Cornish cross chicks arriving next week

[wolfwalker]

They are here. All arrived alive and hungry and thirsty. I am going to give them to Monday, which will put them at 7 days from hatch to start weights and feed tracking as right now, all my brooders are full of injured or several week olds and It is going to take me a few days to get everyone moved, brooders cleaned and sterilized and ready to seperate the Deleware's from the rest of the order.

 

[Parront]

Already pooping and eating! The Delawares look twice as large as the others.

 

[Ruthster55]

Thanks for the awesomely useful info about altitude!!! I’m at 2340 m (7700 ft) so the choice (heritage) is clear!!!

Got some rowdy little Barred Rocks in “quarantine” here away from the rest of the flock. (Meat birds and maybe a meat breeding project).

Neighbor who picked them up was told they are two weeks old so I imagined little fuzzies going under a broody hen tonight. No!! They are HUGE.

The store was closed in April and part of May. They indeed have larger birds as well.

They are fully-feathered and obviously 6-8 weeks old. I think the store where they were bought “pushes” them as chicks with extra heat and an 18-hour or even 24-hour light cycle. The store is at 8000ft altitude.

They started going whack-a-doodle with the natural sunset but I left a light on where they are and they are calm and as happy can be. That’s how I know the store “pushed” them with a long light cycle.

 

[wolfwalker]

I need to grab a new battery for the scale, I had one of the Delaware chicks with poopy but I needed to clean today, they are growing like weeds and their crops are bulging from the way they are stuffing themselves. It almost makes me wonder if they sent the wrong breed, except they look and act nothing like the Cornish X. I'll grab a pic tomorrow as they are easily twice the size of the Lavender Orpington and FBCM chicks which are also large birds.

 

[wolfwalker]

2 weeks as of tomorrow. The Deleware weigh in at 5.4 ounces on avg with feed consumed of 8.8 ounces each.

This puts them a good third behind feed consumption as the CX for about half the weight at 2 weeks. I'll have to snag a picture later this afternoon to post.

what I've done, with only 10 of them, is top put them all in a box and weigh them then divide by ten. once they get some size to them, I'll have to weigh individually.

The smallest weighed in at 84 grams and the largest at 179 grams or 2.9 ounces and 6.31 ounces. So I can feel confident saying they are half the weight for one third the feed so far.

 

[wolfwalker]

A lavender Orpington in the foreground. Hatched the same day

 

[wolfwalker]

Average weight is 8 ounces with the largest just shy of 10 ounces.

Feed consumed has lessened as I have taken measures so they don't waste as much. Total feed so far 13.2 ounces.

Cornish X at 3 weeks averaged 24 ounces after consuming 42.33 ounces of feed.

The Cornish X by 3 weeks were on restricted feed of 12 hours, whereas the Delaware Enhanced have full feed, no restrictions. So it looks like they are tracking at a third of the growth rate for 32% of what I fed the Cornish.

 

[TheMother]

I remembered to take some pictures today while up at the farm. For reference that half cinder block is 8 inches tall. And you can barely see it. So forget I mentioned it.View attachment 1981607
View attachment 1981608

Thanks for the pics!

 

[wolfwalker]

Your Welcome.

Starting to maybe like these Delaware Enhanced, the crazy chicks they are. I had the brooder door open as I was placing the shavings back in that they kicked out and one of them flew up onto my shoulder. Whacked me upside the head as it turned around and chirped. I tried to grab for it and leaned down so it would not fall off and it hopped out of reach and it felt like it was doing jumping jacks on my back, just out of reach. So I ended up sticking my head through the brooder door so it would hop back in. The shear audacity this chick has.

I noticed the legs of the Delawares are huge. they are as thick as some of my 3 month olds.

McMurrey states these can be considered a slow broiler, Now I will have to get some slow broilers in the fall to compare after I have moved the farm to a lower elevation, but I do know they are easily twice if not three times the mass of the LO and FBCM that came in the same shipment.

 

[wolfwalker]

Well, I tried to get a weight today as I was swamped yesterday. But the freakin sugar hyped up so and so's broke the scale. yep they broke it.

they cheeped "Shiney" and tried to play king of the mountain and "Ohhh, it blinks', and pecked the controls until it won't weigh anything. Sigh, tomorrow I'll empty the 5 gallon bucket and use the hanging scales.