Cornish Rock Meat Bird Breeding Project

[Molpet]

Just out of Curiosity, can you roughly describe the egg size and color? Not an important question just a curious one.

My CX, from townline hatchery, eggs were light brown almost a cream, medium size. 3 to 4 a week

 

[trescloudy]

The most obvious thing about broiler eggs is that they will most likely be found on the ground.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Thank you U_Stormcrow. Sounds like your birds are in about full production right now. My research is telling me that broilers only lay about 140 eggs per year. That's less than every other day.

Did you keep any roosters?

I had two roosters, Cornish Rex and Cornish Secundus. Rex was put down to become dinner at 24 weeks. While clearly the dominant, he was expressing no interest in the girls (still young, I suppose, though his feathers had adulted out), and so out-massed my other hens (Comets, Rainbows, and young Brahma) that I had real concerns if he had changed his mind. I had him free ranging with the flock, and on restricted diet, too - but for reasons unimportant, he (and the rest) were allowed to over-eat for two weeks and he got massive, it was affecting his health. There's a thread around here with the weights when I culled him.

Cornish Secundus, the submissive, is still submissive though (until a few days ago) there were no other roosters in the flock. He still expresses no interest in the girls, and will be joining his brother among the culled this weekend. He's about to start week 30, I'll likely turn him into sausage or stew, as his time of tenderness is long past. Two of my Drakes are getting processed at the same time, will make an afternoon of it, after I sharpen the knives.

 

[trescloudy]

OK what im learning with the.CX birds is that diet definitely changes these birds. I started out with 20% available 24/7 for the first couple months and then put them on the strict broiler breeder diet that was previously posted in this thread. I know this info is getting redundant but I want to be totally clear how I raised these CX birds.

There is so much misinformation. People claiming the roosters have no sex drive or are too stupid or fat to mount hens. To those, I call BULL SHIT right here and right now!

I have a CX cockerel that is one of the most intelligent chickens I've ever raised. That's right hes a highly intelligent Cornish Cross cockerel.

AND.... He definitely has sex drive. As I recently posted, I caught him mounting the wounded CX pullet. It seems funny still calling these birds cockerels and pullets because they are huge chickens but that's what they really are.

So I had 10 cockerels butchered Monday. I put them in with my ducks a week prior to butchering because of extreme hen (pullet) harrassment. They were ISA Brown and American Bresse cockerels. When I got back from the butcher I moved the 4 CX cockerels into the coop that holds my ducks.

Yesterday I was right in front of the run with the ducks and 4 broiler cockerels when mr. feisty jumped at me "talons" out twice in a 5 minute or so span. He grabbed onto the fence while flapping his wings holding himself up like that for 15 or 20 seconds. The second time he made it to the top of the 5 foot "fence" and tried to flip around like Kung Fu lol.

My son was right next to me both times but you could tell the bird was jumping at me and he wasnt being one bit friendly.

My son asked why he was so mad at me. Told him its because I'm the one who removed him from his ladies. We laughed and went into my camper.

When we came back out we literally watched that crazy rooster trying to mount a duck. He grabbed it by the back of the neck running along side and tried to mount it twice but failed both times. These birds are very agile and nothing what people say they are when put on a restricted diet.

I'm not going to count my chickens before they hatch. The hens (pullets) still arent laying but it's still kind of early from my research that says 5 to 6 months.

I need to research the breeding hens diet again but I know it has to be restricted. Pretty sure I just need to scroll back in this thread. It's time the birds are over 5 months old and I finally have the young cocks and hens separated.

Im going to build some special low to the ground egg boxes for them next. Always work to do.

Im going to try and get some video of mr fiesty expressing his attitude toward me and maybe even get a video or snap of him trying to mount the ducks. Because.... it's funny and I know there are going to be non believers.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

My CX hens use the ramp up to my hen house (floor at 3' elevation), then hop into the nesting boxes like all my other birds. Particularly on restricted diet, I doubt you will need anything special re: their boxes.

Glad you had better experience with your CX Roosters than I did. The first, I admit, over ate at the end, and was still relatively young. The second, always submissive, was in week 30 and still showing no particular interest in the ladies. I butchered all 13.55# of him two or three days ago.

 

[trescloudy]

My CX hens use the ramp up to my hen house (floor at 3' elevation), then hop into the nesting boxes like all my other birds. Particularly on restricted diet, I doubt you will need anything special re: their boxes.

Glad you had better experience with your CX Roosters than I did. The first, I admit, over ate at the end, and was still relatively young. The second, always submissive, was in week 30 and still showing no particular interest in the ladies. I butchered all 13.55# of him two or three days ago.

Ralphie suggested I keep extra roosters so I just kept all the ones that looked like they had breeding potential which came out to equal 4 cockerels. I'm not sure how many are going to actually do their job but I definitely have one guy stepping up to the plate lol.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

I'm living "might have been" through your experience, @trescloudy , and wish you every fortune in it.

 

[trescloudy]

I'm living "might have been" through your experience, @trescloudy , and wish you every fortune in it.

Thank you @U_Stormcrow. To me it's about a possible alternative way to produce our own sustainable true breeding meat bird and sharing so others can become self sustaining farmers. Of course it's not accomplished yet by myself anyway. I'm quite sure there are others who have accomplished what im trying to do.

 

[trescloudy]

Latest Update Nov 7 2020.

The good news:
Broiler hens are laying

The bad news: Broiler hens have tasted egg.

I'm quite bummed out. I got to the farm yesterday and my son let me know that the broiler hens drinker was leaking. It had leaked all over the floor. I've only been running these automatic bucket drinkers for a couple weeks but had no issues until yesterday.

I know chickens can destroy all kinds of things but it usually happens from fighting usually when there is imbalance in the pecking order. But the Cornish Cross hens are usually fairly docile. I took some scratch outside and threw some into their run so I could take a look at them and then go inside to check out the water situation.

While watching the white broiler hens in the sun I noticed egg yolk on one of them. Its unmistakable and only means one thing. They are already eating eggs but we didnt even know they were laying yet. Knew it was closing in on that time though as I mentioned it in my previous post.

So now it's time to get some porcelain eggs from TSC and hope that trains them not to eat eggs. There is a chance the shell could have been weak or even non existant. I just found a snake looking egg in my American Bresse coop a few days ago. But the CX hens already got a taste for eggs now. What a way to enter into this phase of this experiment.

I'm guessing a hen laid an egg in the corner close to the drinker and it get stepped on and then they started fighting over the egg and the shells and they broke the drinker. I need to get out there and look this morning to find out.

Also need to build those low rise egg boxes. There are 2 egg boxes in their coop but they are probably too high and likely too small for CX hens. I'm thinking milk crates but I'm open to suggestions on all of this. Is starting to get complicated.

Im excited that these girls started laying though. Once I get their egg boxes made and start collecting their eggs I'm probably going to start hatching as soon as I start finding decent shaped properly sized eggs. These birds have to short of a life laying span not to take immediate advantage of the situation.

 

[Ridgerunner]

To me an egg eater is a chicken that purposely opens and egg to eat it. I've had only one of those in my life. It is pretty common for a chicken to eat an egg that is already open. That's just taking advantage of a food opportunity. Don't totally give up hope yet, hopefully it was opened by accident and they have not yet learned to open them. I'd consider that the most likely cause.