Anyone breed their own cornish x's?

[DanIndiana]

It's also fun breeding a bunch of mutts out of whatever good-sized birds you happen to have. Keep the layers, and crock pot the roosters.

 

[shadowmane]

The only problem with crossing a White Rock and a White Cornish is getting hold of a Heritage White Cornish that is not a banty. You simply can't find them. If I were going to do this, I would start with a Dark Cornish hen and either a Barred Rock or a Black Rock (or maybe even a Partrige depending on the colorings you want). Who says a meat bird has to be white?

 

[Arkantex]

Yeah I really don't care what the coloring is. I just want some "home grown" good sized meaties.

 

[shadowmane]

You know, maybe you can start with the two separate breeds. Breed towards the bigger birds, as well as the fastest growing (if you're looking to get fast growers). Once you get the two breeds the way you want them, then start crossing them. That's probably what the commercial guys did to get the Cornish Cross.

 

[what did I do]

If you do this please keep us posted.

 

[Buster52]

I want to lend a vote of support for your project. While I am growing out some decent CX right now, like them just fine, and plan to grow many more in the future, I continue to believe they are unsustainable in the long term. They come from a factory farm system, built for a factory farm production system, and that cannot be sustained indefinitely. Sooner or later, those systems will crash. When they do, it will be nice to find a few birds around that can produce some decent meat and be grown in the back yard.

I personally don't believe a cross is truly necessary, if someone could develop a fast growing meat bird that has decent breast bulk. I think of the broad breasted meat turkeys and wonder why that can't be done with chickens. Those aren't crosses, and can be grown and bred in your back yard if you work at them. And they have a feed conversion rate very close the Cornish Cross.

Best of luck to you, and I hope you succeed. I may be buying some of your birds some day.

 

[Barnmaradotte]

A friend and i are in the process of trying this out. We Searched hard and for quite some time, and finally found some quality cornish. We got whites, darks, white laced red and jubilee chicks right now. My friend has Some white rocks that are of good quality also. So maybe by next spring we will be growing out some of our first cross from these and see what we get.
We understand that we wont have a bird that butchers in 7 weeks, but we are thinking more like 12ish. We'll see.

 

[Arkantex]

Well it's good to see I am not the only crazy one out here. Hahaha! My wife and I are talking about it and are probably going to get started sometime this year.

 

[shadowmane]

Has anyone considered crossing them with Dorkings? That's what they did in England for centuries and got good meat birds. I just wonder what a Dorking x Cornish cross would grow out like.

As for pasture poultry, I think tapping into the French Label Rouge and copying it here would be a better start than going from scratch with Cornish and Plymouth Rocks. S&G are already selling the birds they use in France (with the exception of a breed or two that the French won't allow out of France). If maybe we could get a few more dedicated hatcheries that do what S&G are doing, we'll be well on our way.

Of course, its always nice to have do-it-yourself types who might just stumble upon the next best thing.

 

[Barnmaradotte]

Anyways! We have thought about a dorking also. We are also going to try a cornish x sussex. sussex x dorking may be a good one also.