Another cornish cross question

[seramas]

lilmouthy,

Try line breeding with them. Daughters back to fathers. Then cross back to a White Rock Rooster with the results of the father x daughter cross. This will get you close. If you can find a White Cornish Rooster (not bantam), breed him to the prodigies of the WR x. This will give you a large bird that does breed true but they don't grow as fast but do get as big 4-5 weeks behind the commercial Cornish Xs.

That is what I have tried in the past. Their feed conversion rate is 1-1/2 times higher than the commercial Cornish X raise in like manner. This is why I did not continue on.

They were good Free Ranging birds but need additional feed to supplement their forging deficiencies, thus making them not true free ranged birds (no additional feed supplied only what they could find).

They were very good at predator evasion. Rarely lost one to the many predators that have wiped out other birds I tried free ranging with.

 

[Winsor Woods]

Thanks for that great tip, Seramas. I'm so glad there are others out there that want to become self sufficient with meaties.

Dan

 

[TruthHunter]

If you want to understand the "Cornish Cross" type birds, go to to the HubbardFarms
site. Here's a link:Roosters (Thanks "Brundy Farms" for the tip)

Note that they offer two types of roosters; white legged and yellow legged. White
legged are for the European market.

If you look at the rest of the site, you will see that most of what they offer are hen
lines for different needs. For the hen lines, the ability to lay eggs efficiently is quite
important. They total cost includes the cost of producing a fertile egg to produce a
baby chick. An important measure is the number of eggs layed at 1 1/2 years of
age. Part of the reason that Cornish X chicks are inexpensive is that the hens lay
well.
The need for the cross in the first place is that the growth genes and the laying
genes aren't compatible and probably aren't dominant. Notice that Leghorns
aren't hybrids, for example. The laying genes apparently are dominant, allowing
nonhybrid lines.

If you want to try and reconstruct the lines from the Cornish Crosses, you would
need
to keep meticulous records of growth rates, laying age, egg production, etc.


It sounds like it might be easier to contact a Hubbard Farms salesman and see
what they want for breeding stock. What are their price points? Any broiler
operation has to weigh the costs of buying chicks vs raising their own.