what are broilers bred from?

[Julia26]

Hi there, sorry to be so ignorant... I'm not a breeder, just someone looking for information that's very hard to come by, as many of the posters have pointed out - the big companies like to keep their lucrative secrets.
All I want to know is: Are commercial broiler chickens just from Cornish and Rock - or are other strains mixed in? If other strains have been crossed with the Cornish Rock strains, how many generations back is that? And, if anyone knows what strains might be mixed in, that would be a lucky bonus!
Thank you!

 

[Lazy Farmer]

I am not to sure. I will have to research it.
Welcome to the site though!

 

[Nupe]

That is a closely guarded secret. From what I've heard, they keep 4 grandparent flocks so today's broilers are hybrids of hybrids. I doubt they still would call them any specific breed we would recognize but I believe the Cornish Rock is where they started.

 

[cppeace]

Yes, from what I've heard it started with white cornish and white rock cross and then several breeds (at least 3 total) were mixed in to get the now Grandfather stock and those grandfathers are a will breed true type of mix so technically a true breed. But the two parent breeds are mixed and those are what throw the now Cornish x we have.
So basically they bred a+b and got c,bred c with d and got e, bred e back to c or b and got f bred e back to c and got g they breed g+f and get h. That's one side and then did the same thing on the other side of the genes. It took at least that many crosses but probably more and took at least 10+ years to get the basic and then perfected it from there.