What is a strict diet for a Cornish Cross?

[red horse ranch]

just feed it once a day only put just enough for what she can eat & let it roam that what I have done thy get around fine and I also give half cup three hours before bed time

I have had the big girl in the yard for 5 days now. She sleeps in a dog kennel and roams the yard thru the day. I've noticed a big difference in her mobility. At first she would only walk a few feet. Now she waddle/runs to the feed 30' away. I feed her a small amount twice a day and she's eating grass a lot more. Her comb is bright red and she is 17 weeks old so I wonder if she will lay an egg... I know she still won't live a long time but she seems to be enjoying life.
When the time comes she may be a week of food for us but for now it's just a pleasure to watch her finally become an almost normal chicken.

 

[JDN]

I have had the big girl in the yard for 5 days now. She sleeps in a dog kennel and roams the yard thru the day. I've noticed a big difference in her mobility. At first she would only walk a few feet. Now she waddle/runs to the feed 30' away. I feed her a small amount twice a day and she's eating grass a lot more. Her comb is bright red and she is 17 weeks old so I wonder if she will lay an egg... I know she still won't live a long time but she seems to be enjoying life.
When the time comes she may be a week of food for us but for now it's just a pleasure to watch her finally become an almost normal chicken.

I've read that the way to make them move is make them move to their food.

 

[aydogdu1979]

I have a almost 4 month old Cornish cross that must weight 10 lbs or more. The temp got up to 103 today and she was suffering a lot from too much fat. I have put her in a grassy pen under a tree to help her stay a little cooler but I want to really limit her food. She can eat grass but what's the least other food that I should give her to make her lose weight? She's been eating an all grain all flock feed along with the other normal young pullets. I also have poultry developer in a hanging feeder inside their pen. Is there anything else I should be doing to help her?
I realize she won't be a long lived bird but I'd like to make her more comfortable if I can. There's no way we will eat her.

Hi,

I just came across your post. One of the chicks I purchased from tractor supply turned out to be a cornish cross. She is overweight, around 10 lbs and cannot walk but waddle. I cannot butcher because my daughter loves this one and the other chicks. I see you had similar problems in the past and I was wondering if she could lose weight. Does reducing the food work? any other suggestions other than butchering?

 

[Weeg]

Hi,

I just came across your post. One of the chicks I purchased from tractor supply turned out to be a cornish cross. She is overweight, around 10 lbs and cannot walk but waddle. I cannot butcher because my daughter loves this one and the other chicks. I see you had similar problems in the past and I was wondering if she could lose weight. Does reducing the food work? any other suggestions other than butchering?

Can you post a separate thread on this topic? This thread is quite old and you might not get the information you need. Feel free to tag me to the thread and I would love to help. I have experience keeping Cornish X as pets.
This is how you tag- @aydogdu1979

 

[HomesteadNowhere]

Hi,

I just came across your post. One of the chicks I purchased from tractor supply turned out to be a cornish cross. She is overweight, around 10 lbs and cannot walk but waddle. I cannot butcher because my daughter loves this one and the other chicks. I see you had similar problems in the past and I was wondering if she could lose weight. Does reducing the food work? any other suggestions other than butchering?

The short answer is basically too late, keep her happy til she dies or needs put down.

Meat birds put on weight well because they've been bred heavily for those traits. Any food they get their body is going to do it's best to make a heavy meat bird.
Just decrease feed isn't going to fix it because the biggest problem is going to be internal fat, which isn't easy to exercise off and is hard to tell how bad it is because it is all inside the body cavity. Also, decreasing feed means you decrease the vitamins and everything else the chicken needs. So you would need to get a mineral supplement to give them what they need no matter the feed amount.

In my experience.. I raised freedom rangers this year. I wanted to experiment with breeding from the hens so I restricted their feed from the start. Their feed intake started increasing more than the non-meat chicks pretty much the first week. I fed 25 rangers the same amount I was feeding 50 non-meat chicks and they would have been happy with twice that.
Soon they reached the adult amount of feed and I never fed them more than the .25# feed per bird "rule of thumb" for adult birds.
I kept 10 pullets. They are now 37wks old and laying. They are getting fat internally and I'm not sure how long they will go. Even having been on restricted feed this whole time, living in a chickshaw, and having space to run around in movable netting.

For pullets or hens alot of internal fat can cause them to not lay as much or stop completely, or to become eggbound. That fat is also squeezing the organs, there is a finite amount of space in there, and they can just die from that.

 

[aydogdu1979]

The short answer is basically too late, keep her happy til she dies or needs put down.

Meat birds put on weight well because they've been bred heavily for those traits. Any food they get their body is going to do it's best to make a heavy meat bird.
Just decrease feed isn't going to fix it because the biggest problem is going to be internal fat, which isn't easy to exercise off and is hard to tell how bad it is because it is all inside the body cavity. Also, decreasing feed means you decrease the vitamins and everything else the chicken needs. So you would need to get a mineral supplement to give them what they need no matter the feed amount.

In my experience.. I raised freedom rangers this year. I wanted to experiment with breeding from the hens so I restricted their feed from the start. Their feed intake started increasing more than the non-meat chicks pretty much the first week. I fed 25 rangers the same amount I was feeding 50 non-meat chicks and they would have been happy with twice that.
Soon they reached the adult amount of feed and I never fed them more than the .25# feed per bird "rule of thumb" for adult birds.
I kept 10 pullets. They are now 37wks old and laying. They are getting fat internally and I'm not sure how long they will go. Even having been on restricted feed this whole time, living in a chickshaw, and having space to run around in movable netting.

For pullets or hens alot of internal fat can cause them to not lay as much or stop completely, or to become eggbound. That fat is also squeezing the organs, there is a finite amount of space in there, and they can just die from that.

Thanks for the reply. After a couple of days of my initial message here, she completely stopped waddling, not taking a single step, even could not stand, just lying on the coop all the time. I realized irritation on her bottom part and other chickens started to poop on her as they were stepping on her. This is sad to say, my father in-law butchered to end her misery.

 

[Torinik]

Sorry to read that, but you did the right thing. Hope your daughter isn't too upset by it. It can maybe serve as a life lesson, the whole circle of life thing and so on. Good luck with your other chickens.

 

[CNJ]

The only thing that will make my Cornish X walk around is food. I have been thinking of putting straw in her pen and throw scratch feed, so she gets some exercise.