DIY cornish x breeding

[Ridgerunner]

I like your experiment, especially you using controls. In Maine I’d think egg collecting could be an issue this time of year. I’ve had some decent hatches when collecting eggs this time of year, even when some days it stays below freezing, but I’m down there several times a day collecting eggs.

I suggest you calibrate your thermometers so you know what you are working with. If you can find an old-fashioned medical thermometer it will read in the range you are looking for and it should be reliable. Since it only reads a maximum you can’t use it directly but you can check your other thermometers from it. I just did that for a new thermometer and found it was reading about 3 and a half degrees low.

 

[Hiltonizer]

We've been blessed (or cursed if you're in the snowmobile or ice-fishing business...) with a mild winter... Only dipped below zero two or three nights. After today there won't even be any snow on the ground. The sap is already running, had to pick up some more spiles and tubing this morning... a month and a half earlier than last year.

I'm going to grab some distilled water and try calibrating my Inkbird with the boil method. If the human body is 98.6 it seemed to be a little low, but within .3 of my LaCrosse weather station for room temps. The bulb I relied on first hatch may be high if those are correct. I got a humidity meter that's spot on with my LaCrosse, but the temperature on it is way off... 4 thermometers, 4 different readings. What a PITA....

 

[ChickenCanoe]

It will take a while till you get guaranteed accurate thermometers. Most are only supposed to be accurate to ± 2ºF which isn't accurate enough for good hatch results and IMO, most are outside that range.

These are the two cheapest options I've found for extremely accurate thermometers.

http://thermoworks.com/products/low_cost/rt301wa.html guaranteed to ± 0.7ºF

https://www.brinsea.com/p-394-spot-check-digital-incubator-thermometer.aspx guaranteed to ± 0.2ºF

 

[Egghead_Jr]

An option maybe and what I do is use an oral thermometer as the standard. Didn't see what incubator your using so maybe the glass oral would be better for you as they'd stay stable for average temp reading. With the digital oral thermometer I put it down the vent hole in forced air table top. Turning it off and on can find the high (which is actually about minute after heater turns off) and low (about 30 seconds after heater turns on) and average them. That gives me "calibrated" temp and adjust reading of the hygro/temp combo unit that's left in incubator. It's as true as most can get- you can't beat the accuracy of oral thermometers for that price point. I can get 100% hatch rates with my own fertile eggs. Got 70% last spring on shipped eggs of current stock.

 

[Chic Rustler]

Any updates?

 

[Omega Blue Farms]

Ordered 3 red laced white Cornish cocks, 44 white rocks hens, and 3 NH cocks (as a hedge on selling hatching eggs as comets are always popular) . Hopefully by fall I have some out of the box results to share then can work on optimizing down the road.

I'm not sure I can support the rationale of starting so small. Generally speaking, one should raise 10 birds for every breeding bird selected. Most chicks that hatch should not end up in a breeding pen and when they do, they produce inferior results. Furthermore, you eat chicken, right? So why not raise enough to fill your freezer? Might as well figure out if you like to eat the breeds chosen before embarking on a breeding program.

Back to the 10% rule. Being able to pick the right roosters is very critical and where most fail. I would be willing to bet that when we don't hear back from others who go down this path, it's because they didn't put enough thought into picking the right males and then their hatchrates are a bust.

This year, I raised 100 Kosher Kings and 300 Nova Browns with a goal of selecting a small breeding flock from each. Despite producing excellent freezer birds, most were poorly balanced, had suspect leg joints, or if balanced, were undersized. I found 2 KK males and 6 females that were suitable breeding stock. The Nova Browns were much more challenging, I'm about 60% through processing but have only found 2 males and 8 females worthy of a breeding pen.

The same rules apply to my heritage bird breeding. I breed Bronze Turkeys, Muscovy ducks, and Black Ameraucanas, all for meat production. I have earned APA Grand master in each. Even after more than a decade of selective breeding, I still raise roughly 10 chicks for each breeding bird. Pretty hard to maintain a healthy genepool without following the 10% rule. Most heritage breed lines are in terrible shape and it may take 100 chicks for each decent breeder to clean up the genetic mess and get back to something productive.

Hope you like to eat chicken! Good luck!

 

[Dwellsinshells]

Any updates on this project? I'm really curious, as I'm starting an attempt to make a bantam meat cross. I already process my spare serama and bantam turken roos and they make a nice little pot of soup for myself and my partner, but it would be cool to have something that's a bit more functional so I'm bringing some bantam cornish in to cross with my bantam layer flock.