First Run of Cornish Cross Meat Birds and Super Excited!

[holm25]

I finally introduced my 4 BBB turkeys to my free range flock, I'm hoping they do well with them. My turkeys seem to be very sweet birds. We will see how today goes!!

Good luck I imagine they will be fine. Mine free ranged with my flock at 2 weeks and r now 3 weeks and all my chicks and poults free range.

 

[Morrigan]

Let us know how they do Red Nugget. I think it is at least possible that CX can be decent layers.

Peeked in the coop this morning. My broody made it through at least one night pancaked out over her (I hope) 10 eggs. Just 20 more days to go.

 

[raisinemright]

My BBB freely ranging around!! They are loving it

 

[Red Nugget]

Built a partition and separated them the two smaller ones today and started the girls on layer feed. My Sumatra started crying for the others once I separated them. I hope she can handle this. Red Nugget and her (Midnight) usually sleep under the big ones. Do you think Red Nugget is a boy. He's the Silkie.

 

[JessicaThistle]

Built a partition and separated them the two smaller ones today and started the girls on layer feed. My Sumatra started crying for the others once I separated them. I hope she can handle this. Red Nugget and her (Midnight) usually sleep under the big ones. Do you think Red Nugget is a boy. He's the Silkie.

You can just separate the CX at feeding time and let them all free range together the rest of the time. All of mine free range together but my main coop has a wire over the pop door to "hopefully" keep Sunny (my cx) out of the coop. She squeezes through sometimes, but not all of the time. She is way older than yours though and you don't want them to overeat and grow too fast at this point.

 

[JessicaThistle]

Guess what? I went to a poultry swap and passed up so many baby chicks: EE's, Wheatens, Polish, Silkies ducks, emus...I wanted them all. The silkies were the hardest because I have two white silkie hens and have contemplated breeding. I guess 816 ish chickens is enough for me right now or something.

So, i had to do something today that I thought I wouldn't ever do to one of my hens. Tell me if you all think this was a bad, bad idea. Be honest. I have a hen in a group that will soon be moved to the big pasture. She has been escaping from my electric fenced area in my yard daily and laying eggs in my neighbor's horse barn. My neighbor loves my chickens so that isn't the problem. I'm afraid if I didn't train this hen now that when I move her to pasture, she would escape and be killed by something while I'm not there. Soooo, I trimmed her flight feathers.

Am I a terrible chicken mom? I feel like she needs to learn to stay where she belongs! When my hubby and i talked about what to do about her the options were culling or trimming flight feathers. At least this saved her life.

 

[dpenning]

Snip

Soooo, I trimmed her flight feathers.

Am I a terrible chicken mom? I feel like she needs to learn to stay where she belongs! When my hubby and i talked about what to do about her the options were culling or trimming flight feathers. At least this saved her life.

Not at all. They get along just fine as pedestrians and you are right, it could save her life. You are doing what you feel is in her best interest.

 

[Morrigan]

I agree with depenning. You are just trying to keep her safe, the best you can.

Did 6 more meaties this morning. They were almost 10 weeks old. The 5 roos were all between 6 3/4 and 7 3/4 lbs and the one hen was a little over 5 1/2 lbs. We're very glad to have another batch behind us, and are pleased with the weights. One of the benefits of letting them go a little longer and getting bigger birds, is that you need fewer of them. We plan on trying to make the chicken breakfast sausage in a couple of days.

That leaves me with my one crowing rooster and 5 hens. The hens seem more relaxed without all those crazy roosters around, pushing them out of the way for food and trying to mount them. The one remaining rooster feels like the big man on campus.

 

[Double Kindness]

So.. freezer camp didn't happen yet, but that new bottle of Bulleit Bourbon is almost empty. Ahem.

But.. tonight I have help for sure from experienced chicken/bunny processor friends in exchange for sushi dinner at my house tonight.

I do however need to go get another bottle of bourbon. Mine are also 10 weeks old! One I can see is starting to have a twisted leg, they gotta go tonight.

But. But. But.

Why is this so hard? I've done this before, several times and the last time all by myself (a white bresse and a bean line ayam cemani rooster ).

Good news, my muscovy Trouble hatched out her babies today.. but how I found out was a dead duckling in the FRONT YARD which they can't really get to. Investigating what it was led me to try to get Trouble off her nest a bit. She has 13 eggs, 2 were unhatched a few hours ago, 1 dead in the front yard.

Oh.. and yesterday I got a new 7 month old male barn kitty ( which my other barn/lap kitty isn't happy about ) & traded in 6 roosters. *** towards my turkey and meat chickens later on this year

Ok.. talk me through/into I can do this!! These cx are the size of small turkeys. They still hop up 12" into the other pen where I keep the feeders.

 

[JRNash]

I'M new to this Forum. I would like to say thanks to Jessica Thistle and the rest of y'all. I have been involved in raising all different types of poultry growing up and my experience has led me to the conclusion that in spite of the intense genetics involved,the problems most attribute to CX's could be mitigated with the proper husbandry. The blogs support this view

My intentions are also to tinker and come up with my own backyard meat line with a goal of 12wks.