Where is the best place to buy Cornish X Rock chicks?

[brownstoneranch]

I am just about to get into raising meat birds and wondered where the best place is to purchase Cornish X rocks? Also, it is better to get straight run or males, females?

Thanks,

Kim

 

[4-H chicken mom]

We have gotten them from Meyer and Ridgeway hatcheries. Most of the time we were getting only roos, but then that was for showing results. If you are ordering quite a few, straight run would work as well. That way you can have some smaller and some larger birds to process.

 

[Cowgirl71]

We got our first batch of meaties from Welp last summer and we were very happy with them. We ordered 50 males, and they sent 53. Two were DOA. One died at 6.5 weeks old due to my brother's rough handling. We did not lose any other birds (which I've heard is rare with Cornish Xs). 50 birds made it to butchering age of 8-10 weeks. They averaged about 5# dressed weight. We'll be ordering again this year!

If you're raising them for meat, males are much more feed efficient, but if you get straight run then you don't have to butcher them all at once. Butcher the larger males, and then a week later butcher the smaller females.

ETA: We chose Welp because they were VERY reasonably priced, we have heard nothing but good things about their meat birds, and because since they specialize in their Cornish Xs, I figured they'd have some good ones.

 

[Omniskies]

If you wanted to hatch out your own I have someone I can get the eggs from. I can't remember which of the strains the eggs are from - whichever one Tyson uses.

 

[SteveH]

Quote:
They've raised their prices for 2011 , but still unbeatable . http://www.schlechthatchery.com/chickens.htm
If you want to process in two groups , or all at once with two different sizes for the freezer , straight run works well due to the faster/bigger growth of the males .

 

[brownstoneranch]

There prices are great, but with the shipping they charge, they are the same price as Welp Hatchery that is in Iowa too.

thanks for the response.

Kim

 

[E.G.Glayer]

I have had very good luck with Mt Healthy Hatchery (Cornish Rock X)out of Cincinnati Ohio and Ideal (Red Broilers) from Cameron Texas. This year my meaties all 125 will be coming from Mt Healthy. They offer free bonus chicks which are just surplus males 25 freebies for every 50 chicks purchased. Shipping to my postal zone is 18 bucks for 175 chicks.

 

[brownstoneranch]

How long do you keep the chicks inside before they feather out enough to go outside? What is the minimum area I can safely keep 125 birds in? Do you butcher at 8 weeks or sooner? I know this is lots of questions, but this is my first time doing this and I am still trying to figure out what I need to do to be set up for this.

Thanks,

Kim

 

[Cowgirl71]

Quote:
Copied from "Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens"

(this is per bird)

0-2 weeks --- 0.5 sq ft
2-8 weeks --- 1 sq ft
8+ weeks --- 2-3 sq ft

The more space you give them however, the less you'll have to clean their pen. Using these numbers, we had to clean their pen every day (they poop a LOT).


We moved ours outside at three weeks. Reason being because they were stinking up the entire house really bad, even though we changed the bedding every day. We moved them outside into a cattle trailer (that we predator-proofed) with a couple heat lamps. It was a warm September and they did fine. We purposely got them in late August so that it would be nice and warm for them, but by butchering time in October the flies would be gone.


As far as age to butcher, that's kinda hard to say. The older they get, the higher chance they have of dieing from fast-growth related issues, but the bigger they'll be. We kept ours on a 12 hours with feed, 12 hours without regimen that Welp recommended to keep them from growing too big too fast. At eight weeks we butchered half of them (picking the biggest ones). The smaller birds we gave another two weeks to grow. Without the bigger birds competing for feed, they grew well. We butchered these at ten weeks old.

 

[Junkmanme]

SteveH,

I looked at the Schlecht Hatchery website. Good Prices, it seems.

BUT....I got to wondering.......(because I had some German language in High School).....

WHY don't the owners of Schlecht Hatchery change the name?

see this for translation of "schlecht" from German to English:

http://www.dict.cc/german-english/schlecht.html

Ha-Ha !!!
-Junkmanme-