Removing Cornish X's food for the night???

[Willow's Meadow]

I might be getting some Cornish Xs this summer and I was reading that your not supposed to leave their feed in their coop 24 hours a day. How do you guys do it??? Do you take their food out at night, or just a few hours during the day??? At what age do you start taking their food out??? Do you start taking it out when they are babies or when they get older???

 

[bargain]

They will literally eat themselves to death, we kept the food out at night time and then carefully measured it out in the day tiem Have a blessed one..

 

[SamG347]

Ive raised many batches of meat birds....never once have I limited the food they have. I personally see no point in it...my birds do not eat themselves to death...sure they eat a lot but they eat till their full...then come back for more when they are hungry. I feel when people start losing meat birds it has to do with more than them eating a lot....temps...water avaliabiltie....space....etc.

 

[jaj121159]

I control their rations (i.e. number of pounds per day). I give them the larger portion of the food in the morning then give them the balance in the evening. That way i am controlling their food aimed at a total ration of 2.5 pounds of food per live weight at the time of slaughter.

 

[terri9630]

I've never removed the feeder and always keep it full. At our place once the sun goes down its DARK, especially with no moon and all the birds go to sleep. No need to remove food when they aren't eating. We've lost very few and they weren't really a loss since they were big enough to eat as long as we caught them before they died.

 

[twister]

we raised some in the fall and yes, we did a food withdrawal: put food hopper in the pen in the AM and take it out at dusk. You stated that you were thinking of raising them in the summer..... please consider your highest temps--- THAT seemed to be THE factor of losses around here for folks, but we are in a very hot and humid environment.... just something for you to think about.

 

[Recon]

I've done both ways and I am now a believer in removing their food. I have much healthier birds and the casualty rate is much lower. When I left the food in 24/7, I figured 10 percent would die before the time I planned to process. Taking the food away seems to equal less than 5% dying early... Actually 1 out of 60 in the current batch at about the half way point.

I remove the food when I am about ready to go to bed, about 8PM most evenings, and return it to them at 5AM when I leave for work.

 

[booker81]

I have moved my meaties to the coop and I'm wondering about the correlation between removing feed (or not), and temps. Right now, we are still in the 20s at night, 30-40 at day. They have a good lamp in there, and they are acting comfortable. The feed and water is close to the lamp so they don't have to get too chilled to go to food and water.

I plan on moving the food and water apart over time to make them go into the cooler air of the coop, and then moving the lamp up to make it generally cooler.

Now, since it's running cooler than most places for them, should they be OK on 24 hour feed? Wondering if there is a correlation between high temps and 24hr feed - that you need to have both to get casualties, or since I'm missing the high heat, they would have an easier time on their bodies with the 24 access to feed (and not overheating)?

(We moved them early (one week) because they were getting too big for the brooder. The coop is draft free, and the heat lamp is actually screwed into the railing. I've put my hand in there, and it's fairly warm, easily about 80-90 or so under the lamp at the bedding level.)

 

[Sjisty]

We raised cornish X twice, only six at a time, in Florida in the heat of summer. We didn't withdraw food, figuring they don't eat in the dark, anyway. We didn't lose any and ended up with some nice 7+ pounders dressed out at about 10 weeks.

My only objection to the little bowling balls was they stank worse than all my other chickens put together!

 

[nivtup]

We do not remove the feed.

Loss rates have been very low.