Hello, I know this is an old thread, but I just saw an old video about breeding broiler parents and it kind of changed my thinking. In this video they are breeding high quality male standard Cornish and shipping them out to be crossed with female Plymouth Rocks, so that means they are mating two sets of Cornish male and white Rock females and then crossing the babies together to make the broilers. I was thinking they used a female Cornish in the pairing, but maybe they only used males.
The classic CX is a hybrid, yes. Not a true breed. Like the various named Red Sex Link crosses - hybrids for specific purpose (egg laying, in that case). Part of why its not remotely economical to try to hatch CX on your own - you have to maintain multiple flocks of good breeders to produce the ones you plan on eating. But you can't begin to approach the economies of scale that Tyson Foods or ConAgra reaches pumping them out for their own use - or a commercial hatchery selling to farm stores around the nation by the thousands.
I like Dual purpose birds. I hatch and raise my own, I'm working on improving the stock (what else am I going to do - I'm already breeding, already hatching, and already eating - I may as well put the culling to purpose, too!). I also free range extensively (my flock is in my Sig, below -they have about 4.5 acres, 1/3 gloriously mixed pasture, 1/3 under brushed "forest", 1/3 natural FL highland hammock) and, living in FL, I have the benefit of a very long growing season. It saves just 20-30% on my feed bill.
Much prefer the flavor and texture - to a point. At 11 weeks, its the best bird I've had in years. By 18 weeks, I'm thinking stewing or sausage is the best cooking method. By 6 months, stewing start to give way to stock, though sausage always works (except for the very young - flavor too mild for my sausage spices).
Enough eggs I can sell or donate 8 dozen a week (more, once I have additional hens at laying age), and I can take a cockerel or two a week for my own dinner and laying hens whose production is falling for sausage/burgers. But it means I give up a lot of breast meat, and am culling birds at live weights roughly 60% the size of what some claim CornishX can reach at the same age. I feed about 10# per day, 300# per month. You can do the math with your local pricing - I can pay for my feed costs with egg sales, and lose roughly the cost of licensing and maintaining my LLC each year, about $10/wk on the deal. and I'll never recoup the initial investments in the birds, coops, runs, electric fencing, etc.
If I had more business, I could easily break even, but many neighbors have backyard flocks and its an economically depressed area - limited opportunity for growth. Any smaller an operation, and I'd lose my shirt. This size is where I start to hit my first economies of scale - cash purchases of 10 bags of feed at a time or more, other bulk buys.
But I'm in good company - can walk "down the block" (about 3 mi - its a country "block"!) and take photos of the abandoned commercial poultry operation. and dozens more just like it in the surrounding counties (and States - I'm near to the State lines).
