Ok.. so I'm not buying the whole.... Updated with pics...breeding hens

[dancingbear]

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You and Jeff both make some very good points. The definition of "breeding true" is offspring that are extremely similar to the parents. In that regard, hybrids don't breed true, at least not all of them. But you will get a percentage that are like the parents, or close enough for the dinner table, anyway. Which is what most of us home breeders are concerned about. Unlike big corporations such as Tyson, who are concerned with more with uniformity.

Raising meat for your own table, you don't need to have identical birds. The occasional throw-back to the rocks is no big deal, they'll be kind of scrawny compared to the others, but still perfectly good food. So piffel! on uniformity!

Once upon a time, when I was brand-new to keeping chickens, I bought some Cornish-X hens from a guy, having no idea what they were, or anything about them. The man told me they were the big Cornish crosses from MMH, and they were already enormous, and they were already laying eggs. He had them just mixed in with the rest of his mixed-breed flock, and didn't seem to do anything special with them. So I bought some, I don't remember how many. Maybe as many as 6 maybe only 4. (It was over 15 years ago) Anyway, not having any idea there was anything unusual about these birds, other than being huge, I just put them with my others, and they free-ranged along with the others, They laid really nice, big, brown eggs. A large percentage were gigantic double yolked eggs. I didn't hatch any, so I don't know how they would have turned out. I had these hens for a few months, I had intended to hatch some of the eggs in the spring, to see if the daughters would also lay double yolks. But before spring arrived, they began to drop dead from CHF. By the time I figurd out what was wrong, I only had one left, and she was showing symptoms, purple comb when resting on her keel, wheezing...so we butchered her, she dressed out to about 15 lbs, or so, like a small turkey. The breast was still tender, I made strips and fried it, and the thighs, too. The rest was tough, (I fried a little to see, it was like truck tire!) and was made into nice chicken and dumplings. Stewed a long time, it got tender.

So, yes, you can keep them long enough to breed, but not if you feed them like broilers. I might try it again sometime, and see what I get when they breed. I don't know if the roos will be able to mount a hen, or if they'll be too ungainly. If the roos can't breed, you could let a standard Cornish breed the hens, and see what you get. I wouldn't try breeding them back to a Rock roo, because I had some white Plymouth Rocks from MMH, several years ago, along with some CX's. The Rocks were really scrawny, but they were from MMH, and I've had other so-called pure-breds from them that were not very good quality birds. It may be that Rocks from another source may be a lot better than the ones I had.

 

[EGGTASKTIC]

I got to go with Jeff in this one. The hatcheries are not breeding their chicks from the original cross as the variance in traits would be to vast. They have breeding stock which has undergone many generations of breeding to select for the desired traits. It is the same as breeding RIR or BR. You keep the best (traits you want). Doing this time and time again you deselect for traits you do not wish.

So we have been lead to believe that you must get you chicks from a hatchery. Which is nonsence. If you have the time and put in the effort you can get decent results as uhuh555 has. The trick is to have a large enough sample to pull the best birds from. Remember the poultry industry has tons of money to through at genetic engineers to test their stock and keep it in perfect genetic condition. If their secrets get out we will all know what traits/genes to look for and their investment will be diminished. I can tell you that it is no accident
that Cornish x are white I will bet there is a linked gene to feather color. When was the last time a red broiler or black broiler produced at the same level as the whites. hmmmmmm.

Hybrid vigor is a valid point, but as with seed development there is usually the introduction of one gene, not a new cross of two unrelated plants.

The bottom line is your meaties will do what we have engineered them to do, make meat on the bone. With a little help they will produce offspring which will do the same thing.

 

[TimG]

Let me preface this by saying that I think someone who put in some time and effort in a breeding program could produce a line of good meat birds, if not commercial quality, definitely something that individuals and small producers would be happy with.

As I understand the commercial breeds, they are generated from four different lines, let's call them G1, G2, G3, and G4. G1 and G2 are used to produce P1 and G3 and G4 are used to produce P2. P1 and P2 are mated to produce M. It is possible that G1 and G2 are homozygous recessive for a particular trait while G3 and G4 are homozygous dominant for the same trait. That means that all Ms will be heterozygous for this trait, but will display the dominant trait. If you cross the Ms, you will get a full range of homozygous recessive, heterozygous and homozygous dominant with the offspring displaying both the dominant and recessive traits (in a 3:1 ratio). I some cases, you won't know which of those that display the dominant trait are homozygous and which are heterozygous which adds complexity to the breeding of future generations.

You say that breed X is used to widen the breast and breed Y is used to add height, etc. Breed X may pass on its wide breasts with a dominant gene, but breed X's grandchildren might not get any of those dominant wide breast genes.

The point is really that even if none of the Ms display the recessive trait, it can show up in future generations if you mate Ms. Just the same way two human parents with brown eyes can produce a blue eyed offspring.

It is no surprise to me that uhuh555's second generation produces a wider range of weights than his first generation.

uhuh555's program is the second I have heard about. The first was the Corn-Del project that you can probably find reference to with a little googling. ETA: Timothy Shell was the Corndel Cross guy. It is easy to find with google -- in fact one of the first suggestions is a BYC Forum post with a link to a document describing the cross.

 

[CARS]

I'm getting a headache but love the idea!!

 

[Overeasyplz]

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mee too but this is very interesting...plz go on!

 

[EGGTASKTIC]

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Timg good explanation. I think we are all in agreement that that a backyard breeding flock is a viable as an option.

I am wondering what traits if any are sex linked, as it may be better to use roos or hens from a hatchery rather than from your own gene pool.

I see a project in the future- my wife is going to kill me.

She is bracing for the arrival of the next batch of meaties.

 

[BirchHatchery]

its purdy simple really i was told i cant breed a hy-line leghorn to hy-line leghorn because of the hybrid in them so i did the next best thing i got a flock of 30 w36 hy-line leghorn hens and im breeding them to a Diffrent Hybrid leghorn BabeCock i belive they are and i can tell that the roos i got are not hy-lines their to rugged lookin to be. That being said the chicks that i get off these guys are jus as good as hy-lines stock why because Their 2 of the best HYBRID strains of leghorns out their that create more hybrid chicks. If it was me id take one group of cornishx hens from one group then get a few cornish xs from a completly diffrent line and breed them together guess what i bet u get more cornish xs it aint rocket science. When i was young and didn;t no these guys were ment to die in 8 weeks i kept them for a long time i dont rember how long but i had one cornish rock hen that laid huge brown eggs and one day died of a heart attack im guessing but i bet u if i only fed her a certain amount of grain a day she been alive alot longer so i tried this with a group of cornish rock roos got 6 had them for 6 months only fed them a weee bit of dog food and scratch a day and whatever they found runing around the yard they all crowed and mated with my barred rocks so yes its possible to keep them alive and goin with the proper diet and Exercise lol jus amagin them as people with a thyroid problem that wieghs 400

 

[Brunty_Farms]

Tim-

Great points as those are very important in industrial strains, however for most backyard flocks the change in breast size or height is really a small factor in the overall goal. Most people just want a good quality meat bird that will dress out in a timely manner. If it take half to mature at 8 weeks and the other to mature at 12 weeks.... I'm pretty sure most people wouldn't mind.

My point is that all four of those lines have extremely thick bodies and good meat to bone ratio... all have great feed efficiency... and all are very close in size... some may vary as far as height and breast width but to the average backyard breeder it's not an issue... and over time (like you said) can be breed out.

I think with the right feeding program along with free ranging the breeding stock, you could produce some very healthy and vigorous chicks. I would do the same.... take hens form one batch and males from another.

Seems all to easy but when it comes down to it, the broilers are just chickens. They have the genetics in them... so mine as well exploit what these companies have already done. I think too many people have this envision that broilers are made to self destruct after 8-12 weeks.... which just isn't the case.

 

[deerman]

Yes sure you can, breed from the cross, and the chicks will be better meaties than the pure breeds, just not as good as the first cross.

Understand what you are after now, not breeding true to a breed. Just meaties

When I try this, it was more costly. But those hens layed big eggs, alot of double yolk. Bottem line keepig rock X cornish for breeder can be done, lot more work,and problems.

Now if you want to hatch you own meaties. best to keep a flock of white rock hens, and a few white cornish rooster. Less work,less health problems, and less feed.


The white color, just like the white turkey, is just for a better looking dressed bird.(yellow skin, no dark pin feathers)

 

[gilariversun]

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Thinking back to my days on a ranch and cattle breeds - I have a couple of questions about your 2nd and 3rd generations.

1) I see you have terminal 8 week weights ranging from 3.25 to 5.75 # each - compared to 3.5 to 5# each - measured at 8 weeks. This is quite good actually - approximately a 10% variant. I would guess you could see this much variation between different batches of chicks from different hatcheries or from different years. My question on this is however - rate of growth. For example while I would expect to see a slightly increased spread in this - I would equally expect to see a reduction in hybrid vigor or hetrosis of about 25%. I am wondering if - measured at 3 weeks for example - if perhaps there is a difference in weight gain. Or said differently - if rate of gain over time has become more uniform, or less uniform, or if this is something you have tracked. A slightly slower rate of gain might help solve some of the health issues we have all heard of.

2) Assuming judicious selection of Gen 2 birds, and independent records kept of each of these kept for breeding, how do the Gen 3 birds compare? Some of you variability should be lessening. In other words - you may still have the 3.25 to 5.75 spread - but you should see a higher number that falls in an average of say 4 to 5 pounds, with less on either the high or low ends. I would then ask the same question about rate of gain on these birds, especially those being selected for breeding. At this point I would expect to see another loss of 12.5% of hybrid vigor, unless totally separate lines are being used. However strong linebreeding as described of chick to parent generations would more tend to cement in desired traits, and increase uniformity.

One thing to keep in mind about hybrid vigor is it reduces over generations. For example - if you breed a Brahman to an Angus - you get a lot of hybrid vigor. But if you breed that 50/50 cross to another 50/50 cross - that vigor will reduce by about 25%. Do it again - it will reduce another 12.5%. And so forth - until you end up at about 50% vigor within the herd, as compared to the F1 cross. However this hybrid vigor is likely a primary cause of the explosive growth rates you see in these broiler chicks, and their resultant health problems and difficulty in longevity. Reducing this a tiny bit - so that your birds go from being ready at 8 weeks to 10 weeks - should allow most of the health issues to be bred out, and give you a bird with much higher longevity. So in this case - bumping new lines searching for improved hybrid vigor - may or may not be the best of all possible options.

This is a very interesting topic. I absolutely agree it should be possible to have a broiler bird that will breed true - within the limits of the originals of 3.5 to 5# each - and possibly within an even tighter weight range. With a slight reduction of week to week growth rate - not necessarily an 8 week size - you could find there is a benefit to long term longevity. Of course free ranging your birds and breeding survivors will tend to have a similar effect also. But through heavy culling - and keeping a close eye on them - 5 or 6 generations would seem about right to establishing a line that would breed true. But bear in mind - the dual purpose birds - are pretty much cross breeds. Barred Rocks. Rhode Island Reds. Sussex. Orpingtons. So forth and so on. Yet those bred true - now - after culling and several generations to cement and stability the type and the desired traits. I see no reason at all the same can not be accomplished with a Cornish X.

Thoughts?