Standard Cornish vs. Cornish-X

[CARS]

Quote:
It all comes back to the subject heading, CARS. You can't talk about CX and its strengths and weaknesses without talking about sustainability, and you can't talk about sustainability without talking about local economies. It is all interconnected.

The CX is not a sustainable bird because it must be shipped in every season. Well, the question about the need to travel in order to sell a more sustainable bird like the standard Cornish is valid counterargument that needs a response.

READ the question for christ's sake!!

"GoodEnough wrote:

I am thinking about getting meat birds this year (somewhere between 10 - 25). A person we know whose raised chickens (including yearly batches of meat birds) suggested going with standard Cornish - not the hybrid She said that the standards don't have leg problems, don't have as much waterbelly problems and she felt they weren't quite as stinky. Now right here Buster, she is getting false information. Many of us have already proven that we can raise a Cornish X to a great size without those problems. GET IT???Now, the chicken lady at the feed store claims that the quality of the Cornish-X is based on the genetics of the bird (not the actual "breed"). Any opinions on the Cornish vs. Cornish-X issue? The quality of the bird. Not how it is raised, transported, cooked. GET IT???

I am just looking for tasty birds that are healthy, finished at a young age and have a good feed conversion. I can find the Cornish-X locally, however the standard Cornish I would have to mail order." Finished at a young age. Cornish X is better than the standard here. Good feed conversion. Cornish X is better than the standard here too. She can get the Cornish X LOCALLY. Isn't that what you have been preaching???

Forgive my attitude this morning but you keep bringing things into the conversation that have no place being in THIS conversation. The belong on the sufficent self forum. We are trying to help the OP determine the difference. Each has their pros and cons but in every question the OP asked, the Cornish X is the clear answer FOR THEM! I swear, if you bring up food miles again I am going to reach through my screen and slap you

(I would never do that, just kidding

)

 

[CARS]

Forgot to add a BIG point. The OP is NOT looking for sustainability. Not ONCE was that mentioned.

 

[Bossroo]

Buster's vision model of sustainablility and local consumption of chickens works pretty well to supply him and his family and maybe a few more with the available resourses that he has available to him. Good for him. It works in a rural area of a third world country to feed that family and maybe a few more. But when one has to feed several million mouths every day who does not have a clue as to how to or even a desire to raise a chicken or the needed land or process one much less thausands needed, His view of sustainablilty starts to fall apart. There is not enough available land for one thing also no efficiency of labor for another as well as not enough time to supply the meat that he would need. He would be stretched too thin to even try to do so for even a day. . There is little need for Tyson to ship chickens from Arkansas to California. Within 70 miles from my front door there are HUGE grain elevators that get their grain from local co op grain farmers . The grain elevators then process the grain into chicken feed that they supply several local HUGE Cornish X contract chicken growing barns. No other chicken breed would come even close in supplying the pounds of meat needed in the shortest time frame possible. They send the finished grown birds to a HUGE processing plant ( Zacky Farms) that operates 24 hours a day 7 days a week. These chickens are hatched, fed and raised within 30 miles of the processing plant. Who in turn send out a parade of refrigerated trucks to distribute the fresh frozen chickens to grocery stores within a radius of 250 miles. There are other HUGE processing plants on eather end of Cal. because it does not make economic sence for a driver to run an empty truck on a return trip that takes a whole day and a one way 1,000 miles to return just to supply Cal.. There is a similar processing plant for turkeys ( Zacky Farms) about 20 miles from me that operates the same way. Division of specialized full time labor, and maximum full time use of facilities as well as efficient use of transportation for distribution equates to minimal use of oil per bird that ends up on millions of someone's dinner table at $0.69 a pound. Pretty local and sustainable, I would think.

 

[Buster52]

"Any opinions on the Cornish vs. Cornish-X issue?"

I think "any opinions" opens up the subject considerably, CARS. I said I don't believe the CX is either healthy on sustainable. You, Jeff, and others challenged me on both points. I responded to those, and that is how discussions evolve.

When someone asks my opinion about the CX, they are going to get it, especially when it is in comparison to my favorite meat bird.

 

[KatyTheChickenLady]

This is a very interesting discussion by some very informed individuals from both sides of the original question "Any opinions on the Cornish vs. Cornish-X issue?".
I've been learning and growing my information store from both sides, and really appreciate the OP for broaching the subject.
If someone is uninterested in the discussion or the length of it, perhaps they should read a different thread. As it is, it is one of the few discussions currently going on about meat birds and therefor of value to some of us.

 

[TimG]

I'm enjoying the discussion even if it was not exactly what the opening poster intended.

I think that as long as there are big cities, or urban areas, it will be impossible to achieve a food supply that is based upon local consumption of locally grown foods.

I suspect there is little difference between the costs of transporting a single farmer's chickens a couple hours drive to a farmer's market in a big city and Purdue's costs of transporting tractor trailer loads of chickens from Arkansas to California. At least on a per chicken basis. And, would not be surprised to find that Purdue actually consumes fewer gallons of gasoline per pound of meat in getting their chickens to market than the local farmer consumes.

We all have our own ideas of "local", "sustainable", "self-sufficient" and "independent". How many of us grow our own oranges, or buy the oranges we use for orange juice from local farmers? Coffee? The hops used to produce our beer in local breweries? I don't drink coffee or beer, so I've got that covered, but I do drink OJ and haven't noticed many orange tree groves in this part of Maine. Nor are there many sugar plantations here in Maine. When I bake homemade muffins and cookies I use a bit of sugar (and the associated fuels needed to transport the sugar from where ever it is grown and processed to my home).

Is buying Cornish Cross chicks for a large hatchery every spring much different than buying sugar at the grocery store?

Even without the need to feed urbanites with food that isn't grown or raised in the city, how many of us buy our knives from local craftsman who get their metal from the ore in the local hills? Are your cotton briefs made with locally grown cotton, harvested by hand (or machines built locally of local products), and weaved in local mills by machinery produced locally?

Perhaps these sound like silly questions. But, I don't think they're any more silly than concern about whether the chicken your family consumes came from a heritage breed hatched and raised on your own farm or a Cornish Cross shipped to a farmer who raised it and took it to market.

 

[Buster52]

Quite simply, Tim, it is about shrinking your circle. You eat and buy as locally as you can. You eat regionally and you eat seasonally, at least to the extent you can. Read that first book I mentioned, AVM. The author and her family did one of those year-in-the-life projects where you set about to do a certain thing or live in a certain way over a year's time and then write about it.

In this case, it was about eating locally. They either raised or purchased nothing but locally grown food over the period of a year. Preferably, food they grew themselves. Each family member could have a single exception to the rule, like coffee imported fair trade or fruit from California. Because she is a quality novelist, it reads like a story, and because she is a scientist by training, her research is methodical. They quite often substituted one thing for another, like using local honey in place of sugar quite often, although sugar may have been on their list of exceptions.

Anyway, they succeeded, but then at the end of the year, they went back to some semblance of normalcy, but still eating everything in season, and making a few more exceptions to their local eating system. They still forgo bananas year round and California our South American lettuce in the winter. If it is something that is grown locally, they eat it fresh in season or preserved, or not at all.

Proponents of local sustainable agriculture admit to the thorny issue of feeding large urban areas with local food, but that doesn't mean we can't do better than we are doing. At the turn of the 20th century and again during WWII, it was all the rage to farm vacant lots and green areas in cities, and allow for the keeping of at least some livestock within city limits. Small farms could dot the countryside providing food for nearby metropolitan areas using Salatin-style farming where multiple species are run over the same acreage to maximize use. Garden farms could produce all of the in season vegetables a city needs using intensive gardening methods.

But I believe it can be done. The Chinese fed their always large population for forty centuries using intensive local farming techniques, and I believe we can do it again, particularly given advanced sustainable farming techniques. We may not be able to eat quite as much meat as we currently do, but I believe the current system is an anomaly anyway, and not really all the healthy.

Sustainable farming is not just a niche and it is not a fad. It is a growing system and our only hope for survival. It is the future of farming.

 

[Brunty_Farms]

Tim G and Boss - that's what I was trying to say... thanks for elaborating it. I'm running out of words to express the way I feel anymore... I've done what I can! LOL.

Buster-

I agree with a lot of the stuff your saying, but I wouldn't compare our food to the Chinese. Have you ever been there? I haven't but I know people that have and seen a lot of pictures. The country is crazy poor. The use up every resource the can... fish... any kind of moving thing becomes food. That is the farthest thing away from sustainable that I can think of. This country along with Japan, uses mast resources and go through great measures to keep whale, dolphin, and what ever else that is in the sea on their menu. They are not the example that we should follow. I will never buy any type of food form China... period. The way they do things over there is just god awful. Dogs and horses even end up on the menu... just way too many people.

We need to develop a system that they can follow... because theirs is just completely out of whack right along with ours.

 

[Brunty_Farms]

suspect there is little difference between the costs of transporting a single farmer's chickens a couple hours drive to a farmer's market in a big city and Purdue's costs of transporting tractor trailer loads of chickens from Arkansas to California. At least on a per chicken basis. And, would not be surprised to find that Purdue actually consumes fewer gallons of gasoline per pound of meat in getting their chickens to market than the local farmer consumes.

There isn't, which is why the cost is so cheap. Also to point out Boss's point about local economy. Most of these plants are located within miles of the actual chicken farms that raise the chickens. They aren't traveling 2,000 miles like Busters book describes. I believe that fact is geared more towards produce than meats.... especially on chicken products. Also from the plant most products are only going a few hours away, especially when just about every state has Tyson chicken farms/plants/distribution centers in them... The issue of travel is not the concern. It's they way they do everything else. But the travel part of it, is no different if you take 42,000 lbs to Atlanta or if you take 3,000 lbs to Atlanta.​

 

[95yj]

how did this turn from a cx vs. cornish thread into a local diversified polyculture farming vs. national industrial monoculture agricultural raising techniques debate AGAIN? very interesting though...