Okay ordering meat chickens again

[LilyD]

If you don't remember I posted earlier in May about how the tornado/ thunder storm killed 40 of my chickens so we only have 19 left.

I spent all day today building a new outdoor coop for them with reinforced walls a wooden floor with horse mats on it and a roof framed out with plywood and shingles on top. No water or wind will get in this coop and they can be totally enclosed so they won't be scared when it storms, but they also have access to a huge run where they can eat grass, play and learn to fly. They were fun to watch today.

So I am off to Welp to order another 65 meaties for next week if possible.

My sister has developed a crazy idea though. She was asking me if there is any possibility that we can actually keep a few males and some hen cornish crosses for breeding. Has anyone done this before??

Thanks

 

[itsy]

Good luck with your new chickens. It sounds like you're doing everything you can to prevent this unfortunate thing from happening again!

I'm sure you'll get plenty of advice on the breeding.... I'm too green to be of any help.

 

[Lilredhippie]

From everything I have read and heard, you will not get a "meatie". Those birds are not meant to live much past 8 weeks. The longer they live, the heavier they get. That ups the chance that they will die from heart failure or suffer from leg problems. And these birds have short little legs, which might make it very difficult for the rooster to mount the hens.
I kept a BBB turkey hen and have hatched several poults from her. But the breeding is very rough and she suffered several nasty wounds. She is now matron of the chicken yard and does not join the other turkeys.

 

[Saltysteele]

a lot of the time the hybrids are sterile. also, as said, if using CX, they won't live much past when it's time to slaughter them.

if you get the freedom rangers, i'm not sure what you would get. they are made from two different crosses of chickens. that's why hatcheries devoted to the specific lines exist, is it's not that easy for us home hatchers to produce them

 

[LilyD]

Okay that was kind of what I thought but I figured I would refer to those who had more years of experience than I do. I had heard from a few people on here that they had gotten a Cornish to live past the allotted amount of time for slaughter one was saying that they had gotten them to live a year but I am not sure if they bred their bird or not or if it was just kept because of getting it as a mix up and getting attached. I do have boys that I get through my regular breeding of my layers that join in my freezer camp periodically but they are definitely not the same quality as the CornishX when it comes to breast size and growing time. They are the same age as the meaties we have right now and are still less than 1/2 the size weight wise because they don't grow as fast.

I placed my order but it actually gave me another question.

How many of you order straight run versus all males for your CornishX? What is the size difference between a hen and a roo?

 

[KatyTheChickenLady]

They will not be sterile and they will be meaties. The issue is their growth and they tend to die of CHF before hitting breeding age. However it has been done by many on here, just do some back reading.

 

[LilyD]

I just read a bunch of threads about it but now I am wondering if it's cost effective or if I will be spending more than the cost of the chicks to try and keep alive breeders who aren't supposed to live past 12 weeks.

If I went with a breeder such as a deleware or brama which are heavy breeds how long do they take to grow out to the same size as the cornish at 8 weeks?