First Run of Cornish Cross Meat Birds and Super Excited!

[JRNash]

Sorry to hear that cyborg.

 

[Molpet]

Well, when I went out to the pen this morning, I found one of my SCX roosters dead. I did not do a necropsy, I'm just assuming the brutal heat got him.

so sorry.. I know it has been extremely hot down there... my CX and I melt at 85 much less 105+

 

[duluthralphie]

Cyborg, I am guessing you are correct on the cause of death.

My CX's can handle 40 below with ease but the high temps is so rough on them. I try to not disturb them in the heat. Bert Jr just sits and pants as it gets hotter.


I am thinking I am on Borrowed time with Bert Jr. He is a year now so everyday and every fertile egg is a blessing.

I think Bertha will out live him, while she does her shopping in the Plus size stores she is a lot smaller than he is.


I was looking at him this morning and wondering how much longer I would have him. He is so huge..


Good luck on the rest of your birds, sorry you lost the one Cyborg..

 

[JRNash]

Ralph have you picked a successor to the throne? My intent with my Cx is to place the best dark cornish hybrid over the Cx hens. Im hoping this bypasses any fertility problems as well as the issues of the massive size of the Cx males. I still have a Cx male,have to wait and see how things progress. I have two more weeks of incubation on the last batch of Saipan hybrids. That will be the end of that experiment until the F1 are old enough to evaluate.
I figure by 8 to 12 weeks I should know wether it's a feasible cross. If not it will be camp for the roosters

 

[duluthralphie]

Ralph have you picked a successor to the throne? My intent with my Cx is to place the best dark cornish hybrid over the Cx hens. Im hoping this bypasses any fertility problems as well as the issues of the massive size of the Cx males. I still have a Cx male,have to wait and see how things progress. I have two more weeks of incubation on the last batch of Saipan hybrids. That will be the end of that experiment until the F1 are old enough to evaluate.
I figure by 8 to 12 weeks I should know wether it's a feasible cross. If not it will be camp for the roosters

I am waiting to see how this generation goes. As of right now I am happy with any of them, but I cannot tell boys from girls yet. If all things are equal I will pick the whitest bird. No matter what I will keep 2-3 roosters, I screwed up once before and kept the one I wanted only to have it die before breeding season.

I am hoping to have enough and get them fertile enough to hatch 200 of them next year for the freezer. It has been a long time working on this,

 

[Gowander]

Well yesterday was the day and all went well!!
We took our birds into be butchered and was good. we goto an gov't inspected facility and inspector was good with the way we transported flock.
Couple notes
-transport must be right size, and birds must be snuggish, too much room and they will roll around and become quite the mess
-air flow a must, inspector gave another grower a warning not to use his utility trailer too much room and not enough airflow, the birds came out looking like they had been in a dryer full of mud and a little wobbly

So that was transport, we actually travelled over two hours and birds looked good, it was early and cool morning, we did keep them covered so that they were a bit calmer, with a tarp.

I think we were light as follows
-we grew 25 Cornish rock giants, none lost and all passed inspection
-we had them 8 weeks
-average bird weight 4.25 lbs
-smallest 3.22 and largest 5.2 lbs
-estimated feed conversion, 3.3lbs food per pound of bird, seems high
-estimated cost per lb was 3.75 cdn

that was our first try at these birds, all in all was a positive go!!!

Any thoughts out there ????

 

[bubra007]

Well yesterday was the day and all went well!!
We took our birds into be butchered and was good. we goto an gov't inspected facility and inspector was good with the way we transported flock.
Couple notes
     -transport must be right size, and birds must be snuggish, too much room and they will roll around and become quite the mess
     -air flow a must, inspector gave another grower a warning not to use his utility trailer too much room and not enough airflow, the  birds came out looking like they had been in a dryer full of mud and a little wobbly

So that was transport, we actually travelled over two hours and birds looked good, it was early and cool morning, we did keep them covered so that they were a bit calmer, with a tarp.

I think we were light as follows
-we grew 25 Cornish rock giants, none lost and all passed inspection
-we had them 8 weeks
-average bird weight 4.25 lbs
-smallest 3.22 and largest 5.2 lbs
-estimated feed conversion, 3.3lbs food per pound of bird, seems high
-estimated cost per lb was 3.75 cdn

that was our first try at these birds, all in all was a positive go!!!

Any thoughts out there ????

Congrats! Do you mind sharing what the butchering cost was? I looked into a few local places but they were cost prohibitive.

 

[Gowander]

No worries on butchering we paid $4 per chicken, so that was inspected, bagged and labelled how we wanted

 

[cyborg]

Cyborg, I am guessing you are correct on the cause of death.

My CX's can handle 40 below with ease but the high temps is so rough on them. I try to not disturb them in the heat. Bert Jr just sits and pants as it gets hotter.


I am thinking I am on Borrowed time with Bert Jr. He is a year now so everyday and every fertile egg is a blessing.

I think Bertha will out live him, while she does her shopping in the Plus size stores she is a lot smaller than he is.


I was looking at him this morning and wondering how much longer I would have him. He is so huge..


Good luck on the rest of your birds, sorry you lost the one Cyborg..

What was ironic about the timing was that we finally got a break in the weather, overcast today and only 104 degrees, and this was one of the smaller birds from batch #2, only about 7 pounds unprocessed. I expected if anybody was going to keel over, it was gonna be one of the monsters from batch #1.

 

[duluthralphie]

What was ironic about the timing was that we finally got a break in the weather, overcast today and only 104 degrees, and this was one of the smaller birds from batch #2, only about 7 pounds unprocessed. I expected if anybody was going to keel over, it was gonna be one of the monsters from batch #1.

No fluid in the cavity?

Was the comb pale or purple before he went to the light?