My Cornish X experiment

[duluthralphie]

I am back from trip to the deep south, Waterloo, Iowa is still alive and well....

I swear the chicks grew by a third the last 4 days! I am going to have to pick up the feed a tad on them I am afraid But I do not want to over feed them and make them behave like the last batch.

I now have to decide on letting them free range or keep them in their large pen. I am leaning to letting them out for 2 more weeks, then locking them up I am thinking I will then lock them with the other 50 I will be processing the end of the month. I want to push feed the last two weeks on all those departing the end of the month. It will be easier to pull them off feed for the last 24 hours.

I have to decide which birds will stay which ones will not. Tough choices ahead.

 

[Bladeguy]

Duluth...I read through these posts and am going to follow the rest of this. I am 4 weeks into 52 Cornish Cross and only about 4-5 hours away from you in Wisconsin. It will be interesting to see how yours compare to mine. I'm doing fermented feed and this is my first batch. So far, though, they sound just like yours, except yours may get a little more free time thanks to a local hawk giving all of us a scare a few days ago. I believe mine would be about 4 days or so younger than yours since I got them on 8/5. My largest chicken right now is little over 2 lb.'s only, which is about 5 days smaller than the broiler chart. I do have my own thread I just started today, but I wish I had started at the beginning like you did for my own sake of having a record. Anyway, looking forward to watching how your results compare.

 

[duluthralphie]

Duluth...I read through these posts and am going to follow the rest of this. I am 4 weeks into 52 Cornish Cross and only about 4-5 hours away from you in Wisconsin. It will be interesting to see how yours compare to mine. I'm doing fermented feed and this is my first batch. So far, though, they sound just like yours, except yours may get a little more free time thanks to a local hawk giving all of us a scare a few days ago. I believe mine would be about 4 days or so younger than yours since I got them on 8/5. My largest chicken right now is little over 2 lb.'s only, which is about 5 days smaller than the broiler chart. I do have my own thread I just started today, but I wish I had started at the beginning like you did for my own sake of having a record. Anyway, looking forward to watching how your results compare.

Good luck on yours!

I am going to try and weigh mine soon, just because I am curious how far behind I am. I can tell you I like the looks of my free range CX's way more than the last ones I raised in a pen (until they were 5 weeks old and fed as much as they could eat).


I am at a horrible place in my bird raising now. I need to decide which birds to keep. I know I need to send 50-60 of my older birds to freezer camp and keep 3 CX's, but I really cannot tell the hens from roosters yet on the CX's.


When my wife and I were watching Chicken TV and enjoying our Corona (with a key lime), we tried to decide between two Dixie rainbow roosters, it is hard. BUT at the same time we see the juicy drumstick they are sporting.

I am thinking of moving the CX's out of the pen, and start putting the birds I want to keep in it. I just do not know what to do... I am open to suggestions....

I have thought about locking up those going to freezer camp for the winter, but I really do not have a pen big enough for 80-90 birds.


However, there is one skinny Jake turkey that may be going to freezer camp earlier than the 4th week of Nov, if he continues to harass my chickens.......


BTW I got my birds on August 1st, they spend an extra day traveling from Iowa to here.

 

[LindaB220]

Duluth...I read through these posts and am going to follow the rest of this. I am 4 weeks into 52 Cornish Cross and only about 4-5 hours away from you in Wisconsin. It will be interesting to see how yours compare to mine. I'm doing fermented feed and this is my first batch. So far, though, they sound just like yours, except yours may get a little more free time thanks to a local hawk giving all of us a scare a few days ago. I believe mine would be about 4 days or so younger than yours since I got them on 8/5. My largest chicken right now is little over 2 lb.'s only, which is about 5 days smaller than the broiler chart. I do have my own thread I just started today, but I wish I had started at the beginning like you did for my own sake of having a record. Anyway, looking forward to watching how your results compare.

I love the fermented feed. Good for them and the pocketbook.

 

[duluthralphie]

I gave my baby CX's feed today and they did not care. Not one of them came running to me. They were too busy "foraging" playing and being chickens to eat!

So different than the last batch, I know I keep saying that, but the last ones scarfed every last morsel, these could care less.


Note to self, weigh some!!!

 

[Bladeguy]

I weighed a few of mine today...I got them 4 weeks ago today. The largest weighed 2.4 lb.'s and the lightest 1.4 lb.'s. Either way you slice it, they are growing much slower than the charts. I will be curious to compare weights.

 

[JessicaThistle]

I weighed a few of mine today...I got them 4 weeks ago today. The largest weighed 2.4 lb.'s and the lightest 1.4 lb.'s. Either way you slice it, they are growing much slower than the charts. I will be curious to compare weights.

I weighed a couple of mine today as they are also 4 weeks old. Mine were right in line with what your's were. Remember that the chart is reporting results based on feeding 24/7 in a very small area with perfect condition to reduce calorie burning and encourage meat growth.

Yours are right inline with mine and the same as my last batch which were an awesome 5-6 pounds in the end.

 

[Bladeguy]

Jessica, can you tell us how old your last batch was at the end? Also, was the 5-6 lb. weight processed or live weight? My only concern with the slow growth is that the feed I'm going through is barely behind the charts, while the weight is almost a week behind. Still worth it to me, though, to maybe go through an extra 100-200 lb.'s of feed to have 52 healthier chickens in the end, but it could add $1 per bird at this rate, so it is good to know. The fun they give our family, though, is worth it. They are cute enough that my wife is getting attached to them, and she did not want the chickens at all. Now she is ready to get layers soon, but I think we will wait until winter is almost over to get them.

 

[duluthralphie]

Bladeguy What kind of feed are you giving them?

I am going through less feed here but will be feeding for a longer time, so I will go through about the same in the long run. My savings will be two fold, I hope, I am buying a less expensive feed. I feed them 18% protein versus the 24 I fed last time. I am also cutting the food some with cracked corn and oats. However, because I am a softy and love to see them happy, I supplement that with "wild bird seed".

Secondly, I am hoping on a higher quality meat when I am done. The birds will have gotten more exercise, and lived a more normal life. I want the type of chicken I remember as a kid. Back then chickens did not come from a store. (well, the way I grew up anyways). Everyone raised their own chickens. Chicken was truly for Sunday dinner, it was not the common everyday food it is today. BUT it tasted better! I want that kind of chicken.

I have 25 happy chickens in the freezer now, along with one happy pig and being joined shortly with a cute little cow and more chickens. I want to raise as much of my own food as I can.

 

[Bladeguy]

I am using a 20% broiler feed I'm getting from a grain mill in northeast Wisconsin. They mill it right there. I am also fermenting that feed, which supposedly boosts the protein a little bit more. The last couple of nights, I've left the feed in overnight because it seems to me, they really don't eat much at night. Every time I've checked on them after dark, they are all huddled in a couple of corners sleeping. This way, if I get up late and can't get to them right away, they can still feed. I can tell you, though, that even when food is in front of them all of the time, they aren't burying their faces in the feeder all of the time. They forage in their pen as much as possible, and stare at us when we go by BEGGING us to let them out. . I think they feel wrongly imprisoned when we can't let them run. I remind them that they have been sentenced to death row. If it weren't for that one attempted hawk attack, and now 3 hawks soaring over the pen, we'd let them out all day, but now we only do it when we can be out there, which is usually a few hours each day.