First Run of Cornish Cross Meat Birds and Super Excited!

[Betsy57]

I'd wondered if the cornish roaster would be much slower since the website said they need another two weeks. I figured the extra feed for two weeks would negate the savings of the bbq or fryer specials they had so I went with cornish cross. I'm curious to see if your roasters pack on more weight towards the end.

Me too! I'm feeding mine Countryside Organics. Have gone through one 50 lb bag of chick starter and another bag of broiler plus 3/4 of another bag. $50 a bag ($30 for the feed and $20 for the shipping per bag). Only wanted to go through three bags for these birds....mmmmm

 

[duluthralphie]

I raised and am raising mine to a fair sized roaster.....

I really did not care as much about feed costs as I did getting a big bird. I actually stopped feeding them 18 per cent protein a couple weeks ago and went to a 14 per cent layer mash. It is cheaper and at this point I think they would put on weight eating paper.


I happen to notice I have 8 hens to process and 3 roosters left, one of which will have to become the frog daddy. I will keep the smallest one. It appears I only got 6 roosters out of my 25. Next year if I cannot breed and raise my own frogs I am going to buy all roosters just because they get big faster. My wife, bless her little heart, thinks I have enough chicken in the freezer for a couple years and do not need any next summer...


BUT then she did not think I needed any this year either....or any turkeys,,,,,,or an guineas..... I will admit she was right on the geese.

 

[duluthralphie]

I posted the following in a free range thread here on BYC. I am posting it here because I want input from my friends on this thread also....



Confession time...

I did something very stupid and it cost me the life of one of my hens.... I have been raising a bunch of CX broilers. I wanted as large a bird as I can get without getting one too old. ( under 20 weeks).

I also wanted to keep 2 CX hens and one rooster to see what I would get for chicks or if I could next year. We have been processing a few CX's a day. I free range everything most of the time.

My CX's and my DP flock have been free ranging together for a couple months. The birds all know each other.

I picked two CX hens to keep for next year. These were the two hens that roamed the furthest from the brooder/tractor the CX's live in.

In the last couple weeks I started to get eggs from my young flock. I was tired of finding them everywhere and not knowing exactly how many hens were laying. My wife and I made an enclosed run 9ft by 75 ft to give the birds lots of room and still have them in a cage, until they learn where the nests are. I put the two hens into the coop with the enclosed run. There was some minor fighting when they first went in, it did not look overly vicious. A couple of roosters were trying to mate with them against their wills. I thought another rooster put a stop too it. I Was wrong. Yesterday, I saw the two new hens had bloody butts. Badly bloodied butts!

I pulled them out and put them in a safe area by themselves. I did not want to process them because of the possibility of infection. I will only process clean healthy birds. She was dead this morning from the injuries and I feel like an idiot. So stupid to lose a bird like that. I was sure because they were basically one flock roosting in different coops they would be accepted.

Now comes a quandary, I still want to keep 2 hens and a rooster CX over winter. I am afraid to add new birds to the flock in the run.

What do you think the outcome would be if I throw the roosters outside to free range and leave the hens inside? Will the CX's be ok then? The hens did not participate in this rape/beating.

If I make the roosters coop together in the CX's brooder will the CX rooster be safe?

Any suggestions?


And a warning beware when adding chickens into new areas be careful..

 

[KCMOLisa]

I really can't help since I don't have any egg layers yet or other roosters, but I just wanted to say I'm sorry about your hen. Poor girl!

 

[JessicaThistle]

That is horrible Ralph! I personally would keep them separate. I don't have a rooster currently, unless any of my 7 rescuees turns out to be a rooster, so I have no experience in that area. However, I do have experience with CX. I chose to not put the CX hen that I kept in the main coop because a couple of my hens are just bullies. I housed her with my two white silkies and she is at the bottom of their pecking order even though they are like 1/3 her size. She is so big but so amazingly docile that I couldn't imagine having her with a big rough roo. I don't see any way she could protect herself.

Are you able to build a CX winter house?

 

[Betsy57]

I posted the following in a free range thread here on BYC. I am posting it here because I want input from my friends on this thread also....



Confession time...

I did something very stupid and it cost me the life of one of my hens.... I have been raising a bunch of CX broilers. I wanted as large a bird as I can get without getting one too old. ( under 20 weeks).

I also wanted to keep 2 CX hens and one rooster to see what I would get for chicks or if I could next year. We have been processing a few CX's a day. I free range everything most of the time.

My CX's and my DP flock have been free ranging together for a couple months. The birds all know each other.

I picked two CX hens to keep for next year. These were the two hens that roamed the furthest from the brooder/tractor the CX's live in.

In the last couple weeks I started to get eggs from my young flock. I was tired of finding them everywhere and not knowing exactly how many hens were laying. My wife and I made an enclosed run 9ft by 75 ft to give the birds lots of room and still have them in a cage, until they learn where the nests are. I put the two hens into the coop with the enclosed run. There was some minor fighting when they first went in, it did not look overly vicious. A couple of roosters were trying to mate with them against their wills. I thought another rooster put a stop too it. I Was wrong. Yesterday, I saw the two new hens had bloody butts. Badly bloodied butts!

I pulled them out and put them in a safe area by themselves. I did not want to process them because of the possibility of infection. I will only process clean healthy birds. She was dead this morning from the injuries and I feel like an idiot. So stupid to lose a bird like that. I was sure because they were basically one flock roosting in different coops they would be accepted.

Now comes a quandary, I still want to keep 2 hens and a rooster CX over winter. I am afraid to add new birds to the flock in the run.

What do you think the outcome would be if I throw the roosters outside to free range and leave the hens inside? Will the CX's be ok then? The hens did not participate in this rape/beating.

If I make the roosters coop together in the CX's brooder will the CX rooster be safe?

Any suggestions?


And a warning beware when adding chickens into new areas be careful..

It is very hard to put new chickens in with an existing flock. The only way I do it is if the existing flock is younger or the two flocks aren't that different in ages and I have almost equal amounts going in so they have "some support". Putting one or two in an existing flock of more than a few is asking for trouble. I keep them separated with a fence for a while and then let the rooster in with the new ones so he can "claim them" and protect them. Then I let the new flock in the existing area but always have a separate area for them to sleep for a while before making them shack up together. There is still some issues but they are normal pecking order/establishing territory issues. I've never had one get harmed or killed this way.

 

[CoHomestead]

Wow, sorry Ralph :-(

 

[duluthralphie]

It appears by the responses I got this was an abnormality.

I did things the right way so I have to stop blaming myself. The CX's and the other chickens intermingled for months. They hung together even after I put the others in their run. The run and the Cx's have a common fence. they each sit on their side of the fence.

I still have my turkeys and Guinea free ranging. The turkeys and Guineas moved themselves to the DP chickens. They use to roost in or near the other coop, now they roost on the coop the chickens were moved into or it's run. I am trying to get the turkeys and guineas to move into the other coop. I even have their food and water near it. They go there for their food and water, then head right back to the run to hang out with the chickens.


However, I am going to make a change. The boys will be moving! They can look at the girls through the wire and flirt with them, but there will be no touching! They are going to think they are in a Nun run school! I will be better able to control my future chicks heritage this way.

I am a little concerned about my CX rooster and the other roosters. If I have to I could make him the only rooster with the hens. Every chick would be half frog then!!

I have a feeling Rick was the instigator. Rick has gotten noticeably braver and cockier since the other roosters were culled. For some reason Brutus is not keeping Rick in check. Brutus has always been best buds with RIck and Rick could get away with more than the other roosters. Rick is even crowing now, Brutus use to never allow this.


Jessica, I can keep the CX's in the Brooder/tractor all winter if I have too and just let them out of the tractor on good days. They would have plenty of room. Or I could build them a "house" out of straw for winter. All these decisions to make. I thought when I retired all the hard decisions would be over.


Betsy, I think you have a great idea about putting them in with the dominate rooster and allowing him to claim them. Brutus did not protect them like he does the other hens. OR, Rick could become Sunday dinner.

 

[mountain mom]

Wow! There has been so much happening!
While reading through the posts for the past hour or so, I had all kinds of things I wanted to comment on... now I can't remember what they were!

My "little" meatballs are getting cuter and cuter by the day. Butcher day is going to be harder than expected. There is one in particular who always escapes the garden and goes to hang with the big girls. We have decided if she happens to escape on butcher day she will live She is a crafty one.
Truth be told, she will probably live anyhow, I like to call her Pearl. I know, I know!!! It was an accidental naming. Sort of.


One thing I do remember that I wanted to comment on: We cut a corner off of a feed bag and put the chickens in there, head poking out, before we chop. We hold them until they stop moving and then hang them upside down. It worked great for us! No wing issues.
Speaking of wings, my husband smoked/grilled some wings yesterday for the game. HOLY DELICIOUS! We had been saving the wings from our last batch of birds to fry. I don't have a fryer and really never mustered up the courage to make a huge oil mess in the kitchen. Needless to say they have been in the freezer feeling so lonely, so we finally ate them. I have never had a better tasting wing!

 

[duluthralphie]

MountainMom is a softy!!!!


I would just accidentally lock the one you want to keep in a building until after all the butchering was done....


I wanted to keep 2 hens and 1 roosters... I had one hen that accidentally got locked in the granary.... so I have 4 and not 3 now. My wife has not noticed it yet.... When she does I suppose I will have to use a well crafted mistruth.

I also have 4 roosters in my DPs instead of three. One managed to escape every time I tried to get him. I had to shoot the last couple roosters that did not live in the coop or escaped. When I went to shoot this rooster I was out of bullets. So I tricked him into going into the coop one night, moved him to the run and named him Lucky. He is now safe...


So you can call me a softy too........ BUT they do taste good.... I just have 4 turkeys to clean in about 3 weeks and I am done for the year.