So I waited an extra week to start weighing the chicks and their feed. Here's the starting point. Note that the cornish cross are twice to three times as heavy as the heritage breed chicks. I suspect they've also eaten twice to three times the amount of feed, but I can't tell for sure.
I've fed 175lbs of food so far to the 290 chicks in this batch; about 8 ounces to each chick, on average.
From here on I'll weigh each chick each week and also the food given to each group of chicks and post it each week on Tuesday.
Pictures of one of each of the chicks and their weights below.
speckled sussex? 10 chicks, weight after 2 weeks: 3.5, 3.25, 3.75, 4.25 4.5, 3.25, 4.25, 3.75, 4.5, 3.75
Rhode island red? 10 chicks, weight after 2 weeks: 4.25, 4, 3.75, 3.75, 4.25, 4.75, 5.5, 4.75, 4, 3.75
barred rock? 10 chicks, weight at 2 weeks: 3.75, 4,3,3.25, 3.5, 3.5, 3.25, 3.5, 2.75, 3.5
I believe these to be "light brahmas". They have feathered feet. 10 chickens, weight after 2 weeks (ounces) 4, 4, 3.5, 4.5, 4.75, 4, 4, 4.75, 4.25, 4.25
Cornish Cross: 10 chickens. Weight after 2 weeks (ounces) 11.25, 9.25, 11, 12.25, 9.75, 8.5, 9.25, 12.5, 11.25, 10.25
WOW! Those cornish cross are HUGE after just two weeks!
ReplyDeleteStef - Nothing, but nothing grows like a cornish cross, it's almost freightening. We raised 15 one year and you could almost see them grow from day to day w/o weighing or measuring, and we didn't even have them on hi-protein feed, just layer pellets. They were so heavy by 4 months old (and way past slaughter age) that they actually made the ground shake when they'd run up behind me. We slaughtered them shortly after that as they actually got to the point that they were starting to have hock and hip problems.
ReplyDeleteI'm really interested in your project Bruce and look foreward to seeing the data on feed conversion.
I have dark cornish pullets coming from a hatchery in MO that I'll be crossing with our White Rock rooster when the pullets are old enough. I'm going to work on developing my own line of cornish cross for meat production.