Are Cornish Giants good to keep around?

[EFarms]

Hello,
First time posting and was looking for other peoples opinions about Cornish Giant chickens. We recently bought a couple chicks unsexed and was only planning on keeping them around until they reach the 2-3 month prime processing age. We had some thoughts about keeping a female around to produce more offspring but has read articles saying because they get so big so quickly it is unhealthy for them brood. We then thought keeping a rooster around but also read because of their big size they are not good breeders. I was hoping to find other people’s opinions to see how accurate this information I found was and if anyone had luck keeping them around as farmyard chickens.

 

[R2elk]

Hello,
First time posting and was looking for other peoples opinions about Cornish Giant chickens. We recently bought a couple chicks unsexed and was only planning on keeping them around until they reach the 2-3 month prime processing age. We had some thoughts about keeping a female around to produce more offspring but has read articles saying because they get so big so quickly it is unhealthy for them brood. We then thought keeping a rooster around but also read because of their big size they are not good breeders. I was hoping to find other people’s opinions to see how accurate this information I found was and if anyone had luck keeping them around as farmyard chickens.

They are meat chcikens made from a 4 way proprietary cross. They are a hybrid and should not breed true.

They were developed to make a salable carcass at a very young age.

You will have problems if you try to use them as breeding stock.

 

[Molpet]

If you starve them. A former BYC member raised a cross he called toads. I kept a pullet in 2016 and most of my flock is out of her sons. Her daughter laid double yolk eggs. However over the years the size has been lost.



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[FunClucks]

Are you talking about cornish cross? Processing age for them is 6-10 weeks. [ETA: In this response I'm talking about cornish cross, or cornish rock cross. I think all these comments would apply to the Jumbo version also.]

Occasionally, by restricting their feed throughout their lives, female cornish cross are able to be kept around for longer than their processing age. Even with the most careful attention to diet and exercise from day one, cornish cross don't last more than a year or year and a half. They often perish via heart attack, or their legs will give out because of their weight, and they won't be able to walk anymore (not fixable). They are easy for predators to get ahold of due to their slowness, being unable to fly, and white colored. To get CX genetics into a flock, you'd have to cross a female with a non-CX rooster, because the male CX are too big to mate. They can be sweet chicks, but please just process CX at a normal processing age. When kept and fed as a meat bird, their quality of life greatly decreases when they are kept past processing age. When kept on a feed-restricted diet to keep their weight down in hopes of a longer life for them, they obsess over food to the point of hurting other chickens in their rush to obtain it. IMO, it can't be pleasant to constantly be walking around hungry.

Please, just feed them as a meat bird, and harvest them between 6-10 weeks. There are much better options if you want a meat bird capable of living for a few years as a member of your flock.

 

[GoosesGeeses]

I personally wouldn't keep them, they were bred to grow huge really fast, and most fall victim to heart attack after 13 weeks or sometimes less. I am a butcher and have butchered hundreds of Cornish, the older ones always have a fluid sack around their heart, usually a side effect of water belly. This almost always leads to heart attack, and starving them to stay small isn't humane. I wanted to once but after just a little research i realized it was not going to work

 

[GoosesGeeses]

Also.

 

[R2elk]

Are you talking about cornish cross?

Cornish Giants are also referred to as Jumbo Cornish cross.

 

[Molpet]

They are easy for predators to get ahold of due to their slowness,

I had a fox come through this Aug killing a bunch of mixed. I had two 4 or 5 months old full CX, one was killed and the other injured but somehow managed to get away. I put her down and she probably would have died because her cavity was full of blood.

Spoiler: Injured CX

She was about 100 feet in the bush