Sex-Link Meat Birds?

[Brunty_Farms]

When I first started I orderd 15 and ended up only butchering about 8 of them. I lost a lot of them to not knowing what I was doing. I wouldn't go any higher than 10-15.

 

[emsevers]

Quote:
How did you lose them? Was it while they were chicks or later on? Just curious because I can learn from other people's mistakes.

 

[jaku]

Quote:
How did you lose them? Was it while they were chicks or later on? Just curious because I can learn from other people's mistakes.

I've found that with the Cornish X's, you'll just occasionally get up in the morning to feed them and find one dead.

 

[The Monkey Mama]

One other thought - we raise Cuckoo Marans for meat and eggs - they are ready to process by 14-16 weeks, make a big, delicious meat bird, and you can sex them VERY early - often from birth, but definitely by the time they start feathering out. The roos are much lighter coloring than the pullets. Mine do start to crow between 15-18 weeks, but by then they are ready to eat.

So...just one other alternative.

Kelly

 

[Bossroo]

Each of the major producers of Cornish X parent stocks have their own closely guarded industry secrets. They each have 2 or more lines for the male parents and 2 or more lines for the female parents. How many lines to the grandparent stocks is anyone's guess. So, you may or may not get the same genetic Cornish X chicks from the hatcheries depending on which source their eggs come from and what particular lines were crossed that the eggs were produced from. Also, some of the hatcheries, especially those that have their own parent Cornish X type chicken flocks are of the strains first developed about 50 years ago and could be much different genetically.