Can Cornish X breed?

[buddhabrahma905]

Hey BYC'ers,

My good friend and I recently undertook a Cornish X rescue project in which we purchased 5 chicks last summer and raised them on a controlled diet to be layers. Now, 3 deaths later, we're left with one mature hen and one mature rooster, both of which are indistinguishable from white plymouth rocks other than the fact that they're huge. The rooster can mate and has been "doing the deed" with the cornish x hen exclusively. She has started to lay now and I'm collecting the eggs, but I'm wondering if I'm just seeing mating but not actual fertilization. If the eggs are highly unlikely to be fertile, I'd like to know now before I invest in this. I believe that the rooster is of the correct body type to be able to breed, and I'll post some pictures tomorrow when I go to collect eggs, but what are your thoughts?

 

[keesmom]

You can certainly stick some in the incubator. They may be fertile and maybe not. You will know in a week whether or not they are.

Since you mention "rescuing" some Cornish X, and this pair is the result, what is your plan for the offspring? Primarily for the cockerels?

 

[Kev]

Yeah you can try.. it's very easy and quick to check for fertility after incubation has started- you can see embryos quite clearly by the third day.

some swear by breaking the eggs carefully and looking for a bulls eye on the yolk. there are pictures elsewhere on the site. I have no personal opinon on exactly how reliable that is.

btw I am going through a similar thing here- except with freedom rangers. They are quite big birds- weighed some hens and they came in at 10-12 lbs. the rooster looks like a buff colored cornish, except not so massively. I tried to get fertile eggs out of him and hens of different breeds, he totally failed to fertilize any of them, after several egg sets.

Recently put him in with the freedom hens... it appears he mostly cannot breed several of them successfully(keeps either sliding forward over the hen or cannot keep his feet on the hen- he gives up when that happens), the only two he seems to be able to breed successfully more than a few times are particularly large hens- one is almost as big as him. Hope to set their eggs soon..

Are you being careful with him not tearing up the hen? I had to separate the rooster as one day I found several hens with their sides completely ripped open, from the back all way down to the bottom. He's so big and clumsy.. getting worse as he gets older it seems, with increasing weight from maturity.

 

[1muttsfan]

They may be fertile. However, they are crossbred birds, and will not breed true to type - you may see a variety of body types out of the chicks.

 

[Kev]

That is true I do have a whole bunch of freedom ranger crosses(naked neck over freedom hens) and the chicks are very variable in size. The biggest are easily over twice the size of the smallest.

 

[buddhabrahma905]

It's a valid point. I'm probably gonna sound really hypocritical when I say this, but my plan for the chicks was to keep the best and eat the rest, so as to not propagate more problems in the offspring.

 

[buddhabrahma905]

You can certainly stick some in the incubator. They may be fertile and maybe not. You will know in a week whether or not they are.

Since you mention "rescuing" some Cornish X, and this pair is the result, what is your plan for the offspring? Primarily for the cockerels?

My plan for the chicks was to keep them as pets/layers and eat the cockerels. Kinda hypocritical, but my beliefs about eating the chickens you raise have changed over the year we've had them. I'd probably just try to cull any seemingly unhealthy ones.

 

[buddhabrahma905]

Yeah you can try..  it's very easy and quick to check for fertility after incubation has started- you can see embryos quite clearly by the third day.

some swear by breaking the eggs carefully and looking for a bulls eye on the yolk.  there are pictures elsewhere on the site.  I have no personal opinon on exactly how reliable that is.

btw I am going through a similar thing here- except with freedom rangers. They are quite big birds- weighed some hens and they came in at 10-12 lbs.   the rooster looks like a buff colored cornish, except not so massively.   I tried to get fertile eggs out of him and hens of different breeds,  he totally failed to fertilize any of them, after several egg sets.

Recently put him in with the freedom hens...  it appears he mostly cannot breed several of them successfully(keeps either sliding forward  over the hen or cannot keep his feet on the hen- he gives up when that happens), the only two he seems to be able to breed successfully more than a few times are particularly large hens- one is almost as big as him.  Hope to set their eggs soon..

Are you being careful with him not tearing up the hen?  I had to separate the rooster as one day I found several hens with their sides completely ripped open, from the back all way down to the bottom.  He's so big and clumsy..  getting worse as he gets older it seems,  with increasing weight from maturity.

I've never been to good with the Bulls eye method of testing fertility so I'll probably just incubate all of them and remove clears at day 7. He doesn't have any problems with injuring hens, as he has really tiny Spurs.

 

[buddhabrahma905]

So just to update everyone, I'm 8 days into incubating the eggs and 2 of the eggs candled clear so I opened them up and sure enough they were infertile. The third and only remaining egg looks iffy but isn't weeping or smelling yet. I'll post a pic of it tomorrow, but that's the only one that's not clear.