First Run of Cornish Cross Meat Birds and Super Excited!

[PlaidBattleAxe]

Jessica, work has been crazy for me too this week! The meatballs are definitely a lot of work whenever work starts getting crazy. I have a little runt that is way smaller than everyone else and is super sweet. I would love to keep him, but he's a roo. Plus, I don't have any other chickens so I don't think he would be very happy all by his little tiny self. I did a short video update on mine earlier. They turned four weeks old yesterday. I will post the link when it's done uploading.

Plaid - Did you ever process yours? I'm interested to hear the results!

We did wind up processing them, on Wednesday. They were just past 8 weeks old. They all dressed out between 5 and 5 1/2 lbs. I miss them... I miss my lawn popcorn running (waddling, really) to see me/get food. Out of my remaining flock, 4 of the 14 had fluid around the heart. The other 10 had completely normal appearing organs. They are all away at freezer camp now, and I know it was time. Still miss watching them loll about in my garden and in the sunshine spots... but now I look at it as they'll help feed my family and "take care" of us----its a nice circle of life . It was a wonderful and monumental learning experience for myself and my family, over the past two months.

Ya'll's make me laugh so hard
my chicks today. No cx, but these are what I have so they'll do.

Love the little set up!

 

[PlaidBattleAxe]

I'll keep you updated on the hatch. Day 20 today. Here's the site I saw about Dipping in Vit C and the cooldown.

http://www.epsaegypt.com/pdf/2011_june/15- 1271.pdf

Another one is Baby chick Vitamin Deficiencies

http://www.networkedblogs.com/Unsff

Thanks for the links! Any pipping yet?

 

[LindaB220]

Thanks for the links! Any pipping yet?

Not yet It should be later tonight or tomorrow because I did a 2 hr cool down on day 8 through day 18. That adds about 10 hrs or so to hatching date. Excited.

 

[Betsy57]

Moved the meat birds outside to the chicken house/brooder and got my bathroom in the basement back! They're about 12 days old. Weights 3.55-6.55 oz. Just lost the one so far (the second day I had them). Obviously there are some Miss Piggies in the bunch and a few Kermits (thinner and not so aggressive as Miss Piggie).

 

[duluthralphie]

I have a little chubby, I think he will go over 10lbs dressed!

He looks like a short legged turkey. You can really see the "dwarfism" in him. But he appears healthy and this morning when I let him out he actually flew 8 inches up onto a divider I have and acted like a king!


I have some of the small ones too like Betsy mentions. I have decided to keep the thinnest ones for breeding, instead of those that walk the furthest from the coop. It is hard to decide who to keep!


My wife has the next week off work, so we are planning to have a camp day on Monday or Tuesday. Camp day will be for all the Cx's except 4 and all the DP roosters except Brutus, Rick and Duke. I may keep an EE boy, but not sure that will fit into my CX breeding.

 

[Tracydr]

I've been raising meat chickens for about three or four years. I raise 20-40 a yea. We just moved and I'm not set-up yet so I'm just raising 10 this time.
I stopped raising the Cornish X after the second batch and switched to Red Broilers from Ideal. They take a little longer but I've never had one with a bad leg or heart failure. I would lose 2-3 per 20 on the Cornish X. The Red Broilers are very active but still look like meat chicks compared to the layers I'm raising with them. They have a little more dark meat to thigh ratio and usually end up between 5-8 lbs.
I'm trying to find some Dorking chicks so that I can breed my own meat chicks and get away from hybrid hatchery chicks.

 

[LindaB220]

Not yet It should be later tonight or tomorrow because I did a 2 hr cool down on day 8 through day 18. That adds about 10 hrs or so to hatching date. Excited.

I'm a little bummed out on this. I got eggs from Pa to La and even though I requested that he do a more thorough packing he stil resent the eggs as usual in one box. Bubble wrapped but....... this is hatching day and no pips at all. I thought that it would be worth the $15 shipping to replace the eggs. So I may just have to not order from him again. sigh I'll let them sit another 2 days or so and then crack and see if they were all scrambled.
HOWEVER, I'm gett some Basque eggs next month. Friendliest birds ever. Not scared of you. I only had one hatch from the guy in Pa and it was a Basque. I kept the incubator in my bedroom and she would stand and knock on the window and stare me in the eye. Funniest thing ever. I lost her to a predator. I'm only interested in raising White Plymouth Rocks and Basques. (If none of the SFH hatch) Then I'll get a batch of CX's a couple of times a year for the freezer.

 

[Double Kindness]

Co homesteader or mountain mom- next time you get cx- do you want to split up an order? When will you be doing another cx run everyone?

I lost 1 chick to shipping stress. it looks like I got a wacky batch of chicks if my sexing abilities say anything, so far I've been 100% out of 33 chickens. I see I have only 2 male white bresse out of 7.

I have 2 females out of 6 haffies/ayam cemani. So out of these 13 chickens, I am keeping 8 to breed with, plus 4 in my barn is a coop for 12 chickens with room to expand and brooder areas. Out of 19 chickens 7 are going to freezer camp for sure, plus 27 is 34 dp chickens, we'll probably get 6 muscovy ducks tomorrow but I only want to keep 3 for creating my sustainable duck meat/egg area.

I really want french white muscovy ducks, but the ones I'm getting tomorrow aren't those. Maybe in the spring?

 

[JessicaThistle]

Welcome to the thread Tracy! Can you explain why you stopped raising Cornish X? What method do you use? Do you free range? We are a curious bunch here!

Linda - Hopefully you get some piping soon. I would imagine that is a real disappointment. That's one of the reasons I'm just not sure about the incubating eggs thing. Of course I do have 17 chickens + the CX hen we are going to keep for research purposes. I probably don't technically need more. We already had to build a silkie house and run and will need to add a wing to the coop for the 7 chicks when they integrate. Chicken math got me and I'm afraid it won't stop. I just LOVE chickens!

Plaid: I think I saw that you had freezer camp day. Share your experience, please!! How did it go? How did you do going through it?

My freezer camp day is here now too. We have 24 to do and my plan is to do half on Sunday and half on Monday. This is to not overwork my husband too much since he just had hernia surgery on Tuesday. He is up and around and plans to go to work tomorrow too. I don't want him to work and then be faced with too many chickens to handle. Knowing him he'll try to do them all. Unfortunately, my back, arms and hands can't handle the evisceration of 24 birds. Stupid fibromyalgia. I push through but hurt so bad. I guess we will see.

 

[duluthralphie]

Jessica, This is a handy little device to help with the cleaning of the inside of the cavity. I wish I could take credit for inventing it. I cannot, my wife brought this idea home from a work mate who has chickens also.

It really does a good job and is way easier on the hands.....