Starting staggered hatching adventure

[Redhead Rae]

Do you frequent any of the meat bird threads? Maybe some people there have figured out better fertility with them.

I'll do that.

I'm thinking if I don't start getting fertile eggs within a month or so, I'm going to swap the Cornish rooster for one of my other roosters and see what happens.

 

[Kiki]

I'll do that.

I'm thinking if I don't start getting fertile eggs within a month or so, I'm going to swap the Cornish rooster for one of my other roosters and see what happens.

Sounds great to me!

 

[Redhead Rae]

My new thread about meat bird fertility.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...h-fertility-graphic-egg-topsy-photos.1223178/

 

[Redhead Rae]

I talked to a Cornish group on FB and their thinking as to why I'm having issues are as follows:

• They routinely only get fertile eggs from spring to mid summer (Cornish don't breed well in the cold).
• My protein levels are too high and I've allowed my birds to get fat (I doubt this one, but I do need to check body condition).
• The Cockerel is only 10 months and hasn't figured out his technique yet.
• The hens might be refusing the Cockerel and I need to remove them for 2 weeks, let him "own" the space and reintroduce them.

 

[apryl29]

Interesting. I kind of get the 'technique' part. Maybe wait til you get a nice day and pull up a chair to see if he's getting the job done. It'd also help you decided if you need to separate him from the girls.
Do you eat the cornish eggs, or have you only been saving them to hatch? If you eat them too, I'd check them and see if they're fertilized when you're using them. It'd at least give you a baseline of fertilization rates.

 

[WVduckchick]

I remember another member here a while back tried different roosters. I can't remember which breed though. Of course that would change the offspring, but it seems they still turned out well.
I'll see if i can find some more details.

 

[Redhead Rae]

Interesting. I kind of get the 'technique' part. Maybe wait til you get a nice day and pull up a chair to see if he's getting the job done. It'd also help you decided if you need to separate him from the girls.
Do you eat the cornish eggs, or have you only been saving them to hatch? If you eat them too, I'd check them and see if they're fertilized when you're using them. It'd at least give you a baseline of fertilization rates.

No, we don’t eat the eggs. We only want to hatch them. We eat eggs from our birds that we raised on organic feed. These birds were not raised on organic, but we’ll hatch from them. Any eggs we don’t hatch go to my parents dogs and the cat.

 

[Rubysword]

Cornish are the meat birds, right?*hides under chair*

 

[Redhead Rae]

Cornish are the meat birds, right?*hides under chair*

Yes indeedy. They are one of the parent breeds behind the Cornish X hybrid birds that you see in the grocery stores. Of course, they are now more specialized than the traditional Dark Cornish I have. They take longer to grow to the size of a supermarket bird and they will be tougher and have more flavor because of that. This is a picture of my birds.

 

[apryl29]

Yes indeedy. They are one of the parent breeds behind the Cornish X hybrid birds that you see in the grocery stores. Of course, they are now more specialized than the traditional Dark Cornish I have. They take longer to grow to the size of a supermarket bird and they will be tougher and have more flavor because of that. This is a picture of my birds.

View attachment 1276604 View attachment 1276605 View attachment 1276606

IDK why, but for some reason I thought all cornish birds were white. Probably b/c when we go to fairs all the meat birds are white. Those are beautiful. Are those full grown for processing or did you keep those longer for breeding?