Keeping a few Cornish hens.................

Out of curiosity what traits are you breeding for in this project? What is the end game you have in mind?
My first Breese/Cornish X cross (F1), produced bigger birds. My follow up Brother/Sister groups is an attempt to purify two lines. I have 2 roosters from F1 that have different growing characteristics, one of them was 8lbs and the other was 12lbs at 5 months. I want to reproduce or clone these two roosters into two separate lines.

I also hatched another potential line with the Breese father/F1 daughters, I will keep two big hens with blue legs from this hatch and breed them to a pure Breese rooster chick that I am grooming. He carries the blood from two different Breese import lines from Green Fire Farm.

My end game would be Cornish X hybrid vigor from crossing 2 purified lines. But at this point in time, I would be happy if I could just clone my 8 or 12lbs roosters. This already is an improvement to other heritage breeds I raised for meat at the same age.

This is a picture of the Breese father/daughter line. However, the bigger chick is from the 12lbs rooster, she is about 10 days older. I already met one of my objective with the big chick in the picture, she is nice and plump, and has white legs like her father. I will be selecting for white legs in this line and yellow legs in the 8lbs rooster line, since he has yellow legs.

Overall, I will be selecting for size, color of leg, white feathering and temperament.

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I started processing my 12lbs-white legged rooster's cockerel chicks at 3 month old. The cockerels average 4 to 5lbs at that age and they were tender when batter fried and roasted. I let their sisters grow for another month to catch up. They averaged 4lbs at 4 months and they were also tender at that age. The hens did not have eggs in their gut, so they were not laying at 4 month old. I kept 2 white legged hens and one dark blue legged cockerel from this line.
I also got a pure white pea comb cockerel which I think has the genes of the Standard White Cornish they used to produce the Cornish X. However, he look skinny in comparison to the blue legged cockerel. Not sure if I can keep him, my roosters are getting noisy. I might end up with just one.
My 12lbs rooster probably weigh more than 12lbs since the last time I weighed him. I have him on a low 16% protein diet. He has the loudest and most annoying crow which triggers a choir of roosters around my neighbor hood. I will be breeding him to his white legged daughters as soon as I process the rest of my chickens. Hopefully, no one complains about the noise before I set this line. He can't wear a rooster collar, he almost died the last time I tried. I notice that some lines can and some can't wear rooster collars. It depends on how thick the skin on their necks are.
 
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My blue legged cockerel sleeps on the ground like his white legged father, while his sisters sleep on a perch. When they can't sleep on a perch at 3 months old, you know you got a fat keeper. I also set a side one hen with yellow legs, I almost had a hernia one night while I was selecting birds to process. I put a zip tie loosely on her leg to identify her. I want to line breed her with her White Cornish brother, since they both got yellow legs.
 
Sounds like an interesting project!
They making me tired, and they are burning through about 3 gallon of feed a day. I think I am using close to 80lbs a week. I have lot more to process. I want to bring my feed cost down to 40lbs a month, so I will be processing my 2 year old egg layers after I harvest the young 3 month old birds. Its cheaper if I buy my eggs from the supermarket.
 
That's a lot of birds. How many do you have now, and how many are you using for the project?
Basically, all my chickens are related to my Breese/Cornish X cross, except one 3 year old pure Breese hen. However, I am now stream lining my effort to clone my 12lbs rooster with white legs. I kept 2 of his daughters that look like him, and will put them together when they are ready. I have 13 of his off spring going on 3 month old and about 8 one year old from the first Breese/Cornish x cross. I planning on processing most of them to make room for my cloning project.

However, I will hatch only 6, since my freezer is full. Hopefully, I get at least 2 big hens to breed back to their father. Then I will keep a rooster from F3 to breed back to his mother. I will conclude this project when they breed true. and call this line, "Snow White Butter Ball."
 
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I will also do some experiments with my odd ball standard White Cornish cockerel that was sired by my corny Butter Ball king. He is slim and kind of reminds me of a game cock, I wonder if he will put on some decent weight? He may be the missing vigor link to the fast growing Cornish X hybrid.

I have raised standard Dark Cornish before, they look skinny, but their dressed carcass look like super market chicken.
 
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