A laying hen in the meatbirds?

[Mrs. K]

When I picked these up, I noticed this chick was smaller than the others. Now 3.5 weeks later, is this a laying hen? What do you think?

And yes that is snow. Good grief

 

[sourland]

Sure looks like a non meat bird. It will be interesting to see how she develops.

 

[Cyprus]

I only see Cornish X

 

[Mrs. K]

Well at first I thought that maybe she was the only pullet in the dozen. But now, I am beginning to think she is a laying hen. Last year I separated the laying chicks from the meat chicks, because I was afraid they would not keep up, however, this one is holding her own... but I don't have laying chicks, this will be a lone chick.... this hobby is always crazy and never goes according to my plan.

 

[Mrs. K]

Cyprus - look in the far back, there is a much smaller, more uniformly feathered chick.

 

[chrissynemetz]

I don't know, it's definitely smaller than the others

 

[The Dapper Duck]

That happens with the CX birds sometimes. Or so I have gleaned from YouTube, haha. Maybe more experienced meat birders can attest to this, but I hear it's something like 1 in 100 or less just didn't wind up with the "hybrid vigor" and won't grow as fast. They are not strong birds in the first place and are pretty prone to things like this. Best to cull it now so it doesn't take up feed and space from the rest, or worse, keel over and become a buffet

 

[Mrs. K]

This one seems perky enough, I thought maybe it was just a different breed due to a mix up. We will see how it goes.

 

[jolenesdad]

From everything that I’ve read and researched in the scholarly articles about meaties, they’re bred specifically for the über-controlled environments of poultry houses. When we raise them in any alternative setup, we are messing with the plan. This is what can yield us gigantic ranges in processing sizes and uniformity.

I see that bird and it looks like a non meatie...maybe. But also, it could just look like a small Cornish. Are they 3.5 weeks of age, or you’ve just had them 3.5 weeks?

Around 5 weeks I noticed even my smaller birds start to take on the Cornish build and growth patterns. What does the bird act like??? I would assume that to be the giveaway here. Does it sit down to poop?

 

[Mrs. K]

They will be 4 weeks old tomorrow... and it just looks like the little bird keeps getting smaller, I swear the meat birds grow from when I feed them in the morning to when I feed them at night. Mine are pretty active still, running around, and jumping up on things.