when will we stop calling them "cornish cross"?

[Beekissed]

I don't know why we still refer to broilers as Cornish cross,that couldn't be further from the truth. Calling a broiler a "Cornish x" to me is like calling any other chicken by its original breeding. The birds, company's like Cobb/Vantress or Hubbard have are as close to a Cornish as a Cornish is to an Asil. these company's have birds that are pure breed and pedigreed,they have pedigree names such as Hubbards male line the "M99 or the M77" they have a list of different females for different growth rates such as the "Hubbard classic,the Flex,JA57,redbro M,just to name a few. Cobb has its own special pedigreed lines also like the "Avian48, Cobb500 and 700,their colored "range" bird breeder is called the Cobb Sasso150, now all these birds are PURE breed and pedigreed birds NOT "Cornish crosses"!! when these birds are bred together the resulting offspring is the modern BROILER. these company's NEVER refer to their birds as Cornish cross in any descriptions. so lets all PLEASE refer to these birds as what they are and that is :BROILERS (or meat birds ). thought I would just get that off my chest.

http://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/jumbo_cornish_x_rocks.html

http://www.cacklehatchery.com/cornishcrosspage.html

http://www.purelypoultry.com/cornish-cross-broilers-p-207.html

http://www.hoffmanhatchery.com/chicks.html

Well..you get the point. The companies that developed these birds may not refer to them as CX but the general public~and apparently, the hatcheries selling the chicks~ do out of pure expediency. I can't imagine trying to market these birds by "Hubbard classic, the Flex,JA57"...sounds like a car, for Pete's sake! It's big, it's a broiler, it's white and it comes from Cornish ancestry somewhere down that line that has been crossed with other strains or breeds...Cornish Cross seems to be the quickest way to describe it.

A broiler, on the other hand, is a compartment on the cook stove where you can make a mean steak if you are talented enough.

Why does it matter so much that it weighs upon your chest in this manner? It's for the same reason folks don't call their pedigreed pooches by their registered names...too darn long and complicated and much easier to call them in to dinner by shouting, "Here, Jake!!".

 

[free burd]

since when do commercial hatcheries set the standard for anything.
unless your standards are lowest common denominator mass production.

(though, i have seen backyard birds from Privett in NM that are superior to
show birds. i don't know how they do it but it is impressive - and they are big.)

i don't speak for the original poster but as for a lot of other americans
i have known around the country - it's tiring to have everything vulgarized
to mollify the 'herd' population.
make their name the accurate one and leave the 'drive through' convenience behind.

personally i would like to know the origin of every hatcheries offerings.
(as described by enel 1)

maybe the big question is, does anyone really know what is in them ?
maybe this thread should focus on that first.

cheers to Eric -enel 1 wave the flag of truth all you want.

 

[Beekissed]

Hey, folks have a right to get their panties in a bunch over anything they darn well please. I'm a firm believer that everyone should get to have their own personal pet peeves....mine just happens to be folks who get their panties bunched over something so trivial as the name of a chicken breed.

It's a c h i c k e n.

 

[Narragansett]

I'm surprised but glad to see that there are so many people here who strive to be correct. For those who don't like it, I have a hard time understanding how you can justify ignorance. For many it's just laziness, but some are proud to remain ignorant, as if using a technically correct word or a proper term is somehow conceited or snobish. For my part, I'd rather be corrected than continue to display my ignorance in subjects which I'm not quite familiar. Also, this incessant abbreviation for terms which are not commonly abbreviated is quite annoying. In poultry, an OEGB or maybe a RIR is universal. Very little else is, but today's text speak society seems not to think so.

Here's a quick list of commonly used incorrect terms or infantile abbreviations that comes to mind:

New Hampshire Red
Polish Crested or Polish Tophat
Blue Slate
Chinese (or sometimes Japanese) Silkie
Black Spanish
African Grey
Narri
Belgian Quail
Seabright
Buff Orpington Duck
Orp
Sebbie
Andalusian Blue
Dominecker
Peking Duck
Biddies, banties or bannies
Turken
SOP
Lavender instead of Self Blue
Boys and girls are human children. Ladies are classy adult human females.
Children are adopted, not animals, which are bought, sold or gifted.
Lockdown, unless you work, or are incarcerated in, prison
More than any other term used in poultry today, the word "roo" grates on my nerves, and makes it hard for me to take seriously anyone who uses it.

 

[punk-a-doodle]

I certainly can get behind politely worded arguments such as those arguing that mixed breeds, ie. "Easter eggers", should not share the same name as recognized and established breeds, ie. Ameraucana. Saying that a person will not be taken seriously as an individual if they dare to make a transgression however is certainly not how I would expect mature and balanced adults to act. Particularly on a forum geared towards helping beginners get started with chickens. I would however expect more experienced folk to politely share knowledge with the person in question. As for a fuss over what to call hybrid industry chickens...that one isn't going to cut it for me.

I could personally care less if someone calls a mix of an Australian cattle dog and an Australian (PS, the breed was not developed in Australia at all, yet it is in the recognized breed name) shepherd a "Texas heeler", a cattle dog mix, a heeler mix, a working mix, a cattley-shepadude,etc. There is no standardized name for such a mix. Same with industry hybrids. Unless you are in the industry (ie. though not a hybrid, you had best be calling a C57 mouse a C57 mouse in research, but if you do not work in research, calling it a "mouse" is perfectly acceptable), there is no authority on what to call a hybrid. Unless you have a group or organization of some kind to act as an official source to standardize something, than these industry hybrids will continue to be called everything from broilers to Cornish cross to oddly proportioned dumplings with legs. It would be hard to establish such a group for a bird that is not open sourced to the public. The industry itself seems to market the limited life stages of these hybrids using such terms as "Cornish game hens", so I probably wouldn't seek help from that area.

PS If passionate about standardizing a name for this commercial hybrid, I would start with groups and fairs that allow them to be shown. I have seen them labeled and entered under different names for show, which tells me there probably is no current show related authority on what to call them. Get some people together, and work on getting a single name recognized.

 

[Beekissed]

Yep. In the broad scheme of life and all things of importance, chickens and their proper breed names just doesn't rank real high for the normal person. They are an animal, they are food, I don't care what their breed name really is...this does not denote willful ignorance at all. It is called prioritizing what is really important in life and chickens fall about second to last on my long list of important things. Right in front of the election proceedings,which come in dead last.

If getting the general populace to conform to your ideas of the importance of proper labeling of breeds is of dire importance to you, one could argue that it is a trivial notion compared to peace, world strife, economic changes, polution, etc.

If getting the name of a chicken, or all chicken terminology, correct thereby defines a person's intelligence level, the inference is ludicrous. Take a step back and look at the big world out there...chickens are of very, very, very minor importance.

 

[Narragansett]

Very well worded ways of saying that even striving for mediocrity is a worthy goal, but don't even bother to challenge yourself to do that much. Enough of my tax money now goes toward supporting a class of people who have been taught that philosophy in life. It's not merely about what to call a chicken. It's about having a little self respect and becoming a productive human being instead of an ignoramus.

 

[Beekissed]

So..your tax dollars, my self respect and the extreme danger of being a nonproductive person hangs in the balance... and knowing the correct name of a breed of chicken will save all these things from being a total loss??? Gee, I didn't know that it was of THAT level of importance!!! So glad you told me. I could have went my whole life wasting your tax dollars and suffering from an extreme lack of self respect while lounging around in total nonproductive hell. Thanks for saving me from that dire fate!!!

Somehow, I think the world will still be intact in the morning and my self respect and productivity levels are assured at this point in my life. Can't really do much about your tax dollars, though...sure am sorry.

Mine were flushed down the same drain, I'm afraid.

 

[Clay Mudd]

. Rooster instead of cockerel for a young male,

For that matter "rooster" is a dumb term, invented because Americans were embarrassed saying "cock". Cockerels, hens and pullets roost, too.

But then, using "American" to mean people who live in the middle third of North America is kind of silly, too...

 

[Narragansett]

So..your tax dollars, my self respect and the extreme danger of being a nonproductive person hangs in the balance... and knowing the correct name of a breed of chicken will save all these things from being a total loss??? Gee, I didn't know that it was of THAT level of importance!!! So glad you told me. I could have went my whole life wasting your tax dollars and suffering from an extreme lack of self respect while lounging around in total nonproductive hell. Thanks for saving me from that dire fate!!!

Somehow, I think the world will still be intact in the morning and my self respect and productivity levels are assured at this point in my life. Can't really do much about your tax dollars, though...sure am sorry.

Mine were flushed down the same drain, I'm afraid.

Heap on the sarcasm all you want. It's not your self respect that I care about, it's mine. I don't want to go through life being ignorant about anything if I can help it. This is a general philosophy. It doesn't matter if the subject is as meaningless (to you) as chickens. Correct terminology is not a gray area, it either is or it isn't. If you want to go through life enabling those who are proud of being ignorant, so be it. I guess we still do need a class of folks who will always be there to ask if we want fries with our order.