I have Cornish x, they will be 4 weeks on sunday and not fully feathered yet. I'm asking this for reference for future batches...do they feather out faster in cooler temps, as in just warm enough for them. or do they feather out in warmer temps. I can see logic in both cases, but wondering how it actually works, or if it does not matter at all. I can see if they are just warm enough that the body naturally puts more energy in feathers quicker to keep them warm, thus keeping them alive. I can see that if it is warm, then their bodies have the energy to make the feathers and not have to try to keep the body warm.
Generally birds feather out faster in cooler temps. Cornish Cross are bred not to grow all their pin feathers. Some do fill out, but not all. I had 4 recently. Two feathered out much better then the other two.
Feathers are not a selected quality in meat birds is anything feathers hinder meat production, they take protein to grow and all they do is make the butchering process more difficult so the CX breed that had been selectively bred for years for massive amounts of meat production were not also selected for nice greater ability, some feather out nicely, some don't. All I have had had a decent amount of father by there butcher date but when younger they had bald patches probably because of the body growing so fast the feathers don't catch up enough to really fill in
