Cornish Rock issues

[rainplace]

We lost over 10% of our first batch. It was freaking awful. At one point it seemed like every morning I was pulling a dead one out. Our weather was fine. We processed 98 out of 100 for our second batch and so far into our third batch, we've had one die. They are in week 4. I have no idea what we did wrong with our first batch. Hopefully just because I don't know doesn't mean I repeat it.

As far as heat. Look where I live, we haven't had summer yet, and I don't know if we will. Suits me just fine

 

[Mac in Wisco]

Quote:
For cooling a house most people wouldn't care for the performance of a swamp cooler in the east. In the west you can get temperature drops of 20-25 degs on dry days. The performance isn't that great in the east where it is more humid, but if you can evaporate some water into the air you can get a cooling effect. Although it is humid in the south, generally the hottest parts of the day have lower humidity and better evaporative cooling performance.

 

[Nessmuk53]

Has anyone ever found a place that sells the CobbSasso150? This sounds like an ideal meat bird for the home producer. Not only that they look alot nicer than the Jumbo Cornish Rocks.

 

[Neil Grassbaugh]

For cooling a house most people wouldn't care for the performance of a swamp cooler in the east. In the west you can get temperature drops of 20-25 degrees on dry days. The performance isn't that great in the east where it is more humid, but if you can evaporate some water into the air you can get a cooling effect. Although it is humid in the south, generally the hottest parts of the day have lower humidity and better evaporative cooling performance.

I don't know much about the "swamp coolers" I have seen in the West. I know the physics of the process but having no experience with the methods and materials I will not comment.

I am quite familiar with direct evaporative cooling as used in livestock habitations. I work with it almost everyday. Evaporative cooling for poultry and livestock is dominated by two methods. One is "flash evaporation" where very small droplets of of water are evaporated while entirely surrounded by air.

The other is surface evaporation which is air contacting water as the air passes over water. This is how a swamp cooler works.

Swamp coolers work well in arid climates despite their inefficiency. More efficient wettable surface designs produce more cooling an thus allow them to be useful in higher humidity situations.

The cooling "pads" most often used in poultry and livestock applications are made of cellulose and are of a complicated design in order facilitate the greatest air to water contact for evaporation/cooling.

If we draw air over a properly managed typical wettable pad at the rate of 400' per minute (88 feet per minute = 1 mile per hour) the following will be the result:

Examples (degrees F)

Air temperature 95, Wet Bulb 75/Relative Humidity 40% the air temperature will be reduced to 80.75, a 14.25 drop in temperature.
Air temperature 95, Wet Bulb 70/Relative Humidity 28% the air temperature will be reduced to 77.25, a 17.75 drop in temperature.​

 

[Mac in Wisco]

Quote:
They just flow water over a cellulose pad and a blower pulls outside air through the pads and directs it into the house. When I was in the military, I lived in a few houses in southern New Mexico that had them. I saw folks that didn't understand the process. You have to leave the windows/doors open to allow the air to flow through the house versus closing up the house like you would with refrigerated air. There were times I would knock on people's doors and they would have to force the door open from the over pressure on the house and then standing in the doorway you'd feel the full force of the swamp cooler pushing air out the door.

They were typically connected to the furnace's duct work and you had to block off the cooler before firing up the furnace for the winter. Come heating season, the same folks that were slow to catch on would be complaining that their house was cold and heating bills were extremely high before before somebody would explain to them that they were pumping all of the heat out through the cooler on roof.

When the relative humidity there got above 20% the locals would be complaining about how humid it was outside...

 

[Oregon Blues]

[[[.....I'll take dual purpose ANY day! What a nightmare!...]]]]

Dual purpose breeds never die when it is 120 degrees out?

 

[Mac in Wisco]

Although my only experience with broilers is raising 30 for the past week, I have to agree with Jim. If the broiler industry can stick tens of thousands of chicks in a single barn and raise them to six weeks old without substantial losses then the birds aren't all that fragile.

It sounds like two days in transit took a toll on the Bob's chicks. If you want a slower growing bird (like you said maybe 12 weeks to butcher), then don't feed them so much. Most of the the feed recommendations here are to get the most bang for the buck. If you want them to slow down, then slow them down. Either restrict feeding times or feed them a lower percentage of protein.

 

[GeeJay]

Although I did lose 2 of my 25, the other 23 are doing fine ( at 6 weeks old)...The heat here in Michigan is hot and humid, so I put a big box fan out on the tractor to give them more breeze, and moved them to a longer finer grassy spot with the earliest shade possible here-big old black walnut tree that I wanted removed this spring because it shades the garden too much-glad we didn't do it!

I seriously thought I would have a casualty throughout all this heat(after reading about other losses), but so far hanging in there! They are really calm all afternoon, but perky in the am! Our watering trough idea is working perfectly! I have to fill the bin twice a day, but that is better then every 2 hours and having them out of water in the morning! I also went through all my recycling and pulled out any bottle that I could cap tightly and freeze water in, put the frozen bottles out there yesterday late morning and they figured out to lay near them. So I refroze and will put them back out before noon today.

Thanks for some of these ideas I found here to help my chickens get through this HOT!

And to AZ...I lived there for 15 yrs, we decided to move back home after the 122 degree day! I agree we are not that hot here in Michigan, but never the less it is still very hot and humid! If I wanted Florida weather...then I would live in Florida!

 

[Nessmuk53]

So far so good. I have the coop cooled with a small AC unit and fans pulling air out. I have only lost the two (other than the two DOAs) so far and things seem to have settled down. They actually are much more active now and seem to be doing well. I really think those two were goners from the get go. Next time though I am trying those Freedom Rangers. Being nearer to Reading PA I would likely get them overnight instead of a two day journey.