Heritage breed Cornish Chickens: why are they ignored and not widely bred

[NatJ]

I only found two hatcheries that sell any variety of Cornish, and both of them had nearly non-existent availability for chicks. I only saw Dark and White Laced Red Cornish.

Which hatcheries did you find them at? I find some listed at Ideal and McMurray.

Ideal Poultry had three colors a few years back (Dark, Buff and White Laced Red), but I only see the Darks now.

McMurray Hatchery lists both Dark Cornish and White Laced Red Cornish.

Many hatcheries quit selling chicks during the fall and winter months, but they are usually available again in the spring and early summer. It looks like Ideal and McMurray are both following that pattern. If you want to be sure of getting chicks from either place, watch the websites in December or January, to see when they start taking orders for the year. Then place an oder and pick a ship date that works for you, even if the ship date is months in the future at that point.

These birds are a major component in the trademarked and hidden lines of the commercial broilers. I believe this is why many people are not breeding them. I think that the hobby farm and homesteaders don't want to be seen as "competing" with the major producers of Cornish Cross. Perhaps they have been sued. I don't know.

Probably not the reason. If someone wants to re-create the commercial Cornish Cross, they can save a few decades by starting with existing Cornish Cross, rather than starting over with purebred Cornish and Rocks and maybe other breeds.

The current Cornish Cross breeding stock are very different than the heritage breeds that are their distant ancestors ("distant" being less than a century ago, but there have been enormous changes in that time.)

I think they are not being sold because not enough people buy them. Not many people buy them because they are not efficient egg layers, or meat producers. They don't lay eggs of unusual colors (blue or green). They don't have odd feathers (Silkied, frizzled, crested, feathered feet, etc.) They don't lots of fluffy feathers. They aren't a currently-exciting fad in color or breed.

So basically, of the things that will make people seek out a breed and buy it, the Cornish are pretty lacking across the board.

(Personally I like them: pea combs, not extra feathers to get in the way, attractive colors, nice solid build, brown eggs. But I realized a long time ago that my preferences don't match what most other people are buying.)

I'll have to look up "pea comb sexing" as I've never heard of such a method.

It's the same as sexing a chicken with any other kind of comb: the combs on males will get big and red sooner than the combs on females do. But the differences are most obvious on single combs, less obvious on pea combs or pretty much any other type of comb. So that makes pea-comb chickens a bit harder to sex.

 

[HollowOfWisps]

All of my birds are hatchery-grade, except maybe the White American Bresse. Though they, too, are not all that good quality IMHO. I have two BCM, 12 weeks old. They grew significantly faster than any of the other chicks they were raised with. I've never had BCM so I'm not sure if they are going to be large Australorp-sized birds, or not. They are nearly twice the size as the others.

Since I'm starting to raise my own meat birds, (White American Bresse, and perhaps the Cornish) I'm toying with the idea of trying a hybrid Cornish x BCM considering how quickly the BCM have grown (for meat). I know Cornish Rock cross is more traditional, but the BCM are larger than the White Rocks by far at 12 weeks of age.

I haven't yet had any broody hens, though I've had a duck that keeps trying to go broody. I've only been raising them about a year and a half now.

I may have a younger (7 month old) Magpie duck hen that is trying to go broody. I pick up eggs multiple times daily (mainly because my chickens don't lay in the morning). She runs around trying to shoo everyone away from her nest. My broody Khaki Campbell girl was doing that early this year. She went full broody, I let her set on two eggs, but she cracked them and they never grew into anything.

I already have too many chickens and ducks, we are downsizing now that I had to close my Hobby Farm small business. It nearly put us into bankruptcy. There isn't enough demand out where I am to try to make money from selling eggs. People want grocery store cheap prices for organic quality. I'm done with it. They can raise their own and find out for themselves how expensive it is.

The sad part is while those grocery store “free range” and “organic” eggs might be cheaper they are 100% sub-par quality compared to actual farm fresh eggs. I was raised on truly free range, grass fed and organic meats/eggs from our farm along with other local farms. When I moved out across the country at 18 I had to start buying from the store. I actually thought I had developed an egg allergy because every time I ate eggs I would end up with serious stomach pains. Someone mentioned that real farm fresh eggs don’t bother their stomach, but even the store bought organic and free range did. I picked up eggs from a local farmer and had no problems stomaching them. When I was in a financial position to buy a farm of my own I did right away. Now I raise my owns eggs and meat again. I haven’t had issues since and all of the stomach issues I had over the years are gone. We are now looking into raising our own lambs and my husband wants cattle for next year. The goal is to grow and raise all of our food.

 

[NewJourney]

Which hatcheries did you find them at? I find some listed at Ideal and McMurray.

Ideal Poultry had three colors a few years back (Dark, Buff and White Laced Red), but I only see the Darks now.

McMurray Hatchery lists both Dark Cornish and White Laced Red Cornish.

Many hatcheries quit selling chicks during the fall and winter months, but they are usually available again in the spring and early summer. It looks like Ideal and McMurray are both following that pattern. If you want to be sure of getting chicks from either place, watch the websites in December or January, to see when they start taking orders for the year. Then place an oder and pick a ship date that works for you, even if the ship date is months in the future at that point.


Probably not the reason. If someone wants to re-create the commercial Cornish Cross, they can save a few decades by starting with existing Cornish Cross, rather than starting over with purebred Cornish and Rocks and maybe other breeds.

The current Cornish Cross breeding stock are very different than the heritage breeds that are their distant ancestors ("distant" being less than a century ago, but there have been enormous changes in that time.)

I think they are not being sold because not enough people buy them. Not many people buy them because they are not efficient egg layers, or meat producers. They don't lay eggs of unusual colors (blue or green). They don't have odd feathers (Silkied, frizzled, crested, feathered feet, etc.) They don't lots of fluffy feathers. They aren't a currently-exciting fad in color or breed.

So basically, of the things that will make people seek out a breed and buy it, the Cornish are pretty lacking across the board.

(Personally I like them: pea combs, not extra feathers to get in the way, attractive colors, nice solid build, brown eggs. But I realized a long time ago that my preferences don't match what most other people are buying.)


It's the same as sexing a chicken with any other kind of comb: the combs on males will get big and red sooner than the combs on females do. But the differences are most obvious on single combs, less obvious on pea combs or pretty much any other type of comb. So that makes pea-comb chickens a bit harder to sex.

McMurray Hatchery is where I got my White Laced Red Cornish. They only had WLRC not Dark. Dark was no longer available there. The other hatchery I found was Cackle. They only have Dark Cornish.

I think Dark are so much more beautiful but we live on the surface of the sun between Las Vegas, NV and Death Valley. It's probably better that we have lighter colored birds to help reduce the likelihood of heat stroke. So far, we've not lost any birds from the heat but I spend a lot of time and effort out in the chicken yard ensuring they have areas of constantly wet/flooded land to walk through and plenty of water (though there is nothing I can do about the water being as hot as it is outside (110-120 degrees F), and shade. Today, October 2nd it's still 100 degrees outside. I can't handle the heat anymore.

I may need to order very early, like you suggest, and wait a few months for the shipment. Good idea. Yes, that was likely the problem of trying to find available Cornish. It was early summer when I ordered.

I'll consider buying some Cornish Cross birds and slow-feeding them, to see if I can raise them up to breeding age. I may switch from Bresse to Cornish Cross. We just processed our first three white ABC. We had them soaking in water in the refrigerator with just a TB of salt for four days. The bird I took from my mom's fridge had all floppy meat. It was quite minimal meat tbh, the color was lovely but... The meat was floppy. It was so weird. I ended up just bagging the parts up and putting them into the freezer as a meal for when I'm really low on food I can thaw it and cook it up. It grossed me out. They were 16 weeks when dispatched. Mom said her bird was just fine, not floppy. She doesn't even understand what I mean by floppy. It was very thin and literally flaccid, floppy, like it had no structure behind the meat. IDK. I'll wait another couple of months before I process any more of my ABC. Maybe they need much more feed than they are getting. They don't appear to be starving, in any way.

I seem to be similar to you in that my preference aren't what the majority of people are looking for in birds. I want good layers or good quick meat producers, friendly birds, birds capable of getting up and foraging for food long-term, birds I don't have to babysit to ensure they don't die of heart attacks, or get injured by just jumping down from a few inches...

I want sustainability and reliability.

The sad part is while those grocery store “free range” and “organic” eggs might be cheaper they are 100% sub-par quality compared to actual farm fresh eggs. I was raised on truly free range, grass fed and organic meats/eggs from our farm along with other local farms. When I moved out across the country at 18 I had to start buying from the store. I actually thought I had developed an egg allergy because every time I ate eggs I would end up with serious stomach pains. Someone mentioned that real farm fresh eggs don’t bother their stomach, but even the store bought organic and free range did. I picked up eggs from a local farmer and had no problems stomaching them. When I was in a financial position to buy a farm of my own I did right away. Now I raise my owns eggs and meat again. I haven’t had issues since and all of the stomach issues I had over the years are gone. We are now looking into raising our own lambs and my husband wants cattle for next year. The goal is to grow and raise all of our food.

Wow, I am so thrilled for you that you've found a way to eat healthier and be happier as a result! I have been pained by food allergies and intolerances my entire life. Come to find out I have Lupus and that's why I've developed all the allergies I have. I thought that if I raised my own chickens I would be able to eat their eggs. Nope. I can't.

I assumed that my allergy to wheat was causing the allergy to chicken eggs. And while that may have been the original cause of my allergy to chicken eggs, I still can't eat them even when I feed my flock wheat-free (rye-free, barley-free) feed.

But I learned that I can eat duck eggs without the terrible stomach pains. I now also raise ducks! I love my ducks more than my chickens. Ducks are hilliarous and happy, talkative, funny little birds. I still love my chickens but dang ducks are my go-to if I need a pick-me-up. All I have to do is stick my head out my door and yell out "hey duckies!" and they all start quacking up a storm and running toward me. They are the cutest darn things ever! My chickens may run a few feet then stop and walk away back to whatever they were doing.

I'm so thankful for you that you've been able to buy a farm and live a better, healthier life. It's fun expanding our capabilities, our mindset, and our skill sets. It's not without it's challenges, though.

 

[MysteryChicken]

I was looking for Cornish Chickens earlier this year. I had a terrible time trying to find them through breeders all across the USA. There are none. At least, there are none that are publicly mentioned on any website that lists breeders of chicken breeds. The ones I found were no longer breeding/selling them. I only found two hatcheries that sell any variety of Cornish, and both of them had nearly non-existent availability for chicks. I only saw Dark and White Laced Red Cornish.

Why?

These strange birds are very rare here in the United States, but the Livestock Conservancy states it's only in "watch" status. That seems wrong.

It seems to be that nobody wants to breed these birds and keep their lines active. I see through research that they don't lay very many eggs, and the mating success is low. Are these the reasons for ridiculously low availability through hatcheries and non-existent breeders across the nation?

As soon as my birds reach maturity I will be breeding them.

These birds are a major component in the trademarked and hidden lines of the commercial broilers. I believe this is why many people are not breeding them. I think that the hobby farm and homesteaders don't want to be seen as "competing" with the major producers of Cornish Cross. Perhaps they have been sued. I don't know. It just seems so odd to me that the Cornish is barely being produced here in the US.

Found these.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/1669893002...QBSug5lTcS&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

https://www.ebay.com/itm/4052469809...QBSug5lTcS&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

 

[NewJourney]

Found these.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/1669893002...QBSug5lTcS&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

https://www.ebay.com/itm/4052469809...QBSug5lTcS&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

I tried hatching eggs from eBay. It was a complete failure. Zero developed past the first week. I would try hatching eggs if there was someone local to me selling eggs from their purebred Cornish. Sadly, there is nobody within hundreds of miles. My only option was live chicks from a hatchery. Thanks though.

 

[NatJ]

McMurray Hatchery is where I got my White Laced Red Cornish. They only had WLRC not Dark. Dark was no longer available there. The other hatchery I found was Cackle. They only have Dark Cornish.

You might check Ideal Poultry too, next time you're thinking about it.

I think Dark are so much more beautiful but we live on the surface of the sun between Las Vegas, NV and Death Valley. It's probably better that we have lighter colored birds to help reduce the likelihood of heat stroke. So far, we've not lost any birds from the heat but I spend a lot of time and effort out in the chicken yard ensuring they have areas of constantly wet/flooded land to walk through and plenty of water (though there is nothing I can do about the water being as hot as it is outside (110-120 degrees F), and shade. Today, October 2nd it's still 100 degrees outside. I can't handle the heat anymore.

Good point about wanting light-colored birds. The White Laced Reds have a gene that turns black into white, so if you want to try crossing the varieties you should get birds that show a fair bit of white. That might be handy if you can't find a source of the color you want, but want to avoid excessive inbreeding. The Darks are double laced and the White Laced Reds are single laced, so crossing them will mess up the lacing, but you could breed back toward one or the other kind of lacing in later generations if you care.

I may need to order very early, like you suggest, and wait a few months for the shipment. Good idea. Yes, that was likely the problem of trying to find available Cornish. It was early summer when I ordered.

Depending on your weather, you might want to order early and have them shipped early too. The hatcheries seem to have extra chicks in the early spring, before the northern parts of the country get warm enough for people to want chicks at all. I've noticed Ideal running specials on many breeds in January and February, but all the hatcheries seem to sell out of April, May, and June ship dates pretty quickly.

I'll consider buying some Cornish Cross birds and slow-feeding them, to see if I can raise them up to breeding age. I may switch from Bresse to Cornish Cross. We just processed our first three white ABC. We had them soaking in water in the refrigerator with just a TB of salt for four days. The bird I took from my mom's fridge had all floppy meat. It was quite minimal meat tbh, the color was lovely but... The meat was floppy. It was so weird. I ended up just bagging the parts up and putting them into the freezer as a meal for when I'm really low on food I can thaw it and cook it up. It grossed me out. They were 16 weeks when dispatched. Mom said her bird was just fine, not floppy. She doesn't even understand what I mean by floppy. It was very thin and literally flaccid, floppy, like it had no structure behind the meat. IDK. I'll wait another couple of months before I process any more of my ABC. Maybe they need much more feed than they are getting. They don't appear to be starving, in any way.

I don't have any useful suggestions, but it's interesting to read about your experiences. Hopefully you can work out something that suits you!

I seem to be similar to you in that my preference aren't what the majority of people are looking for in birds. I want good layers or good quick meat producers, friendly birds, birds capable of getting up and foraging for food long-term, birds I don't have to babysit to ensure they don't die of heart attacks, or get injured by just jumping down from a few inches...

Purebred Cornish are not going to be good layers, nor good quick meat producers. So they might not be quite right for you. Trying them is a great idea, just don't get your hopes up too high. That's part of why they aren't very popular.

 

[MysteryChicken]

I tried hatching eggs from eBay. It was a complete failure. Zero developed past the first week. I would try hatching eggs if there was someone local to me selling eggs from their purebred Cornish. Sadly, there is nobody within hundreds of miles. My only option was live chicks from a hatchery. Thanks though.

I very rarely have problems with ebay hatching eggs.
What was the distance, & how were they packed for shipping?

Think the farthest I ordered from once was California.

 

[NewJourney]

You might check Ideal Poultry too, next time you're thinking about it.


Good point about wanting light-colored birds. The White Laced Reds have a gene that turns black into white, so if you want to try crossing the varieties you should get birds that show a fair bit of white. That might be handy if you can't find a source of the color you want, but want to avoid excessive inbreeding. The Darks are double laced and the White Laced Reds are single laced, so crossing them will mess up the lacing, but you could breed back toward one or the other kind of lacing in later generations if you care.


Depending on your weather, you might want to order early and have them shipped early too. The hatcheries seem to have extra chicks in the early spring, before the northern parts of the country get warm enough for people to want chicks at all. I've noticed Ideal running specials on many breeds in January and February, but all the hatcheries seem to sell out of April, May, and June ship dates pretty quickly.


I don't have any useful suggestions, but it's interesting to read about your experiences. Hopefully you can work out something that suits you!


Purebred Cornish are not going to be good layers, nor good quick meat producers. So they might not be quite right for you. Trying them is a great idea, just don't get your hopes up too high. That's part of why they aren't very popular.

Ideal poultry has a very - sad? - website. It's not user friendly, and they lack photos of representative adult birds. Their prices seem reasonable though. I am putting them on my list of potential hatcheries to buy from in the spring. I'll be looking for white Pekin to add to my duck flock to start raising ducks for meat. They carry Pekin.

I hadn't considered lacing issues or inbreeding concerns, but thank you for mentioning them. I only have one variety so far of Cornish, and may not continue keeping them past maturity. I'm not sure yet. It's all an experiment right now to see which birds I like to raise and if any of them do well crossed with others, in terms of meat and egg production.

I know Cornish aren't good layers. I wasn't expecting them to be. I have the Bresse for sustainable meat production, and will be incubating eggs in the spring to raise up for meat and to improve my current breeder stock. I am not expecting Cornish Cross meat production from any of my birds. I know they are the TOP TIER meant producer bird. I just can't stand to see them try to stand up and walk around then lie in their own feces so much. I don't have the ability to raise them in chicken tractors and move them 2x daily. Our land isn't yet conducive to it, and it's just too dang hot out here to raise them in the summer and also too cold to raise them in the winter. We get actual winters up in my town of temps in the mid teens with awful wind storms, torrential downpours of freezing rain, it's awful here.

If I could successfully raise CC birds to be lean and grow to maturity and successfully mate and have viable eggs, I could try to raise them during the months we have that aren't awful weather. - yet another option I may consider due to our climate. I got options. lol

I very rarely have problems with ebay hatching eggs.
What was the distance, & how were they packed for shipping?

Think the farthest I ordered from once was California.

Pickerington, Ohio was the location of the person I bought from on eBay. That's a large distance. Ohio to Nevada. The eggs were packaged very well, no issues. Non cracked eggs, they seemed fine. Though each egg had large writing on it with permanent marker indicating "DC" for Dark Cornish. Unfortunately, I've heard that permanent marker often prevents the eggs from developing because of the toxins in the marker. I don't know that for sure, I've not personally tested it out with my own eggs at home. But that and the distance traveled via Priority mail (which took 5 days to arrive) didn't help matters. I was so sad when they didn't develop.

My only other experience buying hatching eggs was earlier this year, from a different seller, up in Washington or Oregon. The first dozen were destroyed in shipping. Then I paid her through PayPal for shipping another dozen (free eggs but I paid shipping) and only two hatched out of all of them. 12 eggs in that second shipment, and 5 looked unbroken from the first shipment. Two. ONLY TWO. They were Deathlayer x Black Copper Marans. They were beautiful chickens. I still have the cockerel, and I sold the pullet to someone in town. She never fit in to our flock. She was very independent, didn't hang out with anyone else. It was sad. Our boy though, he's friendly and so very strange and beautiful.

Because of those terrible odds in hatching shipped eggs, I am sticking with live chicks from hatcheries or smaller breeders such as where I got my White American Bresse chicks.

 

[MysteryChicken]

Ideal poultry has a very - sad? - website. It's not user friendly, and they lack photos of representative adult birds. Their prices seem reasonable though. I am putting them on my list of potential hatcheries to buy from in the spring. I'll be looking for white Pekin to add to my duck flock to start raising ducks for meat. They carry Pekin.

I hadn't considered lacing issues or inbreeding concerns, but thank you for mentioning them. I only have one variety so far of Cornish, and may not continue keeping them past maturity. I'm not sure yet. It's all an experiment right now to see which birds I like to raise and if any of them do well crossed with others, in terms of meat and egg production.

I know Cornish aren't good layers. I wasn't expecting them to be. I have the Bresse for sustainable meat production, and will be incubating eggs in the spring to raise up for meat and to improve my current breeder stock. I am not expecting Cornish Cross meat production from any of my birds. I know they are the TOP TIER meant producer bird. I just can't stand to see them try to stand up and walk around then lie in their own feces so much. I don't have the ability to raise them in chicken tractors and move them 2x daily. Our land isn't yet conducive to it, and it's just too dang hot out here to raise them in the summer and also too cold to raise them in the winter. We get actual winters up in my town of temps in the mid teens with awful wind storms, torrential downpours of freezing rain, it's awful here.

If I could successfully raise CC birds to be lean and grow to maturity and successfully mate and have viable eggs, I could try to raise them during the months we have that aren't awful weather. - yet another option I may consider due to our climate. I got options. lol


Pickerington, Ohio was the location of the person I bought from on eBay. That's a large distance. Ohio to Nevada. The eggs were packaged very well, no issues. Non cracked eggs, they seemed fine. Though each egg had large writing on it with permanent marker indicating "DC" for Dark Cornish. Unfortunately, I've heard that permanent marker often prevents the eggs from developing because of the toxins in the marker. I don't know that for sure, I've not personally tested it out with my own eggs at home. But that and the distance traveled via Priority mail (which took 5 days to arrive) didn't help matters. I was so sad when they didn't develop.

My only other experience buying hatching eggs was earlier this year, from a different seller, up in Washington or Oregon. The first dozen were destroyed in shipping. Then I paid her through PayPal for shipping another dozen (free eggs but I paid shipping) and only two hatched out of all of them. 12 eggs in that second shipment, and 5 looked unbroken from the first shipment. Two. ONLY TWO. They were Deathlayer x Black Copper Marans. They were beautiful chickens. I still have the cockerel, and I sold the pullet to someone in town. She never fit in to our flock. She was very independent, didn't hang out with anyone else. It was sad. Our boy though, he's friendly and so very strange and beautiful.

Because of those terrible odds in hatching shipped eggs, I am sticking with live chicks from hatcheries or smaller breeders such as where I got my White American Bresse chicks.

I use permanent marker on my eggs for marking all the time, & they always hatch.

X-Rays do cause problems, so does to many bumps on the journey to you. Hatching eggs can be a hit, & miss at times.

 

[NatJ]

Ideal poultry has a very - sad? - website. It's not user friendly, and they lack photos of representative adult birds. Their prices seem reasonable though. I am putting them on my list of potential hatcheries to buy from in the spring. I'll be looking for white Pekin to add to my duck flock to start raising ducks for meat. They carry Pekin.

Yes, those are good points about Ideal and their website. I've bought from them several times, and they seemed about as good as any other hatchery for quality of birds and shipping. I thought it was worth trying because of what breeds they had (selection was much better a few years back), and because of their prices (cheaper than most other hatcheries.)

It's all an experiment right now to see which birds I like to raise and if any of them do well crossed with others, in terms of meat and egg production.

If I could successfully raise CC birds to be lean and grow to maturity and successfully mate and have viable eggs, I could try to raise them during the months we have that aren't awful weather. - yet another option I may consider due to our climate. I got options. lol

Yes, lots of options! Good luck sorting through all the possibilities to find the ones that work for you Your climate definitely adds some challenges to the breed-choosing process.