How to raise my Cornish Cross for the long term?

[Camry08]

I have a CC chick that’s a little over 2 weeks old. I got her from tractor supply because she had splayed legs and she needed help. At the time I was heavily hoping that she would turn out to be a white leghorn. But alas that is not the case.
She’s currently growing up with her two EE sisters who are a little less than a week younger than her. eventually, I want them to all live together with my two brain dead silkie boys (my boys have lived with girls before they don’t know how to mount or do most chicken things was hoping this year‘s babies could teach them how to scratch or pick at grass or something).
I guess this is my biggest question. How should I go about doing this? Feeding her and feeding the other two? At what age do I start withholding feed and is it detrimental to withhold feed when she lives with two Easter eggs? Should I just remove it for a few hours at a time?

Any help, suggestions, insight, experience all would be greatly appreciated.

 

[ella2025]

Take your feed out at night when they sleep. Did you fix her splay leg yet? Is it confirmed it's a she? Cornish Cross cockerels are sometimes better off getting butchered because they get much bigger than the females.

About your silkie cockerels, are they healthy? It doesn't seem normal that they do not know how to scratch or peck at grass. It's a good idea to help them learn with the new chicks, just watch out if they try to mount them when they're still small.

 

[Camry08]

Take your feed out at night when they sleep. Did you fix her splay leg yet? Is it confirmed it's a she? Cornish Cross cockerels are sometimes better off getting butchered because they get much bigger than the females.

About your silkie cockerels, are they healthy? It doesn't seem normal that they do not know how to scratch or peck at grass. It's a good idea to help them learn with the new chicks, just watch out if they try to mount them when they're still small.

Yes splayed legs are fixed I believe. She does walk kinda like a heavy duck but I don’t know if that’s normal for her breed or not. Is it normal for them to be so lazy? She prefers to just lay around rather then run and jump fly like her EE sisters.
I reaaaallllllly hope she’s a she. When I got her there were two possibilities she could be a premium white leghorn pullet or a straight run Cornish cross. I wished soooooo hard she would be a leghorn cause all my animals are pets. Now that I know she’s a cc I’m hoping I didn’t luck out 2x. But with her comb I’m already getting boy vibes but for now I’m just gunna keep hoping that’s not the case.

My boy silkies are healthy just no light on at home if you get what I mean. They are scared of wind and bugs. I think they’re like this because they grew up inside and just never learned chicken things. They lived with their two sisters for like 3 years but they never figured out how to mount. Idk if they even recognized them as ladies they only seem to be interested in dancing for human women smh. But they are very lead by example so if the new girls show interest in something I’m sure they will too eventually.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

How should I go about doing this? Feeding her and feeding the other two? At what age do I start withholding feed and is it detrimental to withhold feed when she lives with two Easter eggs? Should I just remove it for a few hours at a time?

You understand that CornishX chickens are bred to be harvested somewhere between six and ten weeks of age and at that point they can easily weigh over 5 lbs. if fed around the clock - the same as an average production chicken at 4 to 5 months? But in order to feed them like that obviously they have to have lights on about 24/7 as chickens don't eat or drink in the dark. So, as @ella2025 suggested above, take the feed away at night, and I might add, turn the lights off. You also asked,

it normal for them to be so lazy? She prefers to just lay around rather then run and jump fly like her EE sisters

Have you ever gotten a bucket of chicken from the Colonel's place and noticed that you get breasts as big as your head and drumsticks only a little bigger than your thumb? Yeah, that's because CornishX are bred to put on a lot of meat in the breast area and not so much in the legs. At a very early age they are so top-heavy their scrawny little legs can hardly support them. They're not lazy, they're weak and in pain. When I raise them I force them to walk and exercise. They're food-motivated, so at least twice a day I go in their pen and scatter a little dried mealworms (high protein, as opposed to sunflower seeds or corn, which are high in fat) around, to make them get up and come get it. This paid off in reasonably-sized drumsticks in my last harvest. If you don't do this their legs can actually break at a young age.

There are people who claim to have raised them to breeding age by keeping them on a pretty strict diet. I am not sure I think this is fair to these birds, which are bred to be voracious eating machines. I think they must feel hungry all the time, I don't know. They also often die young due to organ failure but again, as I say, I am not one of those who has raised them, or tried to raise them, to long life. We harvest ours between four and six weeks of age, usually, when they weigh between 3.5 and 5.5 lbs. and are so heavy they can barely move. We feel it is a kindness to do so. I'm sorry, I am not sure this is what you wanted to hear. Maybe someone who has raised CX to longer life will chime in.

 

[SnackMeat]

I have a Cornish cross who's about 18-20 weeks now. We got her as part of a trio from some people who didn't know what the breed was, and then was horrified and couldn't cull. We culled two, and I held off on culling the last one because she had been being bullied by the rooster and I wanted her to have a few good days before she met her end.


We got the weight off, somewhat, by penning her separately during her quarantine period and she didn't get a lot of treats.

She was still very fat and I thought, not healthy, but I allowed her to sleep separately from the other chickens in the workshop and came in one night to find that she'd jumped up 3 feet to get at where we kept the mealworm bag. I figured if she was healthy enough to do that, she could live for awhile more.

She's had a respiratory infection (treated with antibiotics,) a throat tear from going up against a rooster (who got his beak sanded down for that,) laid a couple of sad looking eggs around 16 weeks and then not again. I'm pretty sure she's head hen, at the very least, in her mind if not in 100% reality as my crew is still very young.

She's currently spending her nights in a dog crate because she still wants to jump on the workshop table at night and lay massive shits. I mean, horrifically large. And this way I can leave out food for the ducks who sometimes sleep in there without her eating it all.


She runs around half the garden (I don't think she really likes trouncing through the high overgrowth of the tomato vines like the others do) and the entire stretch of gated lawn and bears a very striking resemblance to Maid Marian from Disney's Robinhood, especially how she runs.


I do know she'll have a shorter lifespan, but that's okay because it's still way longer than she would have gotten. She gets a long with bantams, babies, cockerels, and the other pullets. The rooster was the only one she truly messed with, except for those who deigned to try to get to close to her when she was eating "her food" and mainly it would be a squawk, an air peck, and then back to hoovering food, often with the same chicken hoovering alongside her.


I say all of this to point out that I do think, if you want to keep the breed, to expect 1-2 year lifespan at most, and likely for them to have more health issues in general. If you can't cull, then I wouldn't suggest it but then again, most people who get CornishX aren't sending them off to processors, and definitely aren't sending off one or two.


I personally wouldn't necessarily mind culling her (we are downsizing, so picking favorites and everyone else is going to Camp Freezer, and her poops are SO big and a pain to clean up when not in litter) but two of my household love watching her run her bag of bowling balls ass up to the gate. And she is a crowd favorite with anyone who comes to see the chickens.


It is possible but you do have to keep the weight down which means creative ways of feeding, and heavily encouraging foraging. If you have them with limited space in a run, I would just suggest looking her over regularly for any scabs that look like bumblefoot, or any pressure sores on her chest. The first hen we culled (who's been acting completely normally from what we could tell) had a horrifically sized abscess covering the whole front of her torse. She looked completely normal, even culled and plucked but we decided to check out a small, pencil eraser sized circle on her lower torso. So much squeezing and flushing pus out that we opened her up and it was practically stem to stern (I have a picture if anyone wants but it's graphic.) She had to have been in SO much pain.


We pick our's up a lot and look around her belly but we need to do a better job. She never seems to be in pain, even when handling her. Mainly she just seems pissed off that we're deigning to handle her highness without giving worms.


There's an old member here on BYC who bred "roads" which were taking Cornish crosses, keeping them slim(ish) and then breeding them to heritage breeds for interesting F1 generations. I would recommend looking those up.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

most people who get CornishX aren't sending them off to processors, and definitely aren't sending off one or two.

Well, some of us are, lol!

 

[SnackMeat]

Yeah I think I wasn't clear-- but to clarify, are you getting just one or two CornishX and then sending them off to a processor? Doesn't that defeat most of the purpose of saving money?

I know there's some, on the meat birds section who utilize processors but I thought that was for 50+ birds.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

What are people paying for processing? We usually raise about a dozen a year (not this year, had health issues) and send three at a time to our Mennonite neighbor, who charges us $2/head to process. I know she does larger quantities for some of her other customers but I think she works in dozens, not 50's or hundreds.

 

[FrostRanger]

Yeah I think I wasn't clear-- but to clarify, are you getting just one or two CornishX and then sending them off to a processor? Doesn't that defeat most of the purpose of saving money?

I know there's some, on the meat birds section who utilize processors but I thought that was for 50+ birds.

Honestly, unless you're buying the birds and feed in bulk it's unlikely one is saving any money raising meat birds themselves, if anything it's more expensive

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Honestly, unless you're buying the birds and feed in bulk it's unlikely one is saving any money raising meat birds themselves, if anything it's more expensive

True that but it's not about cost. Seriously, $3 for a chick, $2 to process, feed for four to six weeks? That's cheap. But ... we know the meat we're eating was raised humanely, in our backyard, on grass, in sunshine and fresh air, not caged or sitting in their own feces, with friendly faces around. I can't put a dollar figure on that.