Cornish Rock Meat Bird Breeding Project

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So update. Of the 12 cockerels I ordered I apparently only got 10. So I got 2 extra hens. I took 8 birds to the butcher yesterday. I culled all the birds that waddled and couldn't run well. All the birds were fed just like recommended by the producers for slaughter. My thinking is why not try putting the "best" birds on a diet after they have shown their outcome instead of allowing birds with hidden defects to breed.

So any birds that were easy to chase down went first. Most of the birds that got culled had terrible gates with legs on a severe angle and or to far apart. The birds that could move along seemed to be good foragers also.

It's going to be a job trying to maintain 4 cockerels and 8 hens over the rest of the year and winter (if those are the correct numbers). Trying to keep as many as possible to ensure there are enough breeders come February or March. I know it's not many but it is what it is.

As long as the roosters dont fight amongst themselves I may just let the whole flock live and breed freely inside itself this first generation. Probably best or easiest way.
 
trescloudy said:
So update. Of the 12 cockerels I ordered I apparently only got 10. So I got 2 extra hens. I took 8 birds to the butcher yesterday. I culled all the birds that waddled and couldn't run well. All the birds were fed just like recommended by the producers for slaughter. My thinking is why not try putting the "best" birds on a diet after they have shown their outcome instead of allowing birds with hidden defects to breed.

So any birds that were easy to chase down went first. Most of the birds that got culled had terrible gates with legs on a severe angle and or to far apart. The birds that could move along seemed to be good foragers also.

It's going to be a job trying to maintain 4 cockerels and 8 hens over the rest of the year and winter (if those are the correct numbers). Trying to keep as many as possible to ensure there are enough breeders come February or March. I know it's not many but it is what it is.

As long as the roosters dont fight amongst themselves I may just let the whole flock live and breed freely inside itself this first generation. Probably best or easiest way.
Click to expand...
I don't think they will fight a lot, I don't believe that there was an issue with the Toads fighting and they were more active than a straight CX would be due to the lighter bird blood added in.
 
Kusanar said:
I don't think they will fight a lot, I don't believe that there was an issue with the Toads fighting and they were more active than a straight CX would be due to the lighter bird blood added in.
Click to expand...

I'm not thinking these guys are going to fight either. Hopefully feeding limited amounts every other day will get them back in shape for breeding. I might give them a little fodder on those "in between days".
 
duluthralphie said:
I wish you well with the diet.

My experience was diets don’t work and the damage is done to their hearts and kidneys in the first 6 weeks.

Sorry I am way behind so skipped a bunch, I had fish to slaughter.
Click to expand...
Diets do work, That is how is done by the Broiler breeders
 
I'm not going to agree or disagree with either opinion about the diet. Instead I'm probably going to try it both ways. Especially if I dont have any or too few breeding birds come breeding time 🥴. I'll probably start incubating any eggs as soon as i start getting them.... if I get them...

I dont want to step on any toes and appreciate all constructive advice and input. When things go wrong I'll have better chances of fixing the problem now. This is my version of this experiment and I have to make the final decisions. Figuring it out for myself is really the nature of this project. Listening is good but only by testing things will I be able to draw my own conclusions. Its probably going to take several years to hammer this out if i ever do at at all. Having fun with the whole thing already though. I'm probably going to order some more broilers and control their feed way more this next time. Hopefully that will help with the constant use of straw. I've seen youtube videos where broilers fly up to roost like egg layers and know these dieting birds will probably never be able to do that. According to the commercial breeder feed schedule my 10 birds (6 pullets and 4 cockerels) would only require less than 2.5 pounds of feed every other day. I gave them 3 pounds this evening and it certainly didnt look like much at all even just for a single day. I think my egg birds eat more than that. Hope it's not going to cause other problems like fighting, pecking or feather pulling. I know these birds arent generally aggressive but things change when the endless supply of food gets pulled.
 
trescloudy said:
I'm not going to agree or disagree with either opinion about the diet. Instead I'm probably going to try it both ways. Especially if I dont have any or too few breeding birds come breeding time 🥴. I'll probably start incubating any eggs as soon as i start getting them.... if I get them...

I dont want to step on any toes and appreciate all constructive advice and input. When things go wrong I'll have better chances of fixing the problem now. This is my version of this experiment and I have to make the final decisions. Figuring it out for myself is really the nature of this project. Listening is good but only by testing things will I be able to draw my own conclusions. Its probably going to take several years to hammer this out if i ever do at at all. Having fun with the whole thing already though. I'm probably going to order some more broilers and control their feed way more this next time. Hopefully that will help with the constant use of straw. I've seen youtube videos where broilers fly up to roost like egg layers and know these dieting birds will probably never be able to do that. According to the commercial breeder feed schedule my 10 birds (6 pullets and 4 cockerels) would only require less than 2.5 pounds of feed every other day. I gave them 3 pounds this evening and it certainly didnt look like much at all even just for a single day. I think my egg birds eat more than that. Hope it's not going to cause other problems like fighting, pecking or feather pulling. I know these birds arent generally aggressive but things change when the endless supply of food gets pulled.
Click to expand...
Sound like a good plan. There are too many variation to achieve the same objective. Good luck with your project.
 
I was watching youtube this morning and ran across a video where the people had accidentally severely stunted their CX. They have a baby with a ton of alergies so they are trying to reduce the number of alergens fed to the animals that the baby will be eating. They had a feed mill make them a chicken feed without corn, soy, or wheat and the CX stayed very small, I believe the one they were showing was 14 weeks and still wasn't ready to harvest.

That may be a rabbit hole that someone interested in keeping them a little smaller to be able to breed could use. Maybe let them get close to maturity and then cut the protein mostly out of the diet? Apparently those 3 ingredients are the main protein source in the chicken feed and they have to have at least 1 of them in the feed to make the chickens grow well.

I wonder if feeding mostly straight oats with maybe a tiny bit of actual chicken feed would keep them feeling full but stunt them without damaging their health.
 

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