Anyone breed their own cornish x's?

[kfacres]

These, I feel are very close physically- to looking like a CX bird. Although I think much slower growing, they should be a more functional chicken. I just picked up 10 CX straight run chicks about 2 weeks ago- and a pullet or two will remain here to be covered by this white cornish cock. I think that could be, an extremely interesting cross- especially after being backcrossed once to regain the cornish look.

 

[ijon]

I started with Cornish X years ago. I kept 3 hens and a rooster, butchered the others out. Like a poster on here I did not contain them, they free ranged. They did grow large and the male took quite a while to mature. The hens had chicks by other roosters three months before the rooster sexually matured. I kept 2 hens and one rooster from the first year and bred the hens back to the Cornish x rooster. One of the original hens did not make the first winter. I bred the original rooster to his daughters and bred back the original hens to sons and his daughters the second year. So it was father to daughters and son to mothers. Offspring back to original rooster. I had fertility issues with the original rooster and butchered him out on the second year I was left with two original hens, 4 hens from the first year, one roosters from the first year that was a cross from my RIR rooster. I kept 2 hens from the father daughter breeding it was all he produced in hens. It is 30 years later and I still have descendants from the original stock. I have added outside stock last year of cornishX's and RIR. Out of all of the breeding, I have chicks that look like RIR, white rocks, cornish rocks, barred rocks, yet I have never reproduced anything that resembled the original birds. Most of my birds are heavy boned, really heavy. Sometimes its hard to tell young males from females the bones are so large. I have one on the stove now cooking and it does not fit in a stock pot. My birds are baked in cake pans they are so big. I butcher out at 12-14 weeks. I have found that maturity and muscle development adds flavor and additional profiles to the meat. Good luck in your journey it is fun!





One egg is a store egg..can you guess what one?



9x13 pan

Sounds like you had a fun project.

 

[AgroUrica]

Just curious but to those few that have breeders do they continue to eat like hatchlings or finally level out on feed LOL I just couldnt see keeping any to breed for the trouble, time and money personally. I raise about 30 to 50 and cant wait til its processing day to be here so I can get rid of the aggrevations of them honestly. My laying hens are so soo easy and cheep in comparison to these food scarfing water drinking poop machines I just cant imagine trying to maintain them year around personally.

Those comments are priceless!

BTW, I understand that one can buy the eggs of "broiler breeders". I'm still investigating. I want to produce my own Cornish X, not because it seems like a fun project (even though I'm sure it would be) but because I'm concerned that in my case it will be more and more difficult to find the chicks I need. I don't live in the US.