Cornish X Journal

[blucoondawg]

I don't buy the expensive stuff they sell nutrena brand at fleet farm to but it's only 40lb bags so cost is higher and I'm not sure on the protein levels. We have another "feed store" in town that deals in Purina brands they are substantially higher priced. I'm glad we still have a couple local feed mills they're much more reasonably priced and good fresh feed

 

[CommonRookie]

I suspect our prices would be lower if we lived in in the midwest but most of our grain is all coming from elsewhere. It's hard to find many elevators here and mills are few and far between. All of my feed has been milled within 2 hours of my house but I'm certain most of the raw materials are coming from bigger ag states.

 

[CommonRookie]

We had a thunderstorm here last night and lost 4 birds. The Cornish cross have a lot of fantastic traits for producing meat but they are one of the dumbest creatures I've encountered. I spent a week trying to round them up every night but they aren't learning. twice now i've had to go out in the night during rain to put them in the coop by hand. Once they are in, they don't leave but they seem to prefer this spot next to the coop to "roost". With rain in the forecast the wife and i put a tarp over this spot to give them some shelter and to keep me from having to go out at 2 am an handle 125 dumb wet chickens. So now, they have a large shelter to use to get out of the rain as well as access to the coop but this didn't stop them from pig piling in on top of each other when it rained. They seem to do fine in the cold, its been in the 40's at night but when it rains they climb all over each other 4-5 deep. Meanwhile my coop is empty. 125 chickens are climbing are trampling each other to death 3 feet from an empty coop. They are large enough now that chickens on the bottom get squished as was the case with my 4 chicken pancakes this morning. I think this problem could be totally avoided by keeping fewer birds in a single enclosure or perhaps training them better to return to the coop. The size of the enclosure is inconsequential, it's the number of birds able to mass up together that seems to be the problem. There are plenty of places for them to get out the rain but they have a mob mentality not seen in my layers.

At this point, I don't know that there is much I am going to do about it and may just accept some more losses during storms. I could go and put them in the coop by hand if the forecast is calling for rain but that's a heck of a chore for this many birds.

I think we'll turn the enclosure over to the the layers after this run of cornish x and either put the meat birds in tractors or the barn next year.

 

[blucoondawg]

I had much the same experience with the rangers and pioneers last summer they would pile up in the corner of the hoop coop every night not just when it stormed and I lost a couple to that they would also do that when it was raining and get soaked being right by the edge of the shelter rather thank staying in the middle and being dry. They did go in on their own at night but the piling lasted most their life. I don't know if its because they're so immature mentally, if you think about it a 6 week old meat bird that is fully grown is probably no different than a 6 week old layer chick that just grew is feathers mentally, and layer chicks until they get a few months of age and some size to them prefer to pile together when they get scared rather than run for cover, roost, or defend themselves, I had a few layers older than that got pecked to death when I integrated them into my older chickens because they chose to pile in the corner and take the punishment rather than run or fly up on roost bars where they would have been safe. I think it's an age thing more than just plain stupidity

 

[CommonRookie]

In better news the chickens will be 4 weeks old tomorrow so I'm going to start weighing them every week.

I pulled several birds that appeared average in size to get a small sample size of of what the majority of the flock looks like. Of course, i have some monsters and runts in the mix but they were not weighed today.






It looks like my average birds are about 3-4 days behind the growth chart which targets 3.1 pounds for males at 28 days with them gaining little more than 2 oz per day. Considering I weighed them a day early and the growth chart is in factory conditions I'm quite pleased with the results. Last year, I was at least a week, probably more, behind the chart with 18% feed but it was very hot which is why i ordered them sooner this year and bumped their feed to 20% protein.

I'm butchering may 7th so I expect they'll be 7-8 lbs live weight by then. The chart says 8.8 lbs.

I bought another 15 bags of 20% protein starter/grower today and will weigh them at the the end of each of the next 4 weeks.

 

[birds4kids]

Now you are making me curious and I might have to get a scale to check mine. Based on the way they act when they see me and I feed them I am starving them to near death, almost worried I might not get my hand back, but their plump bodies indicate they are eating well, a number to compare to charts would be good piece of mind.

 

[blucoondawg]

Now you are making me curious and I might have to get a scale to check mine.  Based on the way they act when they see me and I feed them I am starving them to near death, almost worried I might not get my hand back, but their plump bodies indicate they are eating well, a number to compare to charts would be good piece of mind.

meat birds will act like that they're programmed to eat alot, unless the have feed access 24/7 they will act like they're starving because they will associate you with bringing food even if they just finished eating a while feeder with 25lbs of feed in it 2 hours before, they most always want more

 

[birds4kids]

Last night they were even like that with water, their waterer(horizontal nipple in plastic jug) did not run dry but when I filled it they swarmed, so I then added the glass jar chick waterer and they swarmed that, so then I added a plastic bowl with some water just to get them to spread out.
With the cold snap and snow I am glad they weren't outside yet, aiming for moving outside tomorrow.

 

[CommonRookie]

It got down to 31 degrees last night and the birds were fine outside. I was a little worried they'd get too cold but they seemed to ride out the cold okay. Should be smooth sailing from here as far as temperature is concerned.

 

[CommonRookie]

The chickens are 5 weeks old today and are growing rapidly now. We're still trailing the growth chart and are tracking at 84% of chart weight. If this continues, average bird live weight will be 7.4 lbs at butcher.