Breed?

[JacinLarkwell]

Do Cornish cross breed true? Since they've been developed for a long time?

Not at all. Some will be big, some small, some healthy, some not.

Plus the male's and females are the wrong shapes to naturally breed easily.

Plus it's just incredibly hard to keep them alive long enough

 

[Tonyroo]

So hatcheries have a set of breeds to create the Cornish cross to sell?

 

[JacinLarkwell]

So hatcheries have a set of breeds to create the Cornish cross to sell?

Two parent lines

 

[NatJ]

Do Cornish cross breed true? Since they've been developed for a long time?

No. The hatcheries have several different lines of chickens that do breed true, and they cross them to make the cornish cross chicks.

I think it's usually a 4-way cross by now: cross two lines and use the hens, cross a different two lines and use the roosters, cross those hens & roosters to get the ones to raise for meat. They need slightly different traits in the female line than the male line (since the hens need to lay well, so there are lots of eggs to hatch, while the males just need to mate with the females and pass on the right genes to grow big & fast.)

 

[Painted Calls]

@ColtHandorf has the most amazing white English Orpingtons. They look like clouds.

 

[ColtHandorf]

@ColtHandorf has the most amazing white English Orpingtons. They look like clouds.

I love them. I almost brought home the biggest female I've ever seen, but my friend wanted to hang on to her.