Not sure on breed!

[acovey24]

 

[acovey24]

 

[acovey24]

 

[Michael OShay]

They are Cornish cross which are extremely fast growing meat birds that are ready for butchering by 8 weeks. In fact, if you wait long beyond that, they will begin to develop severe health problems due to their abnormal growth rates.

 

[acovey24]

Uh oh! So is it not possible to get eggs?

 

[junebuggena]

Unless you've been keeping them on a strict feeding schedule to control their growth rate, it is unlikely that the pullets will live long enough to produce eggs. They rarely make it past a year, even under the best conditions, but the can be fair producers of very large brown eggs. It really is the kindest and most humane thing to do to harvest them soon, before they start suffering health problems and broken legs.

 

[Lady of McCamley]

Unless you've been keeping them on a strict feeding schedule to control their growth rate, it is unlikely that the pullets will live long enough to produce eggs. They rarely make it past a year, even under the best conditions, but the can be fair producers of very large brown eggs. It really is the kindest and most humane thing to do to harvest them soon, before they start suffering health problems and broken legs.

x2

You really have to manage Cornish Cross carefully or they will literally eat themselves to death. Yours are already showing strains of overly fast growth.

They are not good layers. They are meat birds and sold as such.

If you want good layers, get White Leghorns or better Red Sexlinks (Red Comets, Gold Stars, Red Stars, Cinnamon Queens, variety of names for the red sexlink).

You will know you have females with the RSL as the female chicks are red gold colored down and feather in red with some white trimming while the male chicks are pale yellow down and feather in white, generally with red on shoulders. RSL are quiet, thrifty birds that lay tons of eggs. (But you can't breed them together to get another generation of the color sexing).

Sorry.
LofMc

 

[acovey24]

Thanks!

 

[Michael OShay]

Unless you've been keeping them on a strict feeding schedule to control their growth rate, it is unlikely that the pullets will live long enough to produce eggs. They rarely make it past a year, even under the best conditions, but the can be fair producers of very large brown eggs. It really is the kindest and most humane thing to do to harvest them soon, before they start suffering health problems and broken legs.

X3 on that.

 

[Michael OShay]

If you want good layers, get White Leghorns or better Red Sexlinks (Red Comets, Gold Stars, Red Stars, Cinnamon Queens, variety of names for the red sexlink).

X2; or Black Sex Links (Black Stars) are also friendly and hardy egg laying machines. I raised them for years, and they have been my best layers, consistently churning out more than 300 eggs per year. The two sex link varieties are generally much calmer and friendlier that the White Leghorns which tend to be high strung and flighty.