Meat Birds Cornish Cross are way under weight - Hatched 5/20 - 7 Weeks old now

[stevekon]

I ordered a batch of 100 Cornish Cross birds and they are way under weight now. They are 7 weeks old as of yesterday and weight only about 1.5 pounds each. I rented a poultry processing unit from our local conservatory for July 5th and postponed the delivery until the 15th so I basically have 2 weeks to get these birds up to weight.

I'm feeding them a custom mixed Non GMO feed mix without corn that I bought all at once because it was a custom mix. So I have a bunch of that feed that I am stuck with. I think the custom mix is way under in calories and protein.

What can I feed them to get their weight up fast? I don't want to have to buy conventional feed and ruin what I've started by feeding them non GMO'd feed so any other ideas would be appreciated.

 

[JNB]

Well I would suggest increasing protein and since you dont want to use a commercial feed or grower you will have to do a bit of research on protien foods...
heres a list of a few good foods for chickens

FOOD SOURCE - PROTEIN BY WEIGHT
Dried fish flakes 76
Dried liver 76
Dried earthworms 76
Duckweed 50
Torula yeast 50
Brewers yeast 39
Soybeans (dry roasted) 37
Flaxseed 37
Alfalfa seed 35
Beef, lean 28
Earthworms 28
Fish 28
Wheat germ 25
Peas & Beans, dried 24.5
Sesame seed 19.3
Soybeans (boiled) 17
Sunflower seeds 17
Wheat bran 16.6
Oats, whole 14
Rice polish 12.8
Rye 12.5
Wheat 12.5
Barley 12.3
Oats 12
Corn 9
Millet 9
Milo 9
Rice, brown 7.5

I personally ferment my feed for my meat birds and I mix my own grains that I ferment for them. I use different mixtures but the base is usually Barley and Oats and I add Alfalfa to that to boost protein. I have found I like the compressed cubes. I can just toss those on top of the bucket that is soaking to ferment the night before I feed or when I do the fresh mix to soak. I also give them a mixture of Meal Worms and BOSS each day. They put on weight pretty quickly .

Here are a couple links that have great info on Fermenting feed and Mixing your feed.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/644300/fermenting-feed-for-meat-birds

http://naturalchickenkeeping.blogspot.com/search/label/Fermented Feed

 

[Sami]

I grabbed a couple bags if turkey finisher to plump mine up

 

[CoopDeViIIe]

I'm not sure where you bought them from, but honestly I don't think they gave you Cornish X. Those birds should be 1.5lbs by 3 weeks. By 7 they should easily be 5-6lbs. They could be eating just about anything and be heavier than that.

 

[StewedMammal]

Do you have any pictures of them?

 

[Elke Beck]

I don't think you have Cornish X. I can see there being a runt that might grow that slowly, but to have all of your birds so small at 7 weeks means they are not CX.

Can you post a picture? At that weight I would not be surprised if you have White Rocks instead of CX.