White Cornish: Building a Quality, Sustainable Flock for Meat and More.....

[JRNash]

And you know, as long as I've wanted this breed they really are perfect to me. I will do my best to continue your hard work FD. I started wanting to "improve" my heritage birds last year. The new pens will make it possible.

 

[Dave C]

Think this breed will really suit you JR and It's good to see you've found some quality birds to start with.

Good luck with them

 

[Fat Daddy]

I dont have any pix of cull chicks with the exception of color flaws. That was more of a "line" thing I was trying to get rid of the first few years. As far as physical conformation, those calls cant really be made till the birds are much older. In fact that is one of the unfortunate parts of this breed. By the time the bird is old enough to develop to its full potential. Its too old to be used as a fryer. A bird that looks to be a poor example of the breed at 16 weeks, can change dramatically by 24 weeks..... I try to keep several "Just in case" cockerels every year. Doing this really allows one to see just how much the birds change as they mature. Almost without fail, in the spring a bird in the "just in case" pen, will shade one chosen as a breeder the previous fall. This is where you really have to choose what you want your flock to be geared towards. "Meat" birds and "SOP" birds are chosen differently. If I want my flock to be the best meat birds I can make them. I choose birds that mature and look good early. When breeding toward the SOP, well fast maturing, biggest bird possible only looks good for the first few months. Im sure there have been many occasions that I have eaten what would have been the better examples if they had been given the time.

 

[Fat Daddy]

Here are a example of the color flaws I mentioned before. These birds all feather out completely white by their final molt if allowed the time. Just not what I was looking for in my flock.

 

[Fat Daddy]

Here are some examples of birds that will fool you as well. This group is from a line that is actually very expensive from a respected breeder. Notice the cockerel. He has a rusty bleed that didnt start to show till he was approaching 16 weeks old. At the time I was short of breeding stock and actually considered using him. Im so glad I didnt. I culled him a few weeks after this pick was taken. I kept the pullets and in hind sight, should have culled them as well. BTW, I contacted the original breeder about the rusty bleed. He admitted that about 25% of his cockerels showed this as they got their final molt. He felt it could be traced to WLR in the background.... I agreed at first but not so sure now. I feel it could very well be just a dominate white gene covering red and allowing some bleed. Either way, not what we're looking for....

If you look at the pullets in the pic above, the one on the left looks good. She's thick, tail straight with the line of her back. Wings held tight and high. You cant see it in this pic but she is wide across the back too. The one on the right is lessor but still a acceptable bird. But if you look at the pic below. The same pullets the next spring, They grew out nicely, wings good. breast and backs wide and thick. Good eyes, shanks short and relatively thick. But now show tail sets that tend to point upward....These 2 girls are the mothers of what is now pen "C"....... The color flaw their brother showed still pops up now and then but is fairly rare. Yeah, the pen "C" line needs the most work.

 

[JRNash]

Giving the birds time to mature before selection for breeding will be easy for me. Most of the birds I eat are in gumbo,dumplings,soups or shredded dishes. The DW gets on to me for eating fried foods. I was wondering about your feeding regime FD. I keep my egg layers on high protein until 4 to 6 weeks free choice. My meat turkeys are on high protein for the duration. Probably not ideal for their health but I want to see how they grow from now to slaughter weight. The Cots and the bobs get the high protein for life. I do keep one bowl of laying crumble in their pen once they hit laying age. The Cornish as with all my chicks are on the high protein free choice,also in the air condition. How and when do you go to a grower? Protein requirements at this age ect?
I know from personal experiments the high protein till first crow has dramatic effects in size and feathering

 

[Fat Daddy]

I stay with starter, 20% protein for longer than most.... till they are all 16 weeks or so. Then I usually switch to a flock raiser for a few months.... by late fall everyone gets the same 16% layena and stays on it. I only keep one feed till the chicks hatch again in the spring. Everyone on the same feed makes life a lot simpler.... Iv heard stories of cockerels getting too much calcium from the layer ration, cause'n kidney failure etc.... I have never seen any issues of the sort. But to be honest my program uses a bird for 2 seasons. Which makes the oldest bird 3 years old. That may be why it's never been a problem... all my birds have feed most of the time.... I fill all feeders every afternoon. The only ones that are ever empty are the teenagers in the growout pens. What is left they paddle out on the ground looking for choice morsels.

 

[Lauravonsmurf]

Well happy news for me, I was double checking the current rules for my area on flock size and there has been some changes in my favor... one reason I started with just two birds was to deal with the codes and allow me to add a few years latter. So now I can rethink my plans...

 

[Fairview01]

I stay with starter, 20% protein for longer than most.... till they are all 16 weeks or so. Then I usually switch to a flock raiser for a few months.... by late fall everyone gets the same 16% layena and stays on it. I only keep one feed till the chicks hatch again in the spring. Everyone on the same feed makes life a lot simpler.... Iv heard stories of cockerels getting too much calcium from the layer ration, cause'n kidney failure etc.... I have never seen any issues of the sort. But to be honest my program uses a bird for 2 seasons. Which makes the oldest bird 3 years old. That may be why it's never been a problem... all my birds have feed most of the time.... I fill all feeders every afternoon. The only ones that are ever empty are the teenagers in the growout pens. What is left they paddle out on the ground looking for choice morsels.

What do you think of feeding a higher protein content feed than necessary but then cutting that protein by feeding a reasonable quantity of scratch (Gone in under 30 minuted) twice a day. I did some reading of bygone family farm practices recommending this as a way to stretch the feed dollar but most emphasis revolved around digestive health. The premise being having a portion of the diet consisting of whole grain exercised the gizzard more than mash or crumbles ever could and having a stronger gizzard ensured a better feed conversion.

With that being said, I recently butchered several 8 week old broilers. I'm not able to venture an opinion on feed conversion but I will say those birds had the largest gizzards I've ever seen and 75 lbs of mash lasts 40 +/- birds a week.

I also mix my own scratch. Equal parts of corn, either chops or whole, rolled oats and wheat.

 

[JRNash]

That makes sense. Mine get a lot of cracked corn they like scratching around. I keep the layer pen free choice 16% as much as they want.Right now EVERYONE is free ranging while I finish up the last parts of the layer pen. Only went 50 x 50 the way I've layed it out I'm going to build three more 50 x 50 pens end to end. At the center (100ft) I'm going to build another 12 x 16 coop .each corner will have miniature coops 4 x 8 with small runs to keep breeders in