Dark Cornish Questions???

[Poultry Run Farm]

Not sure if this is the correct place to post this, if not please let me know.

Here Goes:

My Daughter fell in love with Dark Cornish Bantams at a show and bought herself two trio's (Well, bought one Trio and just paid shipping on the second, nice people helping her to get started with them). They are all between 1 and 2 years old. Good type and friendly just what she wanted in this breed. The problem is, which she knew before purchasing them she is having problems getting them to mate. The hens are now laying great, but the males aren't even trying to do anything. One of the members in our poultry club has offered to show her how to AI them and it doesn't look that hard. But we were wondering if any of you have found any tricks with this breed??? Any help would be soooo great, she's kinda anxious to get some chicks from them, all eggs in the bator are not fertile at all.

Thanks Everyone

 

[rodriguezpoultry]

AI is definitely something to consider with Cornish. Usually it's the standard ones that have issues, but I suppose it's fairly common in the bantams too.

 

[Krys109uk]

It seems that Indian games (Cornish) have breeding issues is US. This does not have to be the case perhaps some new blood might help.

 

[Poultry Run Farm]

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Yeah, that's what we've heard from others that breed these guys here, they all AI. They even AI thier show hens to keep them in condition to show, which makes sense, we do the natural approach

 

[Poultry Run Farm]

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Any ideas on how to do this. Where would one obtain new blood?
This is a wonderful breed and would hate to see them die out here. You wouldn't think looking at these guys they would be so tame, but even the two Roo's she has will come right out of the pen and sit on her lap...

 

[Ryu]

I have standards, the roos I have in the breeding pens breed naturally. I do have one very large roo whose legs are too wide set to tread on a hen so he would have to be AI if I chose to use him.

I was getting kind of spotty fertility in one of my pens and trimmed the fluff (hen and roo) and that actually helped. The eggs are all fertile now.

The birds I got are bred very close, and I was getting a lot of eggs that 'quit' around day 16,17,18. I got lucky and found a roo from a different line and the hatch rates have gone back up to where our other breeds are.

AI would probably be the most expedient way of getting the ball rolling. The Cornish are so laid back, it's not hard to work with them. They are very sweet gentle birds! I tell people that all the time, but they don't buy it based on how they look.

Good Luck!

 

[Ryu]

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Any ideas on how to do this. Where would one obtain new blood?
This is a wonderful breed and would hate to see them die out here. You wouldn't think looking at these guys they would be so tame, but even the two Roo's she has will come right out of the pen and sit on her lap...

There are a lot of good Bantam Cornish out there. Have you joined the Cornish Club? They should be able to point to some good birds.

 

[NYREDS]

They're notorious for fertility problems especially the better ones. Probably a function of the short legs & wide stance. Your best bet is to learn to AI them. New blood won't help much if the males won't tread the females.

 

[bigredfeather]

A tip I picked up as an assumption is to have other roos (of any breed) in neighboring pens. With the natural instict still present in the DC, they view other roos as competition, and will mate more frequently. Just a suggestion.

 

[al6517]

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That makes good sense Cornish are very jealous and dominant, they don't play well with others.

AL