Red Laced Cornish X and project talk (pics p. 8)

[al6517]

Quote:
They were all actually too nice to make any off comments in poor taste, but I know where I needed to improve and they just agreed with me. I need to work on my WLR heads......... don't we all LOL. I was a little disappointed I couldn't get the whites sparkling but the weather here was cold and I don't do house birds even for show prep LOL. and the missing primaries on the Hulk jr did hurt me.

The big obstackle for me Gary was this years all my entries were very young so competing for BB (best of breed) with 2&3 yr old birds that have had time to fill out. So as usual the big Dark & WLR Cock birds took those. I did beat out all the WLR and white birds though. I was able to snag a super nice monster of a Dark Cock to put with my ever improving Dark hen's. I was happy to see the few Dark hen's in LF that were there looked sub par and made me wish I had entered 3 of my best Dark Hen's. I have a good handle on my lacing so now it's just getting them in top body condition this coming growing year, so with my feed program they should be there with the big Darks & WLR cocks next year.

I cornered the judge afterwards this morning during the awards presentations and he offered me his thoughts on what he was looking for and what he saw in my birds both good and bad, and that Gary was invaluable, and very insightfull.

AL

 

[Totalcolour]

Congratulations Al - I know you have worked very hard for this

 

[big medicine]

Quote:
They were all actually too nice to make any off comments in poor taste, but I know where I needed to improve and they just agreed with me. I need to work on my WLR heads......... don't we all LOL. I was a little disappointed I couldn't get the whites sparkling but the weather here was cold and I don't do house birds even for show prep LOL. and the missing primaries on the Hulk jr did hurt me.

The big obstackle for me Gary was this years all my entries were very young so competing for BB (best of breed) with 2&3 yr old birds that have had time to fill out. So as usual the big Dark & WLR Cock birds took those. I did beat out all the WLR and white birds though. I was able to snag a super nice monster of a Dark Cock to put with my ever improving Dark hen's. I was happy to see the few Dark hen's in LF that were there looked sub par and made me wish I had entered 3 of my best Dark Hen's. I have a good handle on my lacing so now it's just getting them in top body condition this coming growing year, so with my feed program they should be there with the big Darks & WLR cocks next year.

I cornered the judge afterwards this morning during the awards presentations and he offered me his thoughts on what he was looking for and what he saw in my birds both good and bad, and that Gary was invaluable, and very insightfull.

AL

Recognizing where you are, and knowing where you want to go, gives you a leg up on alot of folks. Judging by the photos you've posted you are mostly there. Unless you doctored the photos, which I doubt, otherwise you would have made youself much better looking.

 

[al6517]

Quote:
They were all actually too nice to make any off comments in poor taste, but I know where I needed to improve and they just agreed with me. I need to work on my WLR heads......... don't we all LOL. I was a little disappointed I couldn't get the whites sparkling but the weather here was cold and I don't do house birds even for show prep LOL. and the missing primaries on the Hulk jr did hurt me.

The big obstackle for me Gary was this years all my entries were very young so competing for BB (best of breed) with 2&3 yr old birds that have had time to fill out. So as usual the big Dark & WLR Cock birds took those. I did beat out all the WLR and white birds though. I was able to snag a super nice monster of a Dark Cock to put with my ever improving Dark hen's. I was happy to see the few Dark hen's in LF that were there looked sub par and made me wish I had entered 3 of my best Dark Hen's. I have a good handle on my lacing so now it's just getting them in top body condition this coming growing year, so with my feed program they should be there with the big Darks & WLR cocks next year.

I cornered the judge afterwards this morning during the awards presentations and he offered me his thoughts on what he was looking for and what he saw in my birds both good and bad, and that Gary was invaluable, and very insightfull.

AL

Recognizing where you are, and knowing where you want to go, gives you a leg up on alot of folks. Judging by the photos you've posted you are mostly there. Unless you doctored the photos, which I doubt, otherwise you would have made youself much better looking.

LOL yeah I don't know how to doctor photo's, but I am much better looking, I was just wore smooth out by this morning and on only 1 cup of coffee LOL.

 

[Maggiesdad]

Congrats, Man!

 

[galanie]

Grats, AL!

 

[janchilds]

Hope you don't mind if I join in. I have thoroughly enjoyed reading through all the posts in this thread!

We have been raising chickens for years and have decided this past year that we would really identify what we are looking for in our chickens and choose a few specific breeds that meet our goals and begin breeding those. Because we sell 1000+ broilers a year in addition to our eggs, I began looking into the different meat and dual purpose breeds. We will probably continue to purchase Freedom Rangers for the bulk of our broilers at this time, but I would love to be able to supplement with purebreds. There seems to be a limited amount of info available on the standard Cornish, but I see that it comes in several color varieties. I really like the white laced reds and the whites.

Are there different strengths in carcass, growth, maturity, and fertility associated with the different varieties?

We live in VA so we have pretty distinct seasons, humid summers and our winters can still get fairly cold so hardiness is important to me. Right now our system is set up on a rotational grazing regiment so foragability is a plus as well.

Thanks for any advice!

 

[cornish20]

Quote:
First... read this if you haven't...
https://www.backyardchickens.com/web/viewblog.php?id=99923

There is limited info on LF Cornish, b/c there is equally limited breeding stock available for purchase, heck there is limited breeding stock in general to be found anywhere.

IMO, the Cornish really isn't that great of a meat bird- the only way I would ever encourage the use of them in a self sustaining system.. is as a terminal sire. That means keep back ZERO pullet daughters.

From what I have found, the WLR are probably the poorest of all Cornish varieties... and the whites are by far the hardest to obtain. The actual differences b/w the varieties- will lead you to the best being the darks. The whites aren't very good from the standpoint of a lack of breeding stock, the WLR are ok, and the buffs are terrible. Far too many other breeds being injected into them.. Don't even think about a hatchery bird.. You'll get about as good of a Cornish by using a Wyandotte, than a hatchery Cornish.

Unless you have tremendous ammount of breeding stock birds, you'll never be able to hatch out large batches of the LF Cornish birds- fertility and hatching isn't good enough. In order to get large numbers of breeding stock-- you'll need years, if not decades to obtain that.. They are a very slow maturing breed as well.

Personally, the Cornish don't make very good free rangers. It would be like turning a bunch of 10 week old CX birds out to graze that have been on full feed their entire lives. Winter hardy? Ha, my birds won't lay a single egg from October until March... True, quality Cornish are very hard, and close feathered... making them get cold really easy.. You don't see many Cornish in the upper midwest or east... I'd guess a huge % of them are in OK and TX.

 

[SteveH]

Quote:
Welcome to the thread Jan. I will not pretend to have enough personal experience to offer advice; Ive only owned quality Cornish for two years and my first birds were wiped out by a plague of buffalo gnats [aka blackflies]. I'm not sure where cornish 20 [aka Kfacres] is getting all his experience and knowledge, as he got his first Cornish crosses and one purebred DC cockeral from me this year. I'm not sure where he will get his purebred cockerals to use as sires if he keeps no pullets; but then he currently has no purebred pullets to raise his future sires from anyway. I do agree that for commercial meat production the Cornish's slow growth probably makes them better as a cross to a faster grower, but IMO it's going to be difficult to breed a bird capable of competing with those already developed [CX and FR]. On the other hand I enjoy breeding for a superior bird, and if we ever suffer a complete econimic collapse, it would be nice to have a self-sufficient flock on my property.

 

[cornish20]

Quote:
cornish 20 [aka Kfacres] only for another couple days...

It doesn't take a very long, or very many conversations with Cornish people to realize that they really aren't a very productive bird- as most long time established breeders struggle to hatch out enough replacement pullets.