Factory "Farm" Culled Chick Rescue and Recovery

[Miyashi]

I purchased 5 CornishX chicks when I got my egg laying hens....thought we'd see if we could follow through and get our own meat from home.
We are pansies and that didn't happen. One died because he was walking up the ramp to go outside and he slipped? and fell on his back. We didn't find him in time, all the blood had rushed to his head. (Our ramp is very low and these birds have a hard time getting around...it's very sad, they walk like toddlers) Another died while laying outside enjoying the afternoon, he must have had a heart attack. The hen died in her sleep, her rooster followed shortly after. They just all died...it was sad, the hen was very sweet and very pretty. They had hardly any feathers on their undersides because they were always dragging the bellies and if they weren't doing that, they were laying in poop, as they walked...hardly ever.
We decided to never get those again, even if we did want them just for meat...they grow at a rate that is just terrible. I've heard stories of them breaking their legs under their own weight.
I wouldn't mind rescuing any bird forced to live in such conditions....even if it won't live long, just to give it a shot at real life.
I'd be all for something like that.

 

[9gerianMile]

I have one Cornish Cross hen who did not get harvested last year because she was the ONLY nice one- so we saved her. Her name is Big Bertha. She's, oh, 18 or so pounds now (haven't weighed her lately), and she lays an egg for us every 3-4 days, while consuming about half the feed we toss out to our 13 flock members. She is shockingly healthy and runs like I'd imagine a severely over-weight dinosaur would have run... Her legs haven't broken(as I anticipated and checked for daily for months.. then one day I realized- 'this bird's probably healthier than I' and left her be) and she does lay nice BIG brown eggs for us. Hers and the banty hen's are the eggs we don't sell. She will be a year old in a month, and she's still kick'n.

I do imagine that the farms do not use the Cornish cross hens to lay the eggs- because free-ranging and happy, I get 2 eggs a week. Not sure how a battery house would get more than that.

I've never thought to caponize roos, thought I suppose, different strokes for different chicken folks.

 

[Ellochicken]

"This is a male baby chick, in his last moment on earth. Below him is a giant grinder into which he will fall alive because he hatched male, and is therefore useless to the egg industry. His fate is shared by 200 million baby male chicks every year. He lived only for a moment, but he wasn't trash. He was someone." -- Mikko Alanne

-Ellochicken Disapproves