AlbertaChickensEtc

Cornish Crosses or Giants
Mature at about 10 weeks old and are ugly miserable and if you don't butcher them, they will all die of heart attacks or break there legs (most of ours did!)

Do it, oh and its essential to order at least 100 so you are so sick of them.

CG may be butchered at 6 weeks which is the size you often find at the supermarket.  The best food to meat conversion is at about this age.  We usually keep ours to 10 weeks as we like the larger chickens.  The weights given above are perhaps a bit high for dressed weights, but some oven ready are 8 lbs.  We force ours to exercise for food and water and often put a laying hen or 2 in the run with them to teach them to eat their greens.  They are a challenge to raise as they are quite fragile.  We tried raising 150 at a time last spring and had some loses.  Next year we are doing groups of 50 about 7 weeks apart.

No, they're not mutant, just REALLY intensively selected and bred for meat production.
Your local feed store probably gets them in; ask around. Or you can order from a hatchery - we get ours from Rochester, just outside Edmonton, and they fly in on Canada Post, excellent survival. I think we've only had 1 DOA out of about 300 birds over the years.

I should ask at Buckerfields in the spring. I know they sometimes have baby chicks and turkeys.
I would like to get the Cornish X's, as I don't like the sounds of the health issues on the full bred Cornish.

I figure as these birds were bred for meat and don't live long due to their growth rates etc. It's not as bad a thing to raise them for my freezer, at least I can give them the care and appreciation they might not have otherwise.

I think 50 birds would be the most I'd want.  so with a bird that doesn't scratch or do chicken things, how much sq. feet do they need in a run.

Survivor knows what is involved with the Cornish X. It's good advice. I only remember them from when I was a kid... I can say that you will definitely not like them. They are ugly and nasty birds. I actually decided as a kid that I never wanted to have chickens again. They were horrible.

Of course my thinking has now changed. They have their place in the poultry world. I can admit that now. I still think they are nasty though. I am willing to raise them as meat birds if I need to.

Pure bred Cornish are completely different. They are very strong, active, and healthy birds from my experience so far. I quite like mine. They do not grow like the X's do, so don't get them thinking you will get similar performance. I have mine for making my own X's that might have some of the same characteristics.


Here is my Roo.

an interesting read.

so if all had a choice

Cornish Giants

or

Cornish Giant cross.

is it not cornish giant x's, is there another meat Cornish, besides the Cornish Giant.???? I'm easily confused once the sun goes down. lol