morning, I put a paper feed sack on the ground in their area and poured their feed on it. They left it all day and never touched it. Not one of them. I dumped the feed into the tractor when I locked them up last night and they ate it....

This morning I put the bag on the ground in their tractor and poured their feed on it, they ate it, but were very leery of the bag.... They have been playing on empty feed sacks for weeks, silly critters!

I was going to butcher some of my other roosters today, so last night I went to capture the unlucky ones. I found only 6 of my flock are big enough, and 2 of those 6 are my future baby daddys.

I just counted the weeks and the others are only 13 weeks, I guess that is too young for many breeds. Hopefully, they will be ready when these cx's are.

 

[Bladeguy]

Ralphie, do they look something like this? If I remember correctly, mine are 5 days behind yours. I just took this one.

[VIDEO]

 

[JessicaThistle]

Ralphie, do they look something like this? If I remember correctly, mine are 5 days behind yours. I just took this one.

Great video! That's exactly what mine are like. I sure wish I had the shade that you have. My pasture is full sun.

 

[Bladeguy]

This is along the side of my house. I have no yard yet, so this was convenient. The chickens love the shade. In the late morning they get a lot of sun and they will go into their pen for shade if it is warm. We are really cool right now, so the sun doesn't bother them. Next year we will put in a lawn, but I have plans to cut down some trees to make another area like this for the next batch.

 

[LindaB220]

Ralphie, do they look something like this? If I remember correctly, mine are 5 days behind yours. I just took this one.

Great set up . Love it. And they are so healthy and happy. Good for you

 

[duluthralphie]

They look just like mine... I am guessing some are close to 4-5 lbs now. But they are not waddling are having trouble walking at all. I am so happy with them. If I want to catch one I have to run! And for a fat old man that is a lot of work..

 

[Bladeguy]

Funny you say that. I took a few out of the fence today just to see what they would do. They mainly just searched around the perimeter of the fence up to maybe 10 feet away. So I decided to take one cockerel and put him in an area where in old wood pile was. I knew there would be bugs there. I got a hold of him and took him over there, but he didn't like it. I set him down and after about 5 seconds he took off trying to run away from me. It took me some patience and little running to catch him and get him back with the flock. What was funny is he just kept chirping and calling trying to find the other chickens. I think his biggest problem was he didn't want to be alone....or at least alone with me. I thought it was cute, but maybe he knows what's coming in 4 weeks or so. Mine are 2.5 to just over 3 lb.'s. Pretty small for almost 6 weeks, but they are so healthy. I'm thinking the flavor of the meat has to be better when we let them live more naturally.

 

[Luvmybob]

Bladeguy, they look really good. I like that setup you have. and I liked your video.

Duluthralphie~ Yours are probably just healthy, mine didn't start waddling until they were almost full grown. That's what happens when you have free range chickens that get exercise vs. those cooped up all the time.

My giant rooster gets chased all the time by my RIR and let me tell you there is NO way I can catch him and he is HUGE!

Keep up the great work!
Dana

 

[Luvmybob]

Hello Jacob H and Deluthralphie. Good luck with your meat birds. As I stated in a previous post, I raised three Cornish X birds and they were less than what I would call ambitious when it comes to foraging. I hope the free ranging thing works out for both of you, I just hope you don't end up with something that has the consistency of shoe leather. I am all for free ranging chickens but it just seems to me that for a meat bird you would want to limit its exercise. Don' t get me wrong, I wish you both well and hope in the end that you get the product that you are expecting. I will follow this thread so please keep us posted on your progress and how the birds turned out at the end. Maybe you can convince me after all that it is a good idea.

. Best of luck to both of you from Northeast Pa.

All mine were free ranged and I smoked them and they were delicious and tender. Dressed out my roo was 6.8 pounds....

 

[duluthralphie]

I have started, in the last few days, feeding them more. I must confess the hard frost last night freaked me out. We have had so many years of late frosts I had become complacent towards them. I assumed I would have until the last week of September or first of October to get a hard frost.

I am worried they will not get big enough soon enough, so about a week ago I started increasing the feed a little each day. I still let them out to run around and play. They only spend the nights locked up.

I am finding them frustrating!!! They are refusing to eat everything I give them. They are still too busy running, jumping chasing shadows or whatever they can find. We still have some of the hardy bugs around for them. I am not seeing many box elder bugs this year and this is prime box elder bug time. I think the chickens got them, YEAH!..

I am wondering if a CX is treated like a normal chicken to start with, if they don't live like a normal chicken. I know my last batch would have eaten the amount of feed I gave them twice over in a day.

They are not consuming as much water either, but that is to be expected with less food to metabolize.

I am still hoping they will be ready in 2-3 weeks. I have also stepped up the food on my regular package of " colored egg layers" I bought on June 2nd. I am hoping to get them filled out by October 10th........ Fingers crossed.

As I stated elsewhere I went to pull out some roosters to butcher last night (processing them today) but I found them lacking. They have huge frames but the legs and breast are not filled out...( I was hoping to not have to buy so much feed....Next year I hope to get young ones earlier. ( hopefully hatched from my own eggs)