First Run of Cornish Cross Meat Birds and Super Excited!

[PlaidBattleAxe]

I haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate spiders. They make me squirm just thinking about them. But I get angry when they bite my daughter. Only her... they don't seem to go after anyone else in the house, always her. So I'm fighting back.. Currently brewing a pennyroyal tincture (unholy strong variety of peppermint) and am going to spray it around my house. Wont hurt the animals and kids and repels the heck out of anything 8-legged.

Boo. That s*cks about your cx order!! Will the hatchery be able to get your order in around the same time you had planned on the initial batch?
Hey, if you have 2 roos, then the only solution is to buy more hens until the hen:roo ratio is adequate!

 

[JessicaThistle]

Plaid: Oh, I'm sorry about your daughter getting bitten. I hate spiders too! My son is ultra-sensitive to bug bites and swells up pretty bad too. As far as treats for my CX, my husband does landscape maintenance and he brings home fruit that has dropped from his customer's trees. All of my chickens absolutely devour the apples and plums he brings home. They love when dad pulls into the driveway because he just may have buckets of goodies!

Linda: I'm sorry your CX deal didn't work out. Always good to have a plan B because it's hard to rely on others to come through sometimes. Glad that you regrouped and are getting those babies! I have learned that I am not a fan of roosters! I have two of them and am weighing my options. I don't like the dynamic these two have brought and I especially hate the 4 am crowing. 4 am and I are NOT friends, which makes me and these roosters NOT friends.

On my CX batch: They are happy in the tractor of course. We were gone racing yesterday and I came home to an expired chick though. I'm not sure what happened. Nothing looked wrong with him at all. I hate that because it always happens when I'm gone for the day. So, I'm down to 28. Maybe that's my lucky number.

 

[duluthralphie]

I just found your thread here Jessica. I read back a little.

I am curious how anyone can find CX's to be a nightmare...

Even my first batch were fun, even though I will never raise them the hatcheries say to again. I will limit their food and free range them like I am this batch every time now. They are just too cute and fun. So lively and active!


Spiders make great chicken toys....



Sorry to hear you lost one.

 

[LindaB220]

I haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate spiders. They make me squirm just thinking about them. But I get angry when they bite my daughter. Only her... they don't seem to go after anyone else in the house, always her. So I'm fighting back.. Currently brewing a pennyroyal tincture (unholy strong variety of peppermint) and am going to spray it around my house. Wont hurt the animals and kids and repels the heck out of anything 8-legged.

Boo. That s*cks about your cx order!! Will the hatchery be able to get your order in around the same time you had planned on the initial batch?
Hey, if you have 2 roos, then the only solution is to buy more hens until the hen:roo ratio is adequate!

I'm not sure what to do about this. These have the blue egg gene in them BUT I have 6 bigger (8 wks old) boys 2 are crowing, and 6 4 wks old that will be coming along. I'm not keeping any of these I don't think. I just wanted the 11 girls for eggs. And I've got 13 White Plymouth Rocks in the 'bator. He said they grow BIG. Next month on 9-22 I'll be shipped the doz SG Dorkings. I may just have to pick and choose out of these what to put in the freezer. I did process the gimpy White ply rock yesterday and he was small. Almost half size of the pullets. BUT I wanted CX's this year. Problems, problems. I'm very happy with my life right now.

Other than trouble with my right knee I'm in pretty good health and live in a fairly happy house. My 20 yo gson has mental problems enough that he's on SSI ( The type of get you gun and hide it) But we keep him in a bubble and don't let things aggravate him and he's fine. I feel a lot of suicides are prevented if you are able to deal with each problem as they occur.

 

[Double Kindness]

Linda- that's too bad 2 of your sapphires started to crow. My friend and I started contemplating a fm blue egg layer using cemani/svart honas and a sbel. A black meat blue egg layer dp bird.

That sucks about no cornish x, I had run into the same exact problem, no cornish x to be found, and I checked with the biodynamic calendar I use and it says this winter will be a snow laden doozie.

On the other hand, my friend just called and surprise! It seems like the orpington roos got busy with her cemani hens, so I'm going to go pick them up, and use them as part of a meatie project. Idk if they will have gray/dark meat. I'm thinking that they might just be ready in time for Thanksgiving dinner time

If you were nearby linda, I would think of putting your sapphire roo with a few cemani hens and work a fm blue egg laying bird dp line.

I have been cooking my laying flock's eggs and feeding them to my chicks along with the 26% protein gamebird feed. I hope this will make them big and meatie faster as they are dp birds.

I will be doing cornish x & rangers in the spring, since that seems to be when I can get them next. Pppfffttt. Even my local chicken guy never got back to me all week about cornish x chicks.

I have 26 5 week old chicks, I read about giving them meat to bump their protein to get them bigger faster, should I do that? I have 2 whole large chicken leg quarters that are 3 days old that I was going to maybe give yo my dogs, but if it's great for meaties, then I will do that.

They do seem to eat quite a lot lol. I can't wait to see how everything turns out with everyone! I'm not doing the3 exact same as you guys with cornish x atm, but it really is such a help to read what all is working for you guys and getting more information to help guide me with getting more self sustaining.

 

[LindaB220]

Linda- that's too bad 2 of your sapphires started to crow. My friend and I started contemplating a fm blue egg layer using cemani/svart honas and a sbel. A black meat blue egg layer dp bird.

That sucks about no cornish x, I had run into the same exact problem, no cornish x to be found, and I checked with the biodynamic calendar I use and it says this winter will be a snow laden doozie.

On the other hand, my friend just called and surprise! It seems like the orpington roos got busy with her cemani hens, so I'm going to go pick them up, and use them as part of a meatie project. Idk if they will have gray/dark meat. I'm thinking that they might just be ready in time for Thanksgiving dinner time

If you were nearby linda, I would think of putting your sapphire roo with a few cemani hens and work a fm blue egg laying bird dp line.

I have been cooking my laying flock's eggs and feeding them to my chicks along with the 26% protein gamebird feed. I hope this will make them big and meatie faster as they are dp birds.

I will be doing cornish x & rangers in the spring, since that seems to be when I can get them next. Pppfffttt. Even my local chicken guy never got back to me all week about cornish x chicks.

I have 26 5 week old chicks, I read about giving them meat to bump their protein to get them bigger faster, should I do that? I have 2 whole large chicken leg quarters that are 3 days old that I was going to maybe give yo my dogs, but if it's great for meaties, then I will do that.

They do seem to eat quite a lot lol. I can't wait to see how everything turns out with everyone! I'm not doing the3 exact same as you guys with cornish x atm, but it really is such a help to read what all is working for you guys and getting more information to help guide me with getting more self sustaining.

Heck yeah, give it to the chickens. Let the dogs fend for themselves with dog food.

After all, you are going to be eating the chickens. If it works, let us know. I tend to be heavy on the protein. My birds are healthy. Of course I ferment my feed. Nobody has gotten sick from day of hatch except for 4 hatchery birds that died the first week. I'll never buy hatchery again. Except for CX's. BUT there is just so much protein that their bodies can absorb. Anything over is pooped out.

 

[Double Kindness]

Linda- I have the chicks on 26% protein gamebird feed for the last week I've had them which is 2 x as much protein as chick starter. Like you said, they can only absorb so much before it gets pooped out.

I'm going to start fermenting their feed, I've just been so busy moving and piling wood, clearing off the raised garden bed while tending to both flocks of my chickers. Atm I just wet their feed and let it absorb the water, mix in a bit of chick grit, some scrambled eggs lately and grass, dandelions. They caught an earthworm last night, it was hilarious!

When I get back from visiting my friend I'll begin the starting of ff for them and toss them the chicken meat leftovers. I'm going to pick up yet more chicks! Lol. I'm hoping they have gray or darkish meat, b/c the plan atm is to have these for Thanksgiving dinner instead of turkey, so these itty bitties I kind of want to get pretty good sized by a week before thanksgiving, to give the meat time to rest so it's not tough. Am I correct in guessing this is how to process birds for meat? Not to cook & eat them straight away?

It got me thinking, maybe of partitioning the new coop, install another door to the side w/o a door and finish enclosing the raised garden bed, so when these chicks are ready to go outside, I can just move the current chicks to the raised garden bed portion of the coop/run? That way there's not any integration issues due to the big age difference by that time.

 

[PlaidBattleAxe]

Plaid: Oh, I'm sorry about your daughter getting bitten. I hate spiders too! My son is ultra-sensitive to bug bites and swells up pretty bad too. As far as treats for my CX, my husband does landscape maintenance and he brings home fruit that has dropped from his customer's trees. All of my chickens absolutely devour the apples and plums he brings home. They love when dad pulls into the driveway because he just may have buckets of goodies!

Linda: I'm sorry your CX deal didn't work out. Always good to have a plan B because it's hard to rely on others to come through sometimes. Glad that you regrouped and are getting those babies! I have learned that I am not a fan of roosters! I have two of them and am weighing my options. I don't like the dynamic these two have brought and I especially hate the 4 am crowing. 4 am and I are NOT friends, which makes me and these roosters NOT friends.

On my CX batch: They are happy in the tractor of course. We were gone racing yesterday and I came home to an expired chick though. I'm not sure what happened. Nothing looked wrong with him at all. I hate that because it always happens when I'm gone for the day. So, I'm down to 28. Maybe that's my lucky number.

Sorry about your chick..Its so frustrating to not know what the cause is. That was like my two last week I lost. They were fine, went to bed and each am (2 days in a row) I lost one.. I'm down to 21 now.

I'm not sure what to do about this. These have the blue egg gene in them BUT I have 6 bigger (8 wks old) boys 2 are crowing, and 6 4 wks old that will be coming along. I'm not keeping any of these I don't think. I just wanted the 11 girls for eggs. And I've got 13 White Plymouth Rocks in the 'bator. He said they grow BIG. Next month on 9-22 I'll be shipped the doz SG Dorkings. I may just have to pick and choose out of these what to put in the freezer. I did process the gimpy White ply rock yesterday and he was small. Almost half size of the pullets. BUT I wanted CX's this year. Problems, problems. I'm very happy with my life right now.

Other than trouble with my right knee I'm in pretty good health and live in a fairly happy house. My 20 yo gson has mental problems enough that he's on SSI ( The type of get you gun and hide it) But we keep him in a bubble and don't let things aggravate him and he's fine. I feel a lot of suicides are prevented if you are able to deal with each problem as they occur.

I'm glad everything is going well for you ) And very cool about the SGD. They seem like interesting birds. I agree about the prevention comment. Hitting each problem head on reduces the weight of the stress. You have good perspective

Linda- that's too bad 2 of your sapphires started to crow. My friend and I started contemplating a fm blue egg layer using cemani/svart honas and a sbel. A black meat blue egg layer dp bird.

That sucks about no cornish x, I had run into the same exact problem, no cornish x to be found, and I checked with the biodynamic calendar I use and it says this winter will be a snow laden doozie.

On the other hand, my friend just called and surprise! It seems like the orpington roos got busy with her cemani hens, so I'm going to go pick them up, and use them as part of a meatie project. Idk if they will have gray/dark meat. I'm thinking that they might just be ready in time for Thanksgiving dinner time

If you were nearby linda, I would think of putting your sapphire roo with a few cemani hens and work a fm blue egg laying bird dp line.

I have been cooking my laying flock's eggs and feeding them to my chicks along with the 26% protein gamebird feed. I hope this will make them big and meatie faster as they are dp birds.

I will be doing cornish x & rangers in the spring, since that seems to be when I can get them next. Pppfffttt. Even my local chicken guy never got back to me all week about cornish x chicks.

I have 26 5 week old chicks, I read about giving them meat to bump their protein to get them bigger faster, should I do that? I have 2 whole large chicken leg quarters that are 3 days old that I was going to maybe give yo my dogs, but if it's great for meaties, then I will do that.

They do seem to eat quite a lot lol. I can't wait to see how everything turns out with everyone! I'm not doing the3 exact same as you guys with cornish x atm, but it really is such a help to read what all is working for you guys and getting more information to help guide me with getting more self sustaining.

You'll have to let us know how Thanksgiving dinner goes!



Update:
I was out working on the hoop coop when DH came up and volunteered to help. Spent his day off working with me, and then the kids joined in. It was a nice time working together on something for the birds. I had the peeps outside in their old pen while we were working, and when I put them all into the new one, they started this distress cry that I've never heard before. It was what they must use to call for their mother hen when they're scared or separated. They kept it up for a good 10-15 minutes. I feel bad. And I'm going to be nervous tonight. I've got welded wire with hardware cloth over that and a tarp over that. But the way they're cheeping it is going to call the predators in. Ugh. Me=mother hen=getting attached=bad news. Its going to be hard on processing day.

Welcome, Duluthralphie!

 

[duluthralphie]

On the high protein feed, I would not bump it. I am free ranging my CX'S I have 24 left this time. I started with 26, one died the second day. I fed them 18% protein for 2 weeks 10-12 hours a day.

I wanted to slow their growth down. I had a group of 25 earlier this summer I fed them according to hatchery instructions 24% protein feeding them as much as they want. I had dirty lazy birds. They would sit and eat, not even moving to poop. They were slobs. They would waddle over to the water, plop down and drink. I am sure some of them never moved more than 6 feet from the feeders!

I got big fat birds fast, no doubt about it. However, they were not what I wanted. I wanted happy healthy birds. These birds were not healthy, I had ascites in several of them. I had 2 die of heart attacks at less than 6 weeks. I had free range and a paddock available to them. They would not use it. I tried running all the birds outside just to have them come back in and wolf down more food. They were raised with 85 other chicks, those chicks did not eat themselves to death.

About the 2 with heart attacks, I found one dead one morning, no marks and no reason for its death, liquid in the gut led me to believe heart attack. the same morning I was sitting outside the coop and there was one of the rare Cx's outside free ranging. It was plump and looked in good shape for a CX. It was jumping at a leaf on a low branch, as chicks do, I was laughing it looked so funny. All of a sudden it jumps at the leaf, and falls over twitching. It was near death! I wrung its neck and bleed it out and butchered it. It was filled with water, a couple of cups worth. I butchered all the CX's the next day.

I then read about people FR CX's on here. I decided to do it. The chicks I have this time are healthy and happy, they chase bugs and jump for weed seeds, leaves and so forth. I am currently feeding them 18% protein twice a day. They get 2 cottage cheese containers a feed twice a day. I dump the feed on the ground and make them scratch for it. I give them free access to the outdoors 12-14 hours a day. They run with the big birds now!

I will never feed them heavy protein again. I have no leg problems this time, no sick birds, my birds are clean and do not sit in their own poop. I refuse to ever raise my birds like TYSON or GOLDEN PLUMP again, I want better healthier birds. BTW The chicks are drinking less water this time around, which could be because the first batch had diabetes.


To each his own, but I advocate FR and limited food and protein for CX's!


Here is a link to the chronicle of my latest CX adventure:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/913478/my-cornish-x-experiment/60#post_13996069


Now I will step down from my soap box........

 

[duluthralphie]

Thanks for the Welcome Plaid


It is hard on processing day. They are like family, you just have to remember the good life you gave them and how they will help your family survive. I have friends ask my how you can butcher your own birds, I always say, I prefer to do my own dirty work instead of hiring someone to do it for me. When you eat meat, something died, there is no better way to be connected to the circle of life.

That said, I have ten turkeys ( one which is broody on eggs now) 8 are this years young. I have 4 jakes in the 8. Three of the Jakes will meet their demise the Sunday before thanksgiving. I am not looking forward to that day. There will be tears here for sure. When we give thanks on Thursday, we will REALLY REALLY mean it.