Dark Cornish meat birds?

[pawtraitart]

As the summer wears on, I'm already thinking about my bird order for next year! I'd like to raise some meat birds along with my pullet order, but don't want to go with the standard cornish-x because they have to be kept seperate from the layers. Has anyone raised dark cornish? Any other breeds I should consider?

 

[Country Gal]

This year I did Buff Orpingtons and Light Brahmas for meat. I'm not sure how they're going to come out in the end, I still have another month or so before butcher time.

 

[Motherhenandflock]

http://www.jmhatchery.com/

This place has red and black broilers. I am curious about them. I have never ordered from this hatchery though. It's a long ways from us in Idaho too.

 

[Chickending]

I know some people will not raise both together but I had great success with it. The cornish go to the processor on Monday.
I got all the chicks at the same time and I raised both my egg layers and cornish together without any problems. Yes they are messy and I do have to keep on top of that. I think because my coop and run are large enough there were no space issues. I was able to bond with the egg layers and keep the cornish in a separate place in my heart or stomach.....LOL...... Although a few of them tried to be friendly in their own way.

So depending on what kind of facility you have it can be done to raise them both together. The only issue is they are real messy birds.......They do really only eat, poo and sleep.

They are kind of funny in their own way. The eggers all go outside and stay outside in the run and the cornish will sit in the coop all day and eat. I have a few brave ones and will go outside and hang out for most of the days but about half stay in the coop.

 

[greyfields]

You want to raise them separtely since the feeding requirements are vastly different between layers and meat birds. If your layers get that much protein, they'll grow too quickly and grow too large which causes problems with laying too soon and a generally bad FCR. In the same stroke, if you raise broilers on pullet developer, you're making it take a couple months longer than it should.

I got a batch of roosters from an egg farmer near me. I took 10 and put them on broiler ration (once we were sure which were roos). About 1 month later, I went back for 4 roos we missed the first time. They had been on a pullet developer for 30 days, while the original roos were on broiler feed. The size difference was simply staggering.

 

[EmsoffLambs]

I'm raising a few cornish and brahma roos for meat. We butchered the first brahma (about 9 weeks old) for meat last weekend. Pretty skrawny, but tastey.

 

[pawtraitart]

I think I might try the dark cornish. It might be a good middle ground between the average dual purpose chicken and cornish-x.

 

[greyfields]

Another thing to consider, if you get hold of your own cornish roo, you can do a cross with any of your layers/pullets and get some pretty nice birds. :0

 

[silkiechicken]

I've raised them together no problem, just a bit messy but my coops move so that wasn't a problem.