1. They are not engineered to live past 10 or 12 weeks.
Yes, they are. You are very good at assuming things. Read more literature that isn't biased. Where do you think the parents/grandparents of these birds come from? Have you ever raised any? I have... I've seen them first hand and know that they are no different than the offspring that they produce. Basically they are different lines fed a stricter diet than their offspring. If you raise the parents on 24/7 feed you get the same end result. Your classifying them as a terminal breed or hybrid.... based on what you have read not experience. Just because they are used for meat on the mass scale that they are, doesn't make them any less different than your DP breeds. Chickens are chickens.
2. Nobody raises them past that on a regular basis the way we do heritage breeds, so there is no way to know if it can be done. Five or six hens (I see no mention of roosters) is not a scientific sampling. You would need a much larger sampling to determine what the morbidity rate was and whether or not that rate was acceptable.
And why not? Because of the assumptions that one makes? Or thinks? Why raise them if everyone tells you it's a bad idea? Why is it such a bad idea? I have 8 hens to be exact, the pictures are about 2-3 weeks old maybe older. I can get new ones for you if you would like. I didn't have any extra roosters available, they were all spoken for by my customers. It's rare for me to have even 8 hens (which by the way took 2 batches to get). Your right, I do need more sampling and 8 is not a good enough representation for all of them. But right now by picking 8 of the best hens... not one has died. We will see how long that last. I will keep some roosters out of the next good batch I get. I didn't like the growth rate of any of the roosters this year which is why I'm switching hatcheries.
3. There is a great deal of evidence of attendant physical problems even with Cornish X who are butchered when recommended at 6 to 8 weeks of age.
In commercial set ups yes.... not in the ones I've been raising in the past 10 years.
4. Seems to me you have mentioned losses higher than 10% for birds butchered within that time frame. It stands to reason morbidity would be even higher if they were frequently raised beyond their expected brief lifespan. "Fickle" I believe you called them. They are apparently even worse when raised in confinement, according to your reports. I do not want to raise a bird whose hold on life can be characterized as fickle.
LOL, Yes they are fickle. If you want to achieve the results desired in the time desired it can be a headache to get them all ready at the same time. It's more of an art than anything, so ya they are very fickle so to speak if your trying to achieve your goals. Everything comes into play, even the wind. Too much wind they get chilled... not enough and they get hot or even worse they stop eating. However don't assume that they are fickle as a breed/hybrid. They are very tough, I can raise them all day long with my eyes closed if I fed them a 16% chick grower and let them live out their life. However if you want them ready by a certain time...6-7 weeks... it's very hard to achieve that goal in a pasture based system.
I have, sometimes hitting 15% is where we end up by the end of a batch. However 5-8% is normal. Take in consideration the factors here... don't assume. Out of 100 chicks 2-3 die in transit which is normal for any shipped chicks. Lots of times I get perfect shipments. After that take another 1-2% for weak birds that will die within 3 days because they can not find the water or were just not strong enough. SO within 3 days I'm already down to 5% loss. Factor in the 1% for leg problems and 5% that didn't grow because of stunted genes... that is a total of 11% not including any weather run ins that I have, which happens all the time. Rain usually being the biggest problem or cold weather. Never have a problem with hot weather and it is 90 degrees here in the summer. Keep in mind that the stunted growth ones are not culls right on the spot... they are culls after processing. They are put into my freezer not my customers. They resemble the size of a DP breed at 14 weeks. So realistically only 1% is due to genetic issues, the rest is normal, which is the case with any chicks you raise. It seems like that I'm being protective of the percentage of bad genetics but it truly is only that low and only 2-4% in big commercial flocks which is still not bad. The reason why it's an issue is the fact that out of 100 thousand chicks. 4,000 are going to have leg troubles... and that is a lot of birds. But when you break it down to my level, give them exercise and put them on pasture your only talking 1 out 100 birds.... which given the genetics of this hybrid... that's awesome.
5. Those CX in your picture look remarkably small to me. I would have expected adult birds to be much larger. I have to wonder if you purposely selected the runts of the batch to raise to adulthood, which would then skew the results.
Man, you have a real bad tendency of assuming things. I don't mean to sound like a broken record but quit assuming, ask me first. If you understand genetics at all, you know enough to understand that if you pick the runts your not going to get very far. Those birds in that picture look to be 8-10 weeks I'm not exactly sure. However I do know that it took 400 birds to get those 8, so they were the biggest females out of those batches. So no, the results are not skewed... they look small because they being treated like broiler breeders... not the typical broiler that your used to seeing. I picked out the biggest females at 5 weeks of age and slowed them way down, so their bone structure could catch up to the muscle mass.
A good chef can make even a 4 year old rooster taste like a cornish game hen. So it's unfair to judge birds by a chef as each one is different even if they are all cooked the same way. I can tell you this, the BBW you raised this year tasted better than the store bought. Those were your own words... not exact but you get my point. Now if you let those same BBW grow to the age of a standard Bourbon or Holland... the taste would be extremely similar. A lot of those results are coming from biased organizations such as Mother Earth News.... they are horrible as they have no clue, basically a bunch of writers trying to be farmers.
Breeds are not that huge in taste difference. You could do a blind taste test with about 15 breeds.... get told exactly what's what.... repeat the test in a week... and you wouldn't be able to tell the breeds apart. Very small taste difference. It would not be like tasting chicken, turkey, duck, pheasant, or emu. All of those meats are very easy to distinguish apart. Chicken however is just chicken.... barely a difference in breeds... huge difference in age.
I'm sure this can go back and forth all day, but in the end facts are facts. Personal assumptions are simply opinions and everyone has one. We all know the old saying about assUmeing.....
