Post by catherine on Aug 23, 2008 9:21:40 GMT -5
Hey Guys...well, we've been curious about crossing our one remaining Dorking rooster with our Delaware hens. We set a batch of eggs in our incubator, where about half were pure Delaware and half this cross. The chicks will be two weeks old on Sunday. All I can say is...woah!
First off...my son reminded me that we'd unintentionally bred for a sex linked chick. Three of the crosses came out chipmunk striped reds, and the other crosses came out dirty white...all with 5 toes on at least one foot (we've gotten long fifth toes, short ones, and even fifth toes basically fused to the fourth back toe...it's interesting). It's helped us keep track of which chick is from which Daddy. The place where we found the sex linked reference says that a Delaware rooster on a RIR or New Hampshire (improved RIR) hen will have the chicks come out looking like Delaware, but a Delaware hen with a RIR or NH roo gives the sex link, with the girls looking like Dad and boys looking like Mom. Apparently it works with (I'm guessing) ANY red roo, as our Dorking is a Red Dorking!
Second, the F1 hybrid chicks are growing MUCH faster than their pure bred hatchmates! The Delawares are meat birds, themselves, but I don't think they are going to come close to these hybrids! At two weeks, the Delawares are still little puff balls, with a bit of short feathering on their wings, where the Crosses of both colors have completely feathered out wings and are working on body feathering. They are about twice the size of the pure bred chicks, and look twice as mature! AND...they are ravenous! Oh my are those chicks hungry 24/7! They started out just a bit more active than the other chicks. Now, they swarm the feeder and empty it almost immediately! We have the brooder in the house, and I've never had chicks cheeping in hunger constantly, like these guys seem to do...and it feels like they are just getting up a head of steam! I'm thinking that these babies are about to explode, growthwise! Yikes! ;D
I found a guy named Tim Shell (http://www.apppa.org/Raising%20Your%20Own%20Meat%20Flock.doc) who runs (or ran...can't find more recent listings on him than 2003) a little family based hatchery that decided to take on the big boys and provide a better and more sustainable chick (which he called the CornDel) for people wanting to raise pastured meat birds, and has actually sold some of his chicks to people like Joel Salatin. He came up with a stable cross after at least 8 or 9 generations which is 3/4 CornishXRock and 1/4 Delaware. He said it maintains the big breasted meat bird that eveyone loves to eat, while putting back in an ability to walk, run, and forage! He said they will grow to the same size as the standard, but lazy, CornishXRocks with about an extra week of growing time, but without all the CXR drawbacks. He said you can feed them 3 different ways, in order to obtain 3 different results. 1) Feed them as much as they'll eat 24/7 for a fast growing young meat bird. 2) Limit their feed and give plenty of forage to make the hens become your egg layers. 3) Limit their feed more to produce your breeding flock for more chicks. He said they'll act just like your regular laying flock, with the exception that you have to provide lots of feeder space and only feed them once or twice daily, and that they'll try to convince you that they are absolutely starving to death! He said that the less you feed them, the slower they'll grow, and that the slower they grow, the longer they'll live in your flock. He feels/felt that they make for healthier meat birds, and work well in egg laying and breeding flocks, so you can become independent of the big hatcheries! Well, having watched our crosses, I'd say that we've all stumbled into similar territory. These chicks are growing explosively, and consuming food like nobody's business!!!!
I'm just wondering if anyone else has tried this DelawareXDorking cross, and what their experiences have been? I think we're going to need to start limiting the food on the majority of these crosses, but don't know how much. We're used to just having feed out free choice. I think it would be very instructive to seperate out a few of the dirty white chicks (assuming that they are in fact boys) and feed them unlimited, while cutting the others back to make them grow slower. I'll try to get a photo posted soon, and then report back as our experiment progresses!
Oh...just found another site talking about alternatives to the traditional Cornish X Rocks...check this out at www.apppa.org/which%20bird.pdf.
I'll post a photo later. Let me know what you more experienced chicken people have found? Thanks! C.
First off...my son reminded me that we'd unintentionally bred for a sex linked chick. Three of the crosses came out chipmunk striped reds, and the other crosses came out dirty white...all with 5 toes on at least one foot (we've gotten long fifth toes, short ones, and even fifth toes basically fused to the fourth back toe...it's interesting). It's helped us keep track of which chick is from which Daddy. The place where we found the sex linked reference says that a Delaware rooster on a RIR or New Hampshire (improved RIR) hen will have the chicks come out looking like Delaware, but a Delaware hen with a RIR or NH roo gives the sex link, with the girls looking like Dad and boys looking like Mom. Apparently it works with (I'm guessing) ANY red roo, as our Dorking is a Red Dorking!
Second, the F1 hybrid chicks are growing MUCH faster than their pure bred hatchmates! The Delawares are meat birds, themselves, but I don't think they are going to come close to these hybrids! At two weeks, the Delawares are still little puff balls, with a bit of short feathering on their wings, where the Crosses of both colors have completely feathered out wings and are working on body feathering. They are about twice the size of the pure bred chicks, and look twice as mature! AND...they are ravenous! Oh my are those chicks hungry 24/7! They started out just a bit more active than the other chicks. Now, they swarm the feeder and empty it almost immediately! We have the brooder in the house, and I've never had chicks cheeping in hunger constantly, like these guys seem to do...and it feels like they are just getting up a head of steam! I'm thinking that these babies are about to explode, growthwise! Yikes! ;D
I found a guy named Tim Shell (http://www.apppa.org/Raising%20Your%20Own%20Meat%20Flock.doc) who runs (or ran...can't find more recent listings on him than 2003) a little family based hatchery that decided to take on the big boys and provide a better and more sustainable chick (which he called the CornDel) for people wanting to raise pastured meat birds, and has actually sold some of his chicks to people like Joel Salatin. He came up with a stable cross after at least 8 or 9 generations which is 3/4 CornishXRock and 1/4 Delaware. He said it maintains the big breasted meat bird that eveyone loves to eat, while putting back in an ability to walk, run, and forage! He said they will grow to the same size as the standard, but lazy, CornishXRocks with about an extra week of growing time, but without all the CXR drawbacks. He said you can feed them 3 different ways, in order to obtain 3 different results. 1) Feed them as much as they'll eat 24/7 for a fast growing young meat bird. 2) Limit their feed and give plenty of forage to make the hens become your egg layers. 3) Limit their feed more to produce your breeding flock for more chicks. He said they'll act just like your regular laying flock, with the exception that you have to provide lots of feeder space and only feed them once or twice daily, and that they'll try to convince you that they are absolutely starving to death! He said that the less you feed them, the slower they'll grow, and that the slower they grow, the longer they'll live in your flock. He feels/felt that they make for healthier meat birds, and work well in egg laying and breeding flocks, so you can become independent of the big hatcheries! Well, having watched our crosses, I'd say that we've all stumbled into similar territory. These chicks are growing explosively, and consuming food like nobody's business!!!!
I'm just wondering if anyone else has tried this DelawareXDorking cross, and what their experiences have been? I think we're going to need to start limiting the food on the majority of these crosses, but don't know how much. We're used to just having feed out free choice. I think it would be very instructive to seperate out a few of the dirty white chicks (assuming that they are in fact boys) and feed them unlimited, while cutting the others back to make them grow slower. I'll try to get a photo posted soon, and then report back as our experiment progresses!
Oh...just found another site talking about alternatives to the traditional Cornish X Rocks...check this out at www.apppa.org/which%20bird.pdf.
I'll post a photo later. Let me know what you more experienced chicken people have found? Thanks! C.