ok my wim

[fussaguss]

Long past few days had a huge chicken loss due to an evil evil evil now very cold coyote.. I has perusing online and found someone 20 minutes away selling ducks for 1.00 each.so i gave in to my impulse and opted to take my three year old to go buy some to help atleast restock some form of bird animal for our farm.Well i got there and low and behold they also had straight run chicks for 1.00 each! (they buy out extras from a hatchery and sell for cheap) so 45 dollars later i have 14 ducks 11 cornish cross and 20 random brown layers. I have never raised cornish cross before and was advised i need to butcher by about 6 weeks due to growth issues. I have a few questions about these chicks. are these by chance random mutant super growing chickens or are they gmo's? I never really understood.
any advise on these bad lads?

 

[KatyTheChickenLady]

check out the stickies at the top

 

[fussaguss]

already read the sticky. didnt cover if these are genetically enginered guys or not.

 

[booker81]

They aren't GMO , they are just specially bred and crossed strains of chickens that over years of breeding and crossing have produced a chicken that grows fast with a lot of breast meat. It's years of selecting to breed only birds that grow fast and put a lot of meat on fast.

The downside of growing so fast is they have a hard time with life past a certain point, and in order to live longer they usually need some special care. Some folks have kept them alive for a goodly while, but their main "purpose" in life is to eat, grow, and become dinner.

6 weeks isn't the "limit", I'm planning on processing at 8 weeks, and some go 12 weeks for a big ol' bird (like 10lbs), but then you're running into congestive heart failure and the like.

 

[KatyTheChickenLady]

Quote:
It does. Read this page : https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=438262
it's part of the stickie at the top of this page just scroll down to the section on CX, you will find it very informative.
and no, there are no Genetically Modified meat birds available to the public in any form.

 

[kstaven]

Although there are some in the industry that commonly try to convince people there is no difference between Genetic Engineering and hybridization that has occurred for centuries.