Buying meat birds...

[chickenannie]

Having raised my first pastured Cornish X's this fall (butchered one month ago) -- I realized my other chickens (Buff Orpingtons) and even my stewing hens taste sooooo much better then the Cornish X.

Sure, the Cornish had a meatier breast, but who cares about that, if the taste is bland?

I didn't really enjoy watching the Cornish feeding cycle either -- the excessive eating/pooping/can hardly walk phenonmenon. they are obese, breathe fast and have little interest in moving about. It was disturbing to think I was going to be eating such an unhealthy animal. It is like raising little Frankenstein monster chickens that have the "chicken" bred out of them. I felt sorry for them and their lack of a "real life."

My lesson -- keep raising Buff Orpingtons free-range, and butcher all the young roosters. The taste and tenderness are terrific, and what they lack in breast meat is by far made up by their excellent flavor. And best, I know they'd have a good life of being raised by a henmom, running around and living naturally, and not having health problems with legs or dysfunctional organs.

I have not tried the brown Colored Range Broilers. How are they for taste?

My 2 cents.

 

[imfowl]

My experience with Cornish X this spring:

Purchased 25 from a hatchery. Lost one to (now deceased) possum. Butchered 10 at 8 weeks. They weighed 6-7 lbs dressed. Butchered 13 at 10 weeks. They weighed 8- 10 lbs dressed. I fed them non- medicated 26% quail starter from hatch till slaughter. The other one I tried to raise to a grown bird and it keeled over with a massive coronary. That's a 92% success rate. I will have more this spring. Here are some observations I made during my great poultry endeavour.

1. No need to ever "free range" Cornish X. They have no desire to get more than 2 feet from the feeder, or walk at all, for that matter.

2. A partially covered run is all you need for housing. They will not climb a ladder to get in a coop.

3. The claims of leg and heart problems are probally true, but these birds are ready for slaughter at 6-12 weeks, so these problems rarely have time to manifest themselves.

4. Their poo is really big, nasty, and stinky....And they fart.


Hope this is helpful. Just wanted to share my experience. Some other people have not had as good of luck with them, but I do live in a mild (springtime) climate.

 

[Bossroo]

Quote:
Unhealthy animal ??? Frankenstein monsters ??? Lack of a "real life" ??? The Cornish X were selectively bred to be raised in confinement NOT on a pasture. Raise them the way they were meant to be raised and you will have great success. My wife is a great gourmet cook ( my waisteline will attest to that) and she too finds the Cornish X to be very tastey just like me. The taste is in the FAT and the SKIN, and they are unhealthy ! Doctors urge their patients to trim away the fat from meats before cooking and to buy only lean meat to be heart healthy and avoid obesety. Some people even remove the chicken skin before cooking. We found the taste of the older chickens to be too fatty and tougph,but keep the skin for flavor. So we butcher our Cornish X with full breasts as 1-2 lb. game hens at 30 days or 4-5 lbs. friers for BarBQue at 42 days. Occationaly , as the tempertures permits in our environment of extreams, I will butcher a couple for 8-10 lbs. roasters a couple weeks later. So taste is in the view of the beholder. The Cornish X fits our needs to the "T" .

 

[Brunty_Farms]

It's a good thread to see everyones experience. I'm open minded and know that everyone has different opinions. That's what makes it so interesting.

P.C. the biggest problem with buying the cornish from the hatcheries is you rarely ever get the same bird. Some are bred for big breast, some are bred for big wings. Also goes for the legs. But the point is they are never the same breed. Central hatchery uses Ross 308's but they sometimes can't get them in. This is just one hatchery and one example. So you could have very well have received a bad batch of the cornish.

Your best bet is to know what your dealing with before hand and then do your best to offset the problems.

The one thing that I have learned while raising cornish is if you keep them inside a coop their entire life they are weak birds. Any fluctuation in temperature, change in feed, change in anything it seems to throw them off and make them stressed.

If they are "hardend" to the atmosphere of a changing environment from when they are young they tend to do so much better. For instance The lights are tuned off in the brooder at day 10 to condition the birds to sleeping at night. The lights are only on during the "sunlight" hours. At day 14 they are then put on pasture, and conditioned to the outside. I lose about 3-4 in this process but it makes better birds in the long run. I would much rather lose 4 during this time instead of losing 4 four weeks down the road due to not "Hardening" at an early age. I always acount for this and include 4-6 extra chicks when buying them.

When "exploiting" their downfalls this is what I mean. You almost have to condition them for the long run. When they are put onto pasture at this young of age their instict to forage is strong as they can still function without losing their breath or their joints hurting. They are in "training" for how to act like a normal chicken. During the first 3-4 weeks their legs are extremely stronger than a normal cornish. Their hearts are twice as strong as it normally would be.

The whole objective to this is to get them acting like normal chickens and get them strong enough to endure the obstacles they will face with their fate of their own genetics.

When given enough space in the tractors your giving them enough room to run but yet still not over doing it by free-ranging too much and overworking their heart. Your making their instincts take over to forage instead of just sitting in a barn picking at wood shaving. Instead they chase bugs and pick at the grass.

If people have a bad experience it not their fault, it's taken me 9 years to learn little "tricks" to help these tanks get going at a young age. My only advice is to keep trying, there not as bad as many make them out to be. But given many cicumstances the birds can not be pastured and people don't have the time to move the pens 3-4 times a day. Which in any case is understandable, which is why the colored rangers work so well for so many. They are a great choice for the backyard flock. Not to mention they are a favorite with Hispanic and Oriental customers, they prefer the colored any day over the white and will pay twice as much. I raise quite a bit during the summer months just for this purpose.

Here is an example of 14 day old chicks on pasture:

 

[Daycare Mom]

What a great discussion. I raise slow white broilers last fall (with great sucess) and plan to try my luck at CornishX next. I love to hear everyones experience with their meaties!

 

[CTChickenMom]

Hey Purple Chicken...do you process your own birds or do you have them done? I'm looking for a place in CT that will process for me. I'd like meat birds but I don't want to get involved in the mess.

 

[PurpleChicken]

BossRoo, People do have different tastes. I loved the taste of our
Cornish. Heck, I love the taste of a silkie roo. A properly processed
and cooked fresh bird is an awesome thing. I notice big differences
in taste from fryers to Cornish to Rangers, etc... They are all good to
me. Big Cornish make lousy fryers. Fryers make horrible broilers.
Rangers made the best soup I've ever had. We deep fried and smoked
a few Cornish. Oh man were they good.


Brunty, Wow. I made a lot of the mistakes you mentioned. I do
believe I got a lousy batch too. You are sparking my curiosity again on
Cornish. Maybe I'll split an order with someone this year. 10 would
be an easy number for me to deal with. Last time I split and order of
50 Cornish and 50 Rangers.


Now I gotta go process 11 male Coturnix quail. Bossroo have you ever
tried Coturnix? They are small but SO good.

 

[Chicken Freak]

personally, i like mcmurray hatchery better. http://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/product/jumbo_cornish_x_rocks.html

 

[greyfields]

Quote:
Please realize, though, that when buying broilers from a retail hatchery they are all getting their hatching eggs from the same people. There are only a handful of broiler producers out there from which all the retail hatcheries get their stock/hatching eggs.

 

[Brunty_Farms]

Yeah but you know as well as anyone that they have many different lines of these broilers. Which makes raising them difficult as when you get use to one line they change it up on you.

For birds that are bred for confinement and bred to be in a controled environment it make is tough to raise them without a high mortality rate or bad experiences. I don't know of too many people on here that control the environment as well as the houses that raise the broilers. It all comes down to trial and error.