What exactly is a cornish cross?

[RollinWithTheStones]

Is it just a cornish hen crossed with any other male or a specific breed of male?

 

[Cedarknob]

No, the lines of birds developed for commercial use and sold to us as day olds from hatcheries are a synthetic blend, usually of four parent lines, developed to provide the terminal chick we purchase. The original "Cornish cross" is obsolete, but the name remains in use by the hatcheries.

 

[Bullitt]

Is it just a cornish hen crossed with any other male or a specific breed of male?

The Cornish Cross chicken is a cross between the Cornish chicken and a White Plymouth Rock chicken. Sometimes they call them Cornish Rocks.

I do not know about the commercial chickens.

 

[Pele]

The original cross is Cornish/Plymouth, but the 'Cornish Cross' chickens today are far developed beyond that original crossing. If you were to perform the cross yourself, you'd get a good meat bird that can free-range and develops to meat capacity within the first year of life. I'd highly recommend doing the original cross, as free-ranging improves meat taste drastically.

The genetics in modern 'Cornish Crosses' leads to a very unfortunate animal that reaches it's harvesting weight at 8 weeks or so, and often cannot survive much past that point, or breed on it's own. I personally can't stand even looking at them because I feel they're such a violation of good animal stewardship. Just my opinion and personal view of them though.

 

[RollinWithTheStones]

I'm not allowed to have roos, but do you think I could find someone on CL to do the cross for me?