Meat bird cross

[johnnymax]

Well, I bought 4 dark cornish rock pullets and two Black Australorps roosters. They are only a week old. My question is, has anybody put a Black Australorps rooster with dark cornish rock? They did not have any cornish roosters

 

[Brunty_Farms]

You will get a good cross between the two. Anytime you cross two breeds like this together the offspring will out preform their parents in both egg laying and carcass weight.

Good luck!

 

[dancingbear]

That's true, but I've heard from those who have done a lot a cross-breeding, that with a standard Cornish parent, the cross works out better with a Cornish roo over whatever-breed hen.
I've had several Brahma roo-Cornish hen crosses, and they do get big, but really slowly. I just put 2 in the freezer about a week ago, they both dressed out to just over 7 lbs. Probably if I'd had a Cornish roo they'd have turned out better, maybe grown faster. But, my dark Cornish hens were hatchery stock, too, and not the best quality, very undersized for the breed.

 

[chook pen jen]

I have two cornish hens that I plan to cross with a light susex,I also plan to cross isa brown with a austrolorp rooster. Then I plan to cross the cornish Xrooster over the isa brown X .I was told by an old guy who knows one hell of a lot about poultry,that a two way cross like this will grow faster and bigger than their 1st cross parents. Unfotunatly I have only now got the 4 breeds and it is late in the season it will be late in the year before I breed the first cross ,I will keep you posted on how it goes .

good luck with your cross ,I also would have prefered to use a cornish rooster but I was lucky just to get the girls.

 

[dancingbear]

I think you would do better with a standard Cornish roo, which is NOT the same thing as those Cornish X's. The X's are hard to keep alive long enough to breed, and if they do live long enough, may be so huge they could hurt your hens trying to mate them. See the Godzilla thread.

Good luck, though I hope you get good results with your experiments.