Flip?

[Brunty_Farms]

If you give them a shot again in the future try cutting the feed at two weeks you will be surprised what a difference a week and a half will make. When you can slow their growth you give their organs a chance to catch up with the rest of their body. I guess it would be like feeding yourself in a way... if you weigh 500 lbs and your body frame and organs only support 200 than your at a higher risk of heart failure...and basically your put on a diet. It's not my experience it's simply the anatomy of these birds. They do have flaws and they do die at any age....any animal does..... but if you know what your going up against and try to exploit ways to counter attack those flaws than by all means at least try.

Jeff.

 

[greyfields]

Quote:
If it's coccidiossis, then not likely. People who push intensive rotation to prevent coccidiossis are most often living in climates where it doesn't linger in the soil. Oocysts can remain viable for decades in much of the US.

Keeping them off their droppings simply slows the spread of coccidiosis and other bacterial nasties.

 

[greyfields]

Quote:
Great points.

Also, the only compelling study I have read demonstrated that very small ammounts of additional calcium made a difference. The calcium is not a cheap ingredient, so you can be sure your 'complete ration' contains the bare minimum. I've spread bone meal and oyster shell in my broiler pens in the past to give them something entertaining to do.

And finally, I want to point out that most people here in the backyard are more on a 12/12 system. The feeder is always full, but they don't use lights on broilers in pastured schemes. The birds go to sleep at night and don't eat in the darkness (except you always have a few tubbies who'll fall asleep on the feeders).

Lighting broilers is simply not feasible on pasture rotation like it's done in intensive, confined operations.

 

[Brunty_Farms]

I never thought to add calcium.... I'm gonna have to look into that...

Jeff

 

[jvls1942]

I do not get it.. You take a bird that is genetically engineered for feed conversion and then practically force feed it ????

then you wonder why they get oversized and have medical problems??

treat them like a normal chicken..

I used to raise them free range,, fed them coarsely ground corn and oats 50/50 mix... feeders were full at all times.. I did not have any problem with any chicken laying next to the feeder and just eating..

out of 200 we would butcher 90% of them.. BTW, there are losses in any breed of chicken..

never had any leg problems.. had one called funnyrun by the kids, had a deformed hip.. only to point out how unusual leg problems were , that the one had a name..

We had an average weight of 6 pounds dressed for the pullets and most of the roosters dressed out 8 to 10 pounds and 2 of them dressed out to 12 pounds.. took a picture of it at thanksgiving on the table next to a 8 pound turkey,LOL

If you really want a 12 pound bird.. raise turkeys and kill them young..
you will never get better meat than that..

the reason that you do not see more than a 6 pound chicken in the store is because the producers have it figured out to the ounce the optimum feed to meat breakoff cost.. my uncle raised cornish hens for doughboy for years. they brought him X amounts of birds and X amount of feed. after X weeks they came an picked up the chickens.. feed was used up and time to start the next batch..

.I am off my soapbox , now..LOL

.....jiminwisc.........

 

[the1much]

jvls1942 , how long did it take you to get a bird that big?
were they any faster getting to mature weight then say,, a rir or br ?

 

[dancingbear]

Before the ones that croaked from the heat, my previous batches had done much better, but it just gave me a distaste for these C-X's. Even at their best, they were sort of like feathered slugs.

I didn't leave lights on at night, (after the first 2 weeks) and I free-range, and found that hanging the feeders, so they had to stand while eating, helped a lot. They didn't get leg problems, and they didn't die from CHF. (Congestive heart failure, that's what gets a lot of them. The most easily observed signs are dark purple combs when at rest on their keels, and wheezing)

I hauled them out of the coop in the afternoons and put them out on the grass, so they'd eat some greens as they waddled back to the coop to find the feeders. There were a few that liked going out to forage with the other birds, but most hung around the feed.

 

[Feathered Wings]

Quote:
I was wondering about that if you just treated them like other chickens they wouldn't get so big.

Thanks

 

[greyfields]

No.

If you put Cornish X in the same brooder with standard breed chickens, they will be twice the size within 2 weeks. By 4 weeks, they will have trampeled most of the standard breed chicks.

The birds grow. So, by over-rationing the feed, you are making them grow in the face of nutritional defficiencies. You'll have more problems than you're solving.

Remember, these birds grow at an astonishing rate because they eat at an astonishing rate. If your Rhode Island Red rooster ate 20 pounds of feed, he'd reach 7 lbs, too. The difference is the RIR will do it over the course of 6 months, rather than 8 weeks. All birds would 'smell' as bad as your Cornish X pen if they ate and excreted at teh same rate.

 

[the1much]

Thankies Greyfields