Breeding Cornish X Rocks

[Brandy2015]

That was a useful reply and exactly what I was also looking for! Thank you!

 

[unity]

I was just wondering how everyone's meat project is going. I am trying a few selective breedings myself. Anybody having some success?

 

[Shaunb020]

Nice bird @kfacres

 

[lpatelski]

My little project is turning out nicely. My birds are averaging 1 1/2 pounds at 28 days.Not as good as the Cornish Roasters from Murray McMurray hatchery chicks were 2 1/2 pounds. But, I still have my 13 week old chicks on full feed and no broken legs or ascites. So I am happy with my first gen. Pure Dark Cornish over Murray McMurray Cornish Roaster hen. I have a little sexlink thing going on too...the boys come out white and may get red over the wings later, girls come out white with spots of black over the body and head. I have girls that have turned lavender with speckled(splash). You can see a spot on this girl just over her hips.

 

[anob89]

anyone have an update on a Delaware breeding program?

 

[nikkers390]

or most likely a ton of infertile eggs.

Crossing ANY chicken with ANY other chicken will give you fertile eggs provided both parents were fertile and physically successful.
ALL chickens are gallus gallus (domesticus). It's not like breeding a different species like pheasants to chickens or guineas to chickens.
There are instances of this happening and those offspring are "mules" capable of laying eggs but will not have viable offspring.
Crossing purebred chicken breeds has the advantage of gene diversity and the potential of having "hybrid vigor".
Most "super" egg layers are hybrids.
Most commercial broilers are hybrids.
Hope this helps.

 

[nikkers390]

#1. Not necessarily true. There are zebra fish which are now GMO in the true sense of the word. They are the neon colored ones that you see in the pet shops. If my feeble memory serves correctly, their neon color comes from a gene inserted from a coral. http://www.aboutfishonline.com/articles/glofish.html

#2. One might wonder if the biggest concern regarding GMO crops is the focus on making them "Round-Up ready". Which means that these crops can grow well while Round-Up is being applied to the area to kill off the weeds. There is a lot of research that suggests that Round-Up or glyphosphate is not the benign weed killer that it is advertised to be. At the very least, it is a hormone disruptor. At the very worst: while it does not show up in the soil a season after being applied, there are studies that show that it is tied up in the micro-organisms that feed the soil.

GMO is not selective breeding, which has been going on since humans started farming. GMO occur with the deliberate insertion of a gene from one species or organism into an other species. While I don't want to start an other war about the use of the term GMO, I would suggest that any readers who are curious do their own research. The studies are there. Depends on whether you want to read Monsanto or Dupont studies, or other studies that are not funded by these two companies.

Well said. When reading any study and accepting its validity, follow the money and make your own decision.

 

[kfacres]

Crossing ANY chicken with ANY other chicken will give you fertile eggs provided both parents were fertile and physically successful.
ALL chickens are gallus gallus (domesticus). It's not like breeding a different species like pheasants to chickens or guineas to chickens.
There are instances of this happening and those offspring are "mules" capable of laying eggs but will not have viable offspring.
Crossing purebred chicken breeds has the advantage of gene diversity and the potential of having "hybrid vigor".
Most "super" egg layers are hybrids.
Most commercial broilers are hybrids.
Hope this helps.
        :cd

Science and experience typically go hand in hand... but in this case breeding get experience in using the. Cornish rock hybrid birds in breeding projects trumps science. These birds can and will mate, however as I have already stated you can suspect tons of infertile eggs. Based on my experience only about 10 percent of the eggs will be fertile and only half of them will actually hatch...

 

[lpatelski]

Science and experience typically go hand in hand... but in this case breeding get experience in using the. Cornish rock hybrid birds in breeding projects trumps science. These birds can and will mate, however as I have already stated you can suspect tons of infertile eggs. Based on my experience only about 10 percent of the eggs will be fertile and only half of them will actually hatch...

I must have a really good hen. She has never had a yolker yet. Even her doubles develop to about 16 days(these do not hatch though). She laid 6 double yolk eggs. The biggest problem with her eggs is some try to come out the small end and die. She lays 2 or more eggs every three days. I have hatched out 75% of her eggs and I would of hatched out more but I lost 10 of her eggs when my incubator failed.













All of those white babies are hers from this season. She started laying in 7/15/15 of this year and stopped laying 10/16/15 I raised 35 chicks from her so far.
She has the lavender gene. This is one of her daughters hatched on 8/26/15.



Her oldest Roos are 8 pounds- hatched 8/20/15.

Fertile, useful, I'm keeping her...and a few offspring.
I forgot to mention the really nice Roo who fathered the chicks: BamBam is my purebred Dark Cornish and very fertile. His is out of show stock, a reject due to his overgrown pea-comb. But I am interested in meat.His prepotency throws bone and structure. Mom throws meat and appetite.

 

[KJaguar]

Nice looking birds there, thought I was the only one who had interest in this. Im from Trinidad in the Caribbean. Recently a friend of mine and I started using Cornish cross hens to heritage breeds. So far we have 12 Laying hens, three of which are lavender.We got the lavender ones from a large poultry farm that raises Cornish cross and there were three lavender in the batch. They lay really good because we customize their diet. We managed to get five batches of chicks from them using a very large black Naked neck rooster.
The offspring come out with very similar color patterns as yours.