i know its not a great pic, but this is a "mottled cornish LF" i am considering buying. i just want a heavy breasted roo so when i hatch out my barnyard mix i get a bit more breast meat....well thats the hope anyway. i have not been able to find information on a mottled cornish, and to me his feathering isnt tight enough near his head and he doesnt look like a pure cornish LF...thoughts? it doesnt matter that much really, other than i want to know what i am getting. also does this look like a 2-3 month old to you? the lady i am getting them from claims he is already sexually mature? that cant be possible can it? she said she is getting rid of him because he has too much white.
"Pure" doesn't mean anything in chicken breeding. The bird either fits the standard for that breed, and is that breed, or it doesn't fit the breed standard, and isn't. If a bird's parents are a Barred Rock and a Rhode Island Red and it comes out matching the breed spec for a Delaware, it's a Delaware (not that it would come out like that). What are your goals for your breeding program (you mentioned more breast meat)? Does the bird fit those goals? Is he going to get you closer? My latest batch of roosters started crowing at 8 weeks. They started trying to mate hens at about 16. I wouldn't call them sexually mature at that point, but I could see how some other people would. TLDR: don't worry about whether he's pure cornish - worry about what hes going to contribute genetically, and whether or not its what you want.
okay first off, i like the way you think and you are right, i dont care at all about him being a "purebred" chicken or not. i am still experimenting and figuring out what works best for me. i have raised chickens for well over a decade on and off, but nothing more than the standard tractor supply chicks for eggs and cornish x for meat. i have had all sorts and enjoy this as a hobby and good way to feed my family higher quality food. that being said i had a very bad experience this last year with cornish x, i have done them in the past and they did okay as far as cornish go, but we had too much rain and they did not do well out on pasture at all..the end result was an inedible chicken that got fed to the pigs. but the love of a home grown chicken dinner drives me to try something else closer to the free ranging birds that i love. i have settled on either freedom rangers, but more likely the slow whites from welp as my next broiler type. the slow whites should breed true from what little i have found about it, and my hopes would be to do some experimenting with a cornish roo over a slow white hen compared to a slow white roo over a slow white hen just for fun. i also want a cornish to add some muscle mass back into my barnyard mix from the hatcheries...again, who knows what would happen but i am willing to do it as a fun backyard project. pretty much i just want yummy tasting chickens, and hopefully this roo will make for some decent crosses.
While not a true pure Cornish, this hen from a home meat bird project I have been working on shows some mottling.
yes there is such a thing as mottled Cornish, however only on the bantam side (recognized anyway). here is a picture of one of our cockerels and a pullet
Was looking around for mottled Cornish again and saw this thread, just to clarify I am the one who owns this bird and at no point did I claim the rooster pictured is 2-3 months old. He is a sexually mature cock, not a cockerel. He came from a standard mottled Cornish breeding project, and clearly for a mottled bird has far too much white. I did however use him over my other standard (non-Cornish) hens for meat birds and I have to say I was VERY pleased with the results. Still the average size bird I like but with much more breast to them. I will be butchering many of his offspring in fall, likely including him since he was not sold. Quality like his is hard to find, even though for color he is a cull he has very nice type conducive to a bird that came from a breeder and not a hatchery. Also the Cornish aren't supposed to have the thin neck you are suspecting them to, he is very much shaped like a Cornish. Like a good judge once told me, we are breeding "standard bred" birds, not "purebred". I am certain at one point, however many generations back, another mottled breed was crossed in. But it is my evident in his type. But with a lack of bloodlines even varieties such as the light sussex added light brahma blood to improve color.