Tips for first time meat bird owner

[GracePoultry]

Is it normal to have sone color variation in the chicks since they are a cross. This one has white skin and lighter feathers and all the others have orange skin
(I wasnt squeezing him)

 

[FunClucks]

Is it normal to have sone color variation in the chicks since they are a cross. This one has white skin and lighter feathers and all the others have orange skin
(I wasnt squeezing him)
View attachment 4129040
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What breed do you have / did you intend to purchase?

 

[GracePoultry]

What breed do you have / did you intend to purchase?

they are cornish cross

 

[FunClucks]

There are a number of different parent strains of Cornish Cross. They're all trademarked, copyrighted, or patented in some way to protect the commercial value of the strains for the producer. The producer sells either eggs or chicks. The eggs/chicks are created using 4 parent flocks that the producer carefully guards and maintains and breeds together to create the CX chicks. Each parent strain is each a bit different. Your chick looks fine to me. Now if it grows slower, has a different body type, etc, then it might be something different, but if it's the same size as the others, you should be fine.

If the hatchery can tell you which strain of CX you have, you can get more info on their specific details. In a non-commercial environment, all strains of CX mostly behave and grow about the same. The average chicken keeper doesn't monitor or track things closely enough to tell much difference, or the differences are so small as not to matter. In a commercial environment, where an extra or missing ounce or two per bird at a specific processing age matters, you will see the differences. Commercially, these differences for each strain, plus all details relating to their care are tracked and analyzed to optimize meat production.

Common strains include Ross 308, Cobb 500, Cobb Avian 48, and more. I like to get my CX from Welp hatchery, not sure which strain they use but they've been large, vigorous, and healthy as chicks, and grew nicely. Here's a thread of discussion about this topic, there are many more on this site if you look.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/how-many-types-of-cornish-cross-are-there.1108906/