Help me collect data on Cornish Mortality rates please

[averytds]

The 2 lost to piling were 100% my fault, no question. I know corners can be an issue, yet I used a rectangular bin anyways. Had I heeded the advice that they would be just fine in the low temps with my set-up, despite their young age, I probably wouldn't have lost them. The one I found dead the day after we processed the 18 could just have easily ended up amongst those 18. The intent was to process them all and they were being pulled out randomly.


When you consider I only ordered and paid for 25, yet I'm likely to end up with 28 in the freezer. Really, there's nothing to complain about. I'm happy with my results.

Not sure I'll do them again anytime soon, at least not so many at once. No issues with the birds themselves though.

 

[Brunty_Farms]

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I though they called it the Golden State for the obvious reasons... the gold rush...

 

[addictedtochickens]

I was very prepared when they arrived. They were kept in a back room in my shop which was kept at a constant 70 degreese with two heat lamps. At two weeks I switched them to 12 on 12 off feeding. They were fed the generic meat bird feed at my quality supply store and had 22percent protein.

I checked on them about five times a day and each time nothing really seemed wrong. When I would come back one would be dead. I had two break down, a few flip over dead when running toward the feeder at feeding time, a couple died of trampling, and one was wheezing whenever it would sit down but was fine when it was standing. I had ten out of twenty die. At the same time, I was raising twenty Delaware chicks in the exact same way and have had only one die because it got stuck in the feeder. I just don't understand what went wrong.

 

[Brunty_Farms]

Well, when raising just a few like that 50% isn't as extreme as losing say 50 out of 100. I would chalk it up as a bad experience and try again.

Trampling is avoidable, so right there you've already knocked your mortality rate down by 10%. The birds that flipped while running to the feeder, could they have been trampled as well? Maybe not enough feed space? If so, you can avoid that by adding more feeders. If that was the case, that's another 10%.

You can see where I'm going with this.... the smaller the number the more drastic the percentage is.

I've lost 30-40 birds before from piling at one time and it doesn't put my lose anywhere near 50%. You chalk them up as a hard lessoned learned and try to do better next time.

 

[terri9630]

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Maybe I missed it, but how old and big were these birds? We process ours at about 8 wks and if we wait much past that we start loosing them the way you described. What time of year did you have them? They don't take the heat well. We lost quite a few this summer, both layers and broilers. It was just to hot.

 

[addictedtochickens]

First, thanks for all of the helpful comments.

I had been raising them in the winter, so I know heat wasn't a problem. I processed them at seven weeks also because they had reached eight pounds. The ones that flipped over, did it around week six. They were not trampled, just kind of fell on the ground and rolled over and they were dead. It was really weird. I know I had plenty of feeder space though because I used a peice of gutter that was eight feet long.

 

[averytds]

Could have been a bad batch.

If it makes you feel better, at 8 wks almost all of mines processed weights were only 3.5 - 4 lbs. A failure compared to most processed weights people on here have and sounds like even to your own.

 

[bigredfeather]

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If you had 8 pound birds in 7 weeks, sounds like to me you may have been overfeeding them a bit. That would explain the flips you had at 6 weeks.

 

[Bossroo]

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Part of the problem may be that at first the chicks were too cold, they should be at 95* at first then lower the temperature 5* a week. Another possibility would be that you got the chicks from pullets that just started to lay their first eggs which are quite small. So, they were hatched from small pullet eggs with much fewer nutrients and therefore some chicks fail to thrive. When we used to hatch our own chicks from BR,RIR, NH pullets we had quite a few dead in the shell or, if they hatched, we sometimes experienced similar mortalities and some small birds for their age. Good luck on your future chicks.

 

[WhiteMountainsRanch]

I had 8... lost one the 1st day and a second the 3rd day... everyone has been fine since!