Cornish x Babies Are Here!!! ***UPDATE WITH PICS!***

[Chickanmanfromarkansas]

Would i be a ble to keep these and breed them or keep them at all?

There are some people that keep some and are trying to breed them with duel purpose chickens to get them to where they won't grow quite as fast as the Cornish x. I have heard that they sometimes don't make it until breeding age, they get get bigger and die.
I have been thinking about getting me some to try out and see if I couldn't produce a reasonable broiler (fryer) mixed with something.
Keep posted if you decide to try it. And let us know the results.​

 

[SteveH]

Quote:
Two 6 month old cockerals that are getting some eggs fertile . The CX pullets are also laying fertile eggs . I recommend restricting feed if you plan to try and keep them alive long enough to breed .
Whoops , forgot the pic LOL

 

[WhiteMountainsRanch]

Wow those guys are huge!

I can't wait for when I can tell if I have cockerels or pullets, about what age can you tell with these ones?

 

[SteveH]

Quote:
I feather-sexed them when they arrived , but by 3 weeks the males were pretty obvious anyway .

 

[WhiteMountainsRanch]

Mine are 2 1/2 weeks and they all look exactly the same to me.

Wait one doesn't have tail feathers yet, other than that they look the same.

 

[chickenlorena]

We rescued a cornish x hen and have kept her as an animal companion along with our other 3 hens. She is very friendly and with a lot of personality. Since the poor creature has been breed to be a meat bird, she has to be on a strict diet so she can live as long as possible and as comfortable as possible. 1/3 cup feed in the morning and 1/3 cup at night. All the hens free range during the day so she's also getting some of the scratch I throw and bugs and worms. I have to say that even though she's grown a lot and has lost a little bit of her feathers underneath the belly, she still looks beautiful to me. In fact, broiler chickens make me think of how humans are manipulating nature to fit our needs

Wouldn't it be better if we let nature take its course? There is something creepy about creating a bird that most likely won't survive to breeding age...

 

[Chickanmanfromarkansas]

SteveH wrote:

Two 6 month old cockerals that are getting some eggs fertile . The CX pullets are also laying fertile eggs . I recommend restricting feed if you plan to try and keep them alive long enough to breed .
Whoops , forgot the pic LOL
​

Steve love the roosters. I like really big chickens anyway.​

 

[Brunty_Farms]

Well, it's not difficult and even at a young age you can tell prior to the obvious signs. I can tell you from the pics that you posted that in post 23 it is a female and in post 27 it is a male. Like Steve said you can feather sex them. If you look closely you can see the male in post 27 has it's wing feathers all the same length. The female however in post 23 has a "jagged" feather pattern, the covert feathers are
always shorter than the primary feathers. In males they covert feathers are as long if not a little longer than the primaries.

 

[SteveH]

Its not across the board , but going into their third week the males were growing faster than the females ; plus their little combs were starting to rise just enough higher than the females to give you a good guess . One male was smaller than some of the females but I was pretty sure of his sex due to the comb and head . He didn't catch up to the other two males untill after they were a lot older than most people would have processed them . Now he's one of the two largest and the one usually covering the pullets . The largest had bumble foot and quit growing for awhile around 5 months of age ; at 6 months he was 14 lbs compared to the once smallest's 16 lbs , 14 oz .

 

[Surehatch]

Thank you for the great pics