Best Hatchery to Buy CornishX?

[nordicacres]

Just curious if some of the hatcheries have better CornishX lines than others?

We ordered 20 from McMurray this year and they were nice birds. We butchered at 7 weeks, 3 days and they were good sized. Our scale wasn't large enough to weigh them but I would guess they were an average of 5 lbs dressed. We are looking to try a new hatchery this time. McMurray was a little on the high side as far as pricing . . .

 

[chickenmanIL89]

Ive used cackle, meyer, and hoovers so far this year. Cackle hatchery has the Cobb 500 strain and they did decent for me, dressing out at about 5lbs in 7.5 weeks. Hoovers has the Ross 308 strain and my hoover batch will be 4 wks old monday. They are going to be good birds. Also have 30 from Meyer that are a week old and all very healthy. Most death in first week with Hoover birds (lost 6) but they sent 3 or 4 more. Cackle and Meyer are all healthy. Hoovers is cheaper though! Good luck!

 

[SIMZ]

My favorite is Central Hatchery in Nebraska. You just can't beat the price if you're going to do at least 50 birds. They've always done very well for us - healthy and good growers.

This year ours came from Ridgeway through our local feed store. They did great as well! Only a few losses and finished butchering them today at just over 7 weeks. We did most of the roosters at 6 weeks and they were 5-6 pounds dressed.

 

[chickenmanIL89]

SIMZ what do you feed your meaties?

 

[SIMZ]

I start them on 24% for the first 2 weeks then 20% after that. I start mixing in scratch grains during the last week. These were outside from 3 weeks with a large yard to run in.

 

[chickenmanIL89]

I start mine on 18% then switch to 20% meat feed at 2 wks. Thats whats available. I buy ADM pen pals feed. What brand do you get the 24% starter if?

 

[SIMZ]

It's Dumor from TSC.

 

[chickenmanIL89]

Thanks!

 

[nordicacres]

Thanks so much for the replies! I didn't realize there were actual named strains of the CornishX birds. Will have to look into that further. I'm leaning towards Hoover just because they are so reasonably priced. We will be ordering 50!

 

[wvhomesteader]

We use Meyer and haven't had any problems. We'll do 125 meaties this year in various batches.