Breeding your own meat birds

[TexasAMquaileggs]

I had 5 white plymouth rock hens and no roosters so I added 2 buff orpingtons roosters and these are very large birds. They look ike a tan buff orpington. Will these work better for the cornish crosses then? I see cornish rocks in the freezer section aat walmart so i thought this is how you get them. I don't know how to add pics on here or i'd add them. These birds are laying big beautiful brown eggs even from the start they were bigger than the others. I've got about 10 hens of the orpington rock X's. I been waiting 4 months so far to put my cornish roos to good use and I'll be selling the other 10 or so off very shortly. I've just had the quail to raised and butcher until now. I guess I kinda screwed up. I've got 15 dark cornish roosters and 15 dark cornish hens I was going to keep raising them as I thought I had to have them for the cornish X's

 

[Bucky182]

TIMG

I was simply saying for allot of people it is worth it to pay .60 cents. I actually plan on some crosses myself just to see what I can do. However, I think if you are looking only at meat birds, and you facotred in the cost of feed for hens, cost of incubaotor, and quality of what you would get or time till you get too a major breeder quality .60 would be cheap.

Cost of buying raising and feeding say 10 hens for a year @ 350.00?
Cost of incubator even a cheap one is @130.00 or if you build one 75.00 for supplies
Cost of electricity??
Cost of experimenting till you get the right mix???????

Cost of doing it yourself ??? for me PRICELESS!!!

I am going to opt to try to cross 2 established meat breed crosses with two good dual purpose breeds then cross the off spring to have a 4 way cross. Hopefully this will give me a quicker start to where I want to be and the parent stock also. It might just be a crap shoot too. I am leaning toward all red birds to try and keep the color and everything the same. Not sure if it will work or not...

 

[dancingbear]

Quote:
When you say Cornish Rocks in the freezer at Walmart, do you mean the little Cornish-Rock game hens? If so, those are the same as the full size supermarket chickens, just butchered younger. Like 3 or 4 weeks, I think. As others have posted, those are the result of intensive breeding with 4 parent lines for a long time, it's not what you get crossing a Cornish and a Rock at home. That said, crossing a Cornish and a Rock at home will give you a perfectly acceptable meat bird, if you don't expect the same growth rate as the meat crosses from the hatcheries.

To have a Cornish-Rock cross, of course it has to be part Cornish and part Rock. What you have is an Orpington/Rock cross. I suggest you don't get rid of the Cornish until you butcher an Orp/Rock, eat it, and see what you think. You may have come across a mix that will be great for what you want. You might also try your DC roos over the Orp and rock hens, and see what you get that way. I bet you'll like what you get with at least one of these crosses. Or DC roo over an Orp/Rock hen. You could call them Cornish Rockingtons. Cornoprocks? No, that sounds like a porn film.

You could be onto a great mix here, if you give it some time, and see which ones you like the best.

I wish we lived closer, I'd be happy to take some DC's off your hands, if you decided you didn't want them.

On posting pics: It's kind of a PITA, for me, because I'm on dial-up, and it takes forever. But what you have to do is post your pics on Photobucket or a similar photo storage site. Then you can load that site and BYC in different windows, or different tabs. I like tabs, myself. You click on the pic in photobucket, and wait for the page to load the larger image. Then you right click on the pic, select "copy image location". Switch back to BYC, (on which you'll be in the process of posting, I forgot to say that)
Above the box where you write your message, click the "img" button. That will put

on your screen. You right click between the 2 center brackets, click "paste" . That should add the image location between the brackets. After you click "submit", you should see your pics, and see if it worked ok. You can also use the preview button, but I hardy ever do anymore.

 

[TimG]

Quote:
I agree with most of what you say. But...for about half the year my laying flock produces enough eggs (at $2/dozen) to pay for their own feed. I think you overstate the cost of keeping hens, especially if you are hatching your own eggs. Lots of people already own an incubator and at any rate the cost of an incubator would be spread out over lots of chicks.

I think we're in general agreement though, I was responding mostly to

Heck at that price why raise your own unless you just want to?

by explaining why I want to. Some people cannot understand.​

 

[TexasAMquaileggs]

I thought I'd try the orpington/rock cross w/cornish. Those birds are just so big I thought they'd be perfect with the DC. I've also got about 12 delaware hens and a few younger roos so I might as well add the dark Cornish to them as well since I've got 15 roosters I can just get the biggest guys and let them stay with the differant ladies. Since I got enuff roo's to put a few in each of my pens where I've got no roos's up to age just yet just odd roosters to make a fertile egg. they don't care what kind of chick they get around here they just want chicks.

 

[dancingbear]

Quote:
Cool, so Cornish Rockingtons! (or whatever you wanna call 'em) I've got some Dels, too, I've seen a roo that was a DC/Del cross, he was just massive. I love crossing these birds and seeing how they turn out.

I hope you can figure out posting pics, I'd love to see your crosses.