Alternative to Cornish x??

[bigdog]

I was surfing the web and came across a site by Timothy Shell that discussed an alternative to Cornish Rock meat birds that he has developed -"Improved Corndel Cross", and the "Improved Pastured Peeper". I was wondering if anyone had any experience with these birds. This is a quote from his site -
http://www.apppa.org/Raising Your Own Meat Flock.doc
The Improved Corndel Cross is a Cornish Rock x Delaware cross, a broiler that grows out in 9 weeks to a 4lb. avg. dress wt., a 6 lb. dress wt. in 12 weeks and up to 8lb. in 15 weeks. The Improved Pastured Peeper is a standardized, commercial, Cornish Rock Cross, growing to 4lb. in 8 weeks, 6lb. in 10 weeks, and up to 8lb.in 12 weeks."

 

[4-H chicken mom]

Well, I haven't had any experience with these birds but if the Corndel Cross take 9wks to get to only 4lbs., I think I will stick with my cornish X. It only takes them 8 weeks to get anywhere from 9-12lbs live weight and 6 to 9lbs dressed. I couldn't take having a meat bird over 9 weeks let alone one for 15 wks. The smell drives a person crazy.

 

[Jennyhaschicks]

Quote:
They smell that bad? Why? Because they eat so much?

 

[PurpleChicken]

We have 22 of these in the brooder. They are the same as Freedom Rangers.

http://www.jmhatchery.com/Colored-Range-Chicks-p5.html

We are hoping for 5-7 pound birds in 11 weeks.


The idea of actually crossing a bird and producing a good meaty chicken
is something that interests a lot of us.

 

[Ace_king_brahma]

I'm going with no fast growing cornish x breeds for the time being. It's going to be too hot for cornish x around here soon. I remember the ones I raised for stockshow in high school and they would flip over so easy in this weather. I have slow growing cornish crosses and red broilers on order.

 

[Leslie In North Pole]

I actually know what a Corndel is. It is suppose to be a hybrid that breeds true developed by Tim Shell. I did ALOT of research on them and found this farm http://www.cooncreekfamilyfarm.com/ who was advertising them a couple of years ago. They went as far as to keep breeders and hatch their own chicks.

I actually had a really nice, long conversation with them on their experience raising Corndel. Their experience showed them that the ones they had didn't breed true. At eight weeks they had birds from two pounds to 8 + and the effort it took to keep the breeders a healthy weight so they could naturally breed plus the hours spent incubating and hatching chicks that didn't breed true wasn't worth it to them. They started using Freedom Rangers if I remembered correctly because they were far more predictable and cost effective.

I personally bought some eggs off of ebay almost three years ago, when I started hunting for breeders of Corndels but they never developed and the seller never had more eggs...

Don't get me wrong, everything I found at that time said that Tim Shell is an excellent breeder and rumour had it that he actually left the country and went to Japan to work on a breeding program there. I don't know if that is true but I do know that he never replied to any of the emails I sent him.

 

[UncleHoot]

Quote:
I think he went to China, not Japan.

But anyway, back when he was developing the the corndel, we didn't have any real alternative to the cornish cross, other than standard breeds, which aren't really an alternative at all. The black and red broilers are fairly new. And now that we have access to the Hubbard lines (Freedom Rangers / Colored Range), I see the possibility of a whole new market opening up.

In fact, the true reason that the Bresse chicken tastes so good (or so I've heard) is that it was raised and fed differently, and it grows slower. The blue feet are a cute, yet effective, marketing ploy.