Cornish Rock Meat Bird Breeding Project

[Compost King]

He actually pecked that cockerel that is facing the opposite direction and stepping on a Pullet trying to get away. and right after this picture all the Seramas fled in fear and then I picked up the CX and returned him to his pen. You can barely even see the Mottled Serama he is walking over to get away. He was just eating scratch Grains in the Serama pen minding his own business when the Seramas started to surround him and he got defensive. Sure he could kill them by stepping on them but if the little birds want to wreck his world they could since he isn't agile enough to defend himself. I put him in with the young Seramas because the older Serama Rooster might go into full fight mode.

 

[trescloudy]

No, its just cheaper to keep 1 CX rooster alive who can fertilize eggs in multiple hens than it is to keep multiple female CX alive being fertilized by one rooster. It takes more feed just to sustain the life of a CX than it does to sustain the life of what ever breed you are crossing it with. Even with rationing feed you need to feed the CX more. Thats why its just cheaper to order CX from he pros than it is to make them yourself. I just want to have the resources to create my own meat birds so I am less dependent on a potentially volatile system since everything is eroding fast right now.

I took pictures of my CX breeders today, thought I would share one of them. They were following around in a line because they thought I might have feed (I didn't, I feed them late in the day)... I actually picked the male up to do a photo shoot with Seramas which I posted in BYC somewhere else but I will post in here too. The males crop was full even though he had not eaten since last night so he is foraging in the compost pile.

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Here is the picture with the Seramas
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(this is my 3000th post)

Definitely say you did a better job than I. Mine are kind of monsters. Had my head somewhere in the clouds and wasnt on the property every day. Havnt done chickens in over 5 years and was side tracked by other things but when I finally bring it all together.... look out lol

I see your point about using a CX rooster but keeping only 1 CX rooster might be a problem but he does look healthy for a CX.

You can feed CX hens half of what you feed CX roosters but almost have to keep them separate. CX roosters are pigs and dont care about sharing with their hens like heritage breed roosters do.

I would really like to see what happens when someone gets into like a "F4" or 4th generation inbred CX. I'm hoping to accomplish that some day.

 

[trescloudy]

My CXs are at 13 weeks right now. The diet seems to be working. I'm feeding them the same diet that the commercial breeders use but I toss them scratch grains in between days because they only get fed every other day in the evening.

The scratch gets them exercising and after 2.5 weeks or so they are quite a bit more agile.

Keeping 4 CX roosters and 6 CX hens over winter is going to be interesting to say the least. I'm just going to leave all 10 birds in the same coop and hope to eventually get some fertilized eggs that arent double yolkers.

Probably going to be a little while yet before I start getting eggs from these CXs. And probably longer before i start getting fertilized eggs, if it even happens with these ones. Fingers crossed!

 

[trescloudy]

Just got 15 New Hampshire chicks that were bred by Henry Noll. He breeds them for meat birds. New Hampshires are fast for heritage birds and would probably be good for working into CX birds, especially for an initial out cross to CX hens to start a back crossing project.

I think these birds are probably well bred for the purpose and will also make good heritage style meat birds all on their own. I'm pretty geeked about these NHs.

 

[Compost King]

Definitely say you did a better job than I. Mine are kind of monsters. Had my head somewhere in the clouds and wasnt on the property every day. Havnt done chickens in over 5 years and was side tracked by other things but when I finally bring it all together.... look out lol

I see your point about using a CX rooster but keeping only 1 CX rooster might be a problem but he does look healthy for a CX.

You can feed CX hens half of what you feed CX roosters but almost have to keep them separate. CX roosters are pigs and dont care about sharing with their hens like heritage breed roosters do.

I would really like to see what happens when someone gets into like a "F4" or 4th generation inbred CX. I'm hoping to accomplish that some day.

I normally save 3 Female CX for this because I can only keep 33% of them alive long enough to lay eggs, this year one of my females turned out to be a late blooming male. I segregated the 3 birds around week 3 or 4 but I should have waited one more week. Once I had them separated I figured it was best to keep him in the meat breeder pen (which has my giant compost pile) I prefer to do it the easy way and keep females for breeding not males. But since I have a male this year if he lives long enough I will breed him to a Heritage Hen or maybe the one red ranger I got from TSC (only had 2 left and one died the first week). I doubt I can pull off breeding the male CX I have there food production projects going on and do not want to spend extra time getting an awkward top heavy rooster to breed.

 

[trescloudy]

I normally save 3 Female CX for this because I can only keep 33% of them alive long enough to lay eggs, this year one of my females turned out to be a late blooming male. I segregated the 3 birds around week 3 or 4 but I should have waited one more week. Once I had them separated I figured it was best to keep him in the meat breeder pen (which has my giant compost pile) I prefer to do it the easy way and keep females for breeding not males. But since I have a male this year if he lives long enough I will breed him to a Heritage Hen or maybe the one red ranger I got from TSC (only had 2 left and one died the first week). I doubt I can pull off breeding the male CX I have there food production projects going on and do not want to spend extra time getting an awkward top heavy rooster to breed.

Maybe your late showing male will be a good breeder for CX x CX... I would try it for sure.

 

[Compost King]

Maybe your late showing male will be a good breeder for CX x CX... I would try it for sure.

I am going to do that just to see the results, provided I still have a male and female when they reach breeding age. Every time I do this I have 2/3rds of them die for one reason or another. it's why I pick 3.

 

[trescloudy]

I am going to do that just to see the results, provided I still have a male and female when they reach breeding age. Every time I do this I have 2/3rds of them die for one reason or another. it's why I pick 3.

Yes, provided he survives. I dont usually have a huge mortality rate with older CXs up to about 2 to 2.5 yrs old or so but do have a pretty sweet set up (when I have electricity lol). I cant really free range, too many predators for my liking. But they have decent coop space and a nice covered run. Keeps the predators away pretty good but I do plan to make planted ranging areas for them to work in. That goes for all my birds though so I need to get something going in that area. Probably going to go solar on the coop though. Just got a stand alone solar powered well system and I think it's going to rock once I pound a well .... on my list of things to do immediately

Anyway I wish you the best of luck and hope to see some cool pictures of CXxCX chicks that came from your birds there.

 

[nicalandia]

Is it that you feel the rooster is more apt to pass on his structure?

Both the Male Cornishx and Female Cornishx have are capable of passing their structure to their progeny. The F1 or Back Cross to Cornishx is where I would stop, after That it becomes too inefficient for a small to medium backyard breeder

 

[trescloudy]

I've made F1 crosses with CX. Could barely tell they had any CX in them. I'm going to back cross consecutive generations just to see what happens. You speak as if you have tried this yourself. Have any pictures?