Official BYC Poll: Why Do You Have Chickens?

[Araucana Nest]

Big, glorious, delicious eggs. Also chickens are like potato chips: you can't just have one. I started with six chickens four years ago and this year my flock will grow to twenty-six. And that's after rehoming several roosters. I seem to have a knack for getting late blooming roosters. I'll think I'm in the clear and a month later one of the "girls" will start to crow

I hear ya! It's been such a cockerel year here. If I hatched 10, 8 would be cockerels...

 

[Araucana Nest]

We got them initially as pets, inspired by a lady at a farm where we go camping. (I must admit I thought my hubby was crazy when he first suggested getting chickens. ) Eggs are a bonus, the chatter, company and love they bring is heartwarming, and I didn't realise when we got them how much therapy they provide! I suffer with depression and excruciating anxiety, but when I started hugging, petting cuddling and chatting with my girls, over time they have given me tremendous relief and really help me a lot, just when one waddles up to me...Plus their antics are so funny! Chicken cuddles are THE best and no one understands until you've experienced chicken love, so thanks to every one of my chooks who I love with every bit of my heart ❤❤❤❤Daphne, Velma Sylvie, Honey, Alice, Connie, Stella, Domino , Fred, Ginger and the Pingus.

Some of us do understand ♥

 

[Egg Snatcher]

Is resale like you buy chickens then sale them or you breed them and sell the babies? I breed pure and cross bred bantams, polish, Cornishx, and one NN regular sized chicken. I've got a question non related. If you breed two Cornisgx will the babides be Pure Cornishx, or do it need the dark Cornish hen and the white Plymouth Rock to get them?

 

[Araucana Nest]

Is resale like you buy chickens then sale them or you breed them and sell the babies? I breed pure and cross bred bantams, polish, Cornishx, and one NN regular sized chicken. I've got a question non related. If you breed two Cornisgx will the babides be Pure Cornishx, or do it need the dark Cornish hen and the white Plymouth Rock to get them?

Technically resale is what one purchases in order to sell again. Sometimes I've seen it used on these threads in a way that means selling and not necessarily reselling.

From what I understand, Cornish X are a refined breeding of the original cross. They are artificially inseminated from the parent stock. You may get a faster grwoing, fleshier chicken by breeding the original Cornish X Rock but -again from what I've read, because I've never attempted it - the chicks will not be the same as the Cornish X you purchase.

 

[Egg Snatcher]

Technically resale is what one purchases in order to sell again. Sometimes I've seen it used on these threads in a way that means selling and not necessarily reselling.

From what I understand, Cornish X are a refined breeding of the original cross. They are artificially inseminated from the parent stock. You may get a faster grwoing, fleshier chicken by breeding the original Cornish X Rock but -again from what I've read, because I've never attempted it - the chicks will not be the same as the Cornish X you purchase.

Ok I was going to get a Corishx roo to breed with my Cornishx hen. She is able to breed natural. I have a Cornish hen bantam so I'll get a Plymouth Rock rooster to get Cornishx bantams. Thanks you the help! The babies a taller a pretty heavy. She has been breeding with a NN rooster.

 

[City Farmer Jim]

I know in the past couple of years there has been some sort of issue with monarchs and milkweed...monarchs had some sort of fungus issues...we were told by the botanical garden in corpus christi to trim the plants back in the fall to help stop the spread.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I've got a question non related. If you breed two Cornisgx will the babides be Pure Cornishx, or do it need the dark Cornish hen and the white Plymouth Rock to get them?

Why do I keep chickens? I mentioned earlier, meat and to play with genetics. This falls in the genetics part.

This is discussed a lot on the meat bird section on this forum. You do not get Cornish X by crossing a pure Cornish bird with a White Rock. It takes generations of selective breeding to produce the Cornish X. Unfortunately the idea that you can immediately get a Cornish X by crossing a Cornish with a White Rock is pure myth. It will still make a nice bird to eat.

The other question is more complicated. Some depends on the strain of the Cornish X. The commercial operations keep four separate flocks to produce the two flocks that will become the parents of the Cornish X. Different companies use different genetics to produce their strain of Cornish X. All four of the Grandparent flocks are fast-growing and pretty much have the characteristics of the Cornish X. But some of those companies use certain traits (like dwarfism) in some of the grandparent and one parent flock to make keeping them more efficient.

This is where the uncertainty comes in. If you cross two Cornish X you will get a fast-growing bird that has has great feed to meat conversion regardless of which strains you cross. If the male comes from a strain that uses the dwarfism gene to help make keeping two of the grandparent and one of the parent flocks more efficient (or some other traits I'm not aware of) some dwarfism will show up. They will still be good meat birds and grow really fast, but they will grow on a smaller skeleton.

They are artificially inseminated from the parent stock.

Nope, artificial insemination would be too impractical on that scale. This video is so old they had to split it apart because the technology of the day could not handle putting it into one but it shows how a Canadian company did it.

 

[wolfinator]

I started in 2015 with help of my son with 18 bantams (9 & 9). A rescue mission. He worked for some city dwellers that got in over their heads. Chickens were in deplorable conditions and I ended up buying them, coops and accessories. My boys tore everything down and delivered all. They found multiple dead amongst them, several dozens of uncollected eggs and they were locked in the 4x8 section of a 8x10 coop walking in deep poop. I lost most in the first year but to our surprise, a little malnourished half pound hen with a severe crossed beak survived until 1/2019. She became our baby but bossed even our biggest RIR rooster around. I started adding standard chickens spring 2017 and now have 38 hens, 6 roosters, 10 chicks (worried 3 could be boys), 3 adult drakes, 1 adult duck and 10 ducklings (1 definitely a drake). I now have them for selling eggs but with 1/2 being sexlinks over 2 yrs and 3/4 molting, I'm lucky to get 10 eggs daily. Thank goodness my customers understand I might not be able to fill the 10 dozen a week orders now (collectively). I treat them all as my babies and call them as such, they're spoiled with fresh foods or scratch daily. They line up at the gate every day at noon, I take treats down after they get their bellies full of feed first. I can even handle my roosters (some from roost mostly) but they know their jobs. Last count I had 15 different chicken breeds and crossed breeds plus 2 khaki Campbell and 12 Runner ducks.

A few of my newer babies, they're all about 9-10 weeks old.


This little girl was injured by her hatchmates and was lame. She's 75% better now and is walking after doing warm water therapy and lots of patience but can't keep up so she has her own quarters until stronger. With her is Kitty on first meeting a couple weeks ago. She's helped in getting the duckling to try and walk by nudging her.

 

[Araucana Nest]

I know in the past couple of years there has been some sort of issue with monarchs and milkweed...monarchs had some sort of fungus issues...we were told by the botanical garden in corpus christi to trim the plants back in the fall to help stop the spread.

Good to know. Is that a regional thing or is it nationwide?

 

[City Farmer Jim]

It's a national issue...there is LONG technical name but OE in the common name for it. Tropical milkweed is a big offender but all milkweed is spreading it predominantly in the fall.