White Cornish Standards

[big medicine]

Cornish man
I have been looking for white cornish for a while. Just happened to search tonight and found this forum. I would like to have a few breeders or juviniles to keep and be base for a color experiment. I have Columbian Rocks and would like to attempt to set the Columbian pattern on a cornish. I am in Cadiz, KY about 30 min from duck boy although I do not know him. Let me know if I might be able to get this stock from you. Thanks

It's been my experience that white Cornish are recessive white covering a dark Cornish gold double lace pattern underneath, Can't say if all lines are built that way.

To get a silver based columbian pattern you would have to put a silver columbian male over a white hen. This would produce silver pullets, the pattern would be interesting, probably partial lacing to some degree. Male chicks would be split silver/gold. To go the other way, (use a white Cornish male) would produce gold pullets.

If you would mate the best typed of the resulting chicks together, you would get an amazing range of possibilities according to Henk's calculator. The odds of getting a silver columbian pattern being roughly 1 out of 100 chicks hatched.

 

[antlerdirtjohn]

My hopes are to set up two pens of a columbian male over white cornish hens. This would give me some genetic room to work with and then line breed the best specimens. I will have to keep going back to the Cornish to restore the confirmation. One in a hundred.......well......, good thing I like to eat chicken.

Sounds like fun, if I can pull that off, maybe barred next.

 

[antlerdirtjohn]

Duck boy, thanks. I have driven quite a few mile looking at / for white Cornish. Todate the best I have found are cross bred grades that are white, something closer to a broiler pullet. If I can find some like thes picture here that I can afford, I will let you know.

 

[big medicine]

My hopes are to set up two pens of a columbian male over white cornish hens. This would give me some genetic room to work with and then line breed the best specimens. I will have to keep going back to the Cornish to restore the confirmation. One in a hundred.......well......, good thing I like to eat chicken.

Sounds like fun, if I can pull that off, maybe barred next.

The issue if breeding back to white Cornish will be the recessive white. Any chick out of a recessive white parent will receive a copy, hidden as were, but still there. Any of these one copy recessive white birds (will look normal) will pass a copy on to half their chicks. Any chick who receives a copy from each parent will be all white, regardless what pattern (columbian) may be hiding underneath. You could avoid having a sizable percentage of your chicks turning out solid white by starting with dark hens.

 

[antlerdirtjohn]

Should this initial cross be made on both Columbian X Dark Cornish and Dark Cornish X Columbian and then line breed each side to set color?

When going back to the Dark Cornish for confirmation, how difficult is it going to be to illiminate the lacing and the red?

 

[big medicine]

Should this initial cross be made on both Columbian X Dark Cornish and Dark Cornish X Columbian and then line breed each side to set color?

When going back to the Dark Cornish for confirmation, how difficult is it going to be to illiminate the lacing and the red?

Off hand I see no advantage to putting a dark male over your columbian females as this would produce all gold based pullets, and split gold/silver males. The split males you will have from either breeding. Using these split males will produce hatches where half the resulting pullets will be gold based, and the other half silver based.


Down the road, when wanting to breed back to full Cornish to improve type, and harden feather (which will likely be a issue), I believe I would use a dark Cornish female to a silver project male, and work the resulting silver pullets into the project. Now if you get a really superior typed split gold/silver male out of these later breedings, it will probably be worth the trouble of producing both gold and silver chicks the following generation. Again if by chance you get a superior gold based female, I would use her with, under a silver male will produce silver pullets. The old saying "Type makes the breed, color makes the variety", emphasizes giving priority to type first.

I would think it will take a couple generations to get the pattern back to clean columbian after outcrossing to the double laced dark pattern. Now another thing that will be a issue is the dark neck hackle thing prevalent in Cornish. This will have to bred out if you want the classic columbian neck lacing.

A big advantage to a project like this is any bird deemed of no use to the project will still make excellent eaters, and should be no problem finding folks willing to buy them when your freezer is full.

 

[lacymorgan]

I am looking to get a white cornish rooster not a cornish X would like anywhere from a chick to a young roo so shipping is not to much. Or maybe some fertile eggs from a white cornish roo and hen I can hatch them myself

 

[lacymorgan]

are you selling any eggs from the cornish or any chicks I am looking for white cornish rooster and hens

 

[MMFarms]

Is anyone selling chicks in southern california? if not, does someone ship to southern california? I'd like a rooster and a few hens. Thanks.

 

[copperstone20]

I too, would like to find purebred White Cornish chickens. Would prefer hatching eggs as these would be the easiest for me to procure. Does anyone have any to sell and ship to Northern Oregon please?

I am looking to cross my CW's with White Rocks and Orpington's. I am after a fast growing chicken, excellent feed conversion of course, and very strong legs. I also like the White Giants.

I am thinking I am going to have to buy the Dark Cornish instead because the large type white Cornish is just to hard to find. Any recommendations as to a breeder of Dark Cornish that will ship hatching eggs?

Any thoughts on these crosses anyone?

Thanks for your input.