First Run of Cornish Cross Meat Birds and Super Excited!

[Kusanar]

Gahhh whyyyy!!!

The reasoning for the commercial farms to have them makes sense. They don't get as hot in the summer so less energy needed to keep them cool, they don't have feathers (not even the "hair") so no need to pluck so that saves energy, and then, chickens use protein to produce feathers, so chickens that do not produce feathers have less overall protein requirements over their lifetimes. Plus, when you process and pluck 10,000 chickens at a time, that produces a LOT of feather that has to be disposed of somewhere, these chickens don't have that issue.

I'm not entirely sure about the people that have them on smaller farms and their reasoning. Personally, I think they look neat and think it would be awesome to get that gene into some of the giant oriental game birds... have little dinosaurs running around... They act just like normal chickens, they take dust baths and preen invisible feathers and everything that a normal chicken does, except for flying, not sure if they even attempt that or not.

 

[Lynn-n-JimsVT]

Quick update. We've been experiencing an unusually wet and chilly spring up here in VT (1.6 avg below norm last month, rained 20 out of 31 days). So we were a little worried last night after we got the meaties out to their new home. The temp dropped down to 44 outside overnight with real feel of 37. They were all good when checked this morning though. After the effort of completing the coop n run I wasn't bringing them back in. Sink or swim, they swam. Yay.

 

[ZachyWachy]

They are literally butt ugly!
(Lynn-n-JimsVT) YAY!!!!

 

[GreatBreeder]

Huge flood going on and the streets are rivers

 

[ZachyWachy]

Wow You could go fishing!!!

 

[GreatBreeder]

lol

 

[ZachyWachy]

l'm probably not going to be able to get any cornish until next year.

 

[super meaties]

i gave the chick that's limping some sugar water. keep forgetting to pick up some yogurt

 

[GreatBreeder]

Lol yogurt is the solution to everything.

 

[JRNash]

The reasoning for the commercial farms to have them makes sense. They don't get as hot in the summer so less energy needed to keep them cool, they don't have feathers (not even the "hair") so no need to pluck so that saves energy, and then, chickens use protein to produce feathers, so chickens that do not produce feathers have less overall protein requirements over their lifetimes. Plus, when you process and pluck 10,000 chickens at a time, that produces a LOT of feather that has to be disposed of somewhere, these chickens don't have that issue.

I'm not entirely sure about the people that have them on smaller farms and their reasoning. Personally, I think they look neat and think it would be awesome to get that gene into some of the giant oriental game birds... have little dinosaurs running around... They act just like normal chickens, they take dust baths and preen invisible feathers and everything that a normal chicken does, except for flying, not sure if they even attempt that or not.

The feathers are dried and baked then added to feed. Super high protein content.