Quote:
I may have to move them to our mini coop and see about fattening them up that way... well I know I wont buy hybrid birds again for meat... I dont like confining them to such small spaces if I can help it..
Thanks for the possible idea...
Maybe.
But Jeff Brunty in the meat birds section free ranges his and they grow just like the confinement birds, and he raises hundreds and hundreds of them every year, maybe a couple thousand. The only way to control them from getting too big too fast is to control their feed intake, and even then it is difficult to keep them alive over 10 or 12 weeks because they just get so dang big. I don't grow them so have no personal experience with them, but yours just seem so dang small for 16+ weeks.
And it wasn't just their size, but their posture in the rest position, as well. Just didn't look right to me, which is why I suggested posting pictures. Because I don't know anything about diseases. I thought maybe Al or Les or one of the other pros on here could give you a better idea of what might be wrong with them.
Maybe it's nothing, though. Maybe you just got a small batch folks like get every now and then.
Jeannie : Where did you get them from ??, just a note that all hatcheries are not created equal when it comes to cornish X's. Confinement has little to do with the condition of the birds in your pictures, what kind of feed are they on ??. To be honest most folks have no idea what they are in for when raisng meat birds like these, they are in no way close to any other birds to raise. Perhaps they also have some undiagnosed medical issue.
I agree with Jim, they are very small & unthrifthy looking, and really nowhere near where they should be at that age.
AL