Crossing Cornish with others....

[dancingbear]

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Did you get some?

Not yet. I haven't had the time or money to make the trip to OK. I'm still trying to find a source closer to home. It may not happen for a little while yet, we'll see.

 

[BellLisamo]

ya'll will laugh. but i got two free cornish hens, and they went in with my D'Uccle pair. ahahaha. The babies will be yummy yet fashionable!

 

[estpr13]

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I have read about the freedom rangers and the gray meat birds too. They look exactly like what I am looking for as a product, but I wonder if they breed true? I am looking to be self sustaining. If Gray meat birds or the free rangers or the red/gray/u pick a color broilers breed true and make good mothers that are broody I will be more than willing to keep them. Unfortunately, I am pretty sure that like most other meat birds, they are F1 hybrids. I doubt they make good mothers or are broody. I may be wrong. Keeping cornish and another breed that is broody gives me walking mothering incubators that eventually become spent hens. It also gives me the ability to make F1 - F3 hybrids all the time.

I am interested in your cornish stock though. How large are your roosters? Would you be willing to sell fertile eggs for hatching?

The Freedom Rangers are now called Colored Rangers and they are all F1s. The name change is due to ownership change of the parent stock.

The Dark Cornish I have, I got as eggs from "Sandspoultry" when they advertised them on BYC's Buy and Sell Thread. They are now 7½ weeks old. I don't expect any eggs for another 17 weeks or so and then will wait another 6 to 8 weeks before trying to hatch any out.

Sandspoultry got eggs from several breeders and mixed them into a flock and were selling the resulting eggs. They might be your best bet at starting a flock. That is why I went with them. Use "Search" then person "Sandspoultry". I think you will find them and can PM them.

The Del Roo X Dark Cornish hen crosses that I have, were shipped as eggs and were to be meat birds. I have kept three roos which are feathered like Delaware roos but have the shape of a Cornish roo. They are big and look nice. I can pet them with little trouble.

The hens, however, are a disapointment. They are very friendly but small. There is about a two pound difference between the big one and the smallest ones. None of them look impressive. They have been laying for about 8 weeks now and some of them are still laying small size eggs.

 

[dancingbear]

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The Dark Cornish I have, I got as eggs from "Sandspoultry" when they advertised them on BYC's Buy and Sell Thread. They are now 7½ weeks old. I don't expect any eggs for another 17 weeks or so and then will wait another 6 to 8 weeks before trying to hatch any out.

Sandspoultry got eggs from several breeders and mixed them into a flock and were selling the resulting eggs. They might be your best bet at starting a flock. That is why I went with them. Use "Search" then person "Sandspoultry". I think you will find them and can PM them.


Are you sure the Sandspoultry dark Cornish are breeder stock? I'm just wondering if you got them confused with another seller. When I asked, a long time ago, Sandspoultry said they got their original stock from a hatchery, I think it was Welp, but not sure.

Of course, they could have gotten some from breeders since then, it was several months ago.

Pure bred Cornish from breeders are hard to come by. If they found several breeders to get them from, they have awesome tracking-down-sources skills.

 

[estpr13]

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Are you sure the Sandspoultry dark Cornish are breeder stock? I'm just wondering if you got them confused with another seller. When I asked, a long time ago, Sandspoultry said they got their original stock from a hatchery, I think it was Welp, but not sure.

Of course, they could have gotten some from breeders since then, it was several months ago.

Pure bred Cornish from breeders are hard to come by. If they found several breeders to get them from, they have awesome tracking-down-sources skills.

I did some research Dancingbear and you are correct. His Dark Cornish are "Farmer Quality" (my term) and not "Show Quality". It seems that the legs on his Cornish are too long and the tail feathers are also too long. This makes them unacceptable for Show.

However, They have better vigor and don't need Artificial Insemination like some of the short legged Show Quality birds.

At least this is the jest of multiple thread lines that I looked up. Sandspoultry has been selling their eggs for over two years now and the birds look fine to me. (

Sorry about any confusion that I may have created.

Delawares are another big hearty bird which may be suitable as a dual purpose bird. Maybe try crossing them with something.

 

[dancingbear]

Thanks for clearing that up. I don't really care if the bird wouldn't win shows, but I want genes from birds as true to type as I can find. For many people, that's not an issue.

 

[newmaineguide]

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Favorelles were once bred (long ago) for utility purposes, but the current lines are mostly used for exhibition. They are "pretty", but not very large and not likely to make a spectacular cross for a good broiler. If you do not like the White or Barred Rock hens (which have long PROVEN themselves half of the reliable foundation of the broiler industry, over and above every other breed of chicken out there other than the other half of the hybrid equation, the Cornish roosters), then consider the slightly smaller Plymouth Partridge Rock hens that are considered by experts and hatcheries as one of the BEST setters and broody hens out there. They are slightly smaller, but they will be able to incubate the eggs and protect the chicks for you, so that you can keep the baby broilers in with adult chickens without fear.

Another suggestion that I would consider superior to using the Partridge Rocks (which hens slightly resemble Speckled Sussex in coloration) as the basis for your hybrids, I would suggest using the Barred Rocks (or even White Rocks) as I originally suggested, and then use either a couple or few Partridge Rock, Buff Orphington, or Cochin hens to brood the eggs for you. All three of those varieties make excellent mothers and they will sit on the eggs and raise the chicks from any hen, not just their own. That way, if the Barred ROcks do not want to sit on their own eggs, then you could put 10 of the hybrid cross eggs under each of the momma hens that you keep just for the purpose. Even old spent hens of those varieties will work good as mothers for you. The standard Orphingtons and Cochins are so big, you might even be able to get 12 eggs under each of them.

So, depending on the size of the flock that you want to raise, perhaps you could use one Dark Cornish rooster for every 10-12 White or Barred Rock hens to produce the good broiler hybrid cross eggs (hopefully one egg per hen per day), then use Partridge Rock, Buff Orphington, or Cochin hens to sit on the eggs and raise the offspring.

Remember, if you want to use the production hens (the Rock hens) to brood their own eggs, then they will stop laying while brooding the eggs. Then, you will lose production rates considerably. Also, they will be spotty at best in laying while raising the young. Therefore, it is to your advantage to keep the Barred Rock hens OFF of their own eggs so that you can keep them IN production. Use other larger hens as the brooders so that your Rocks can keep laying eggs. That is the best way to increase production and give you a larger flock of broilers for you to pick from so that you can watch the hens to see what hens produce the best broilers. (You can mark the eggs according to the mother hen before putting them under a broody hen. Or, since you can wait ten days after laying before putting the eggs under a broody, then put all of one hens eggs under the same broody hen so each batch will come from the same mother hen and you can track it easier.) That way, you can cull the hens to get the best genetic matches to produce the best broilers.

So, 1 or 2 Cornish roosters to 12 Barred or White Rock hens, with 10 to 30 Buff Orphington or Cochin hens to brood the hybrid eggs. If possible, keep the broody hens separate from the production hens and rooster. Harvest the production hybrid eggs daily, marking them according to the Rock hen that they came from (if possible), then place 10-12 eggs (preferably from the same production Rock hen) under each large broody hen.

That way, you have the best of both worlds. You have your good homestead broiler cross, pluss you have your broody hen flock to raise the babies. Your broody hens will have their hands full raising a bajillion hybrid broiler chicks and will not worry too much about laying their own eggs. That is part of the reason why spent Buff Orphingtons or Cochins would be great for the job, especially if you could find some cheap.

You won't have to have an incubator or to pay for your broiler chicks. In fact, you might be able to sell the excess and make some money off of it. If you keep all of the eggs and brood them all, then you will definitely need to build a tub plucker and then you will have a second part time job harvesting broilers on the weekends. Sell them whole at $4, and make some bank. As soon as I get a little more room, this is what I want to do.

I appreciate this post a lot. I have had concerns about the Favorelles and I had considered using a 3rd breed to mother the chicks. Alternately I had considered Orpingtons as the breed to cross with the Cornish. I am not concerned with egg production for anything other than making more chicks. I will have ducks for eggs. They make more eggs anyway and I like them better. Growing up we had ducks for eggs and they out produced the chickens by far. Furthermore I am not looking to own a huge farm :-D although I have dreams of it sometimes. I would like to have enough hens/ roos in the spring to produce enough offspring to give me 55 chickens for the freezer in the fall. We are a family of 3 (maybe 4 soon) and a chicken a week on average is more than plenty considering we are looking at keeping turkeys, ducks, geese, guineas and rabbits too. Growing up we had all of the above mentioned. I remember thinking I would never have a small farm, now I really miss it. I also remember all the mistakes and lack of research on the behalf of my parents. I hope to avoid those mistakes. Again, thank you all for your input. Any and all suggestions, criticism and so on is greatly appreciated.

One last note, anyone noted any broody tendency on (CornishX Rock) bred back to cornish hybrids?

 

[Agape Builder]

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While I may be wrong, it has been my understanding that, 1) with the Cornish cross special hybrids, you cannot produce the same desirable characteristics by breeding the hybrids together (only the parents of each separate breed), and 2) by the time that the Cornish crosses reach an age of sexual maturity, they are too lare to physically breed anyways. You would have to use artificial insemination but, even if performed, the desirable characteristics would be lost.

Of course, that is what the hatcheries have to say. I think that it may be worthwhile to try to breed some of your homestead cornish crosses such as the offspring between the Dark Cornish roo and the Barred Rock hens. Since they would grow slower than the Jumbo X-Rock hybrids, they might be able to breed successfully, but it would also be advantageous to use multiple lines to prevent inbreeding.

 

[Agape Builder]

I just located 20 Barred Rock chicks for sale near me. I am going to try to get them to start experimenting to produce a decent homestead special broiler hybrid. It will be a long term project, though, because the Barred Rock chicks re only a day old right now.

 

[Cason]

Another note- is that Cochins are not the very best layers.