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We are down to three plus Carin - Carin continues to do very well with her "hen" Moms. She is too heavy to fly but she does engage in all other normal chicken activities including rooting, digging, dust baths, and re-organizing all the equipment on my shelves.
The other three cornish cross were ousted from their flight pen by the other chickens. They were so slow and so docile that the other chicks their same age could eat their feathers (and a little flesh) without so much as a movement. I was afraid I was going to lose them like Mongo so they are now in the front yard. They run loose during the day with the puppies and turkeys and are in a secure pen at night.
At about 14 weeks these birds are VERY large and have outgrown their genetic capabilities. They cannot fly or get any lift at all. One of them can only hobble to food or water with a kind of stilted gait that reminds you of a pirate with a wooden leg. But despite their physical limitations they enjoy things like dust baths and are having a good time in the front yard. They are getting very tame though. Jimmy has to watch out to make sure they don't become pets.
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It is with a heavy heart that I have to report that Mongo died. She was in the flight pen with the other chickens but not taking advantage of her space and not getting much exercise. Her "insides" kept growing and growing and stretching her skin. This made it appealing to the other chicks to pick off her feathers and peck at her skin. They succeeded in creating a few small holes in Mongo's abdominal cavity and she died within 24 hours.
The size Mongo was at her death was very abnormal for a chicken. Her innards protruded off her back end like a middle aged man's beer belly. She probably would have been considered the ideal commercial meat bird - fast weight gainer. I feel sad that we breed birds to grow up like Mongo for fast weight gain and an early death.
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This is a picture of Mongo in the chick day pen. She is twice the size of other chicks her age - the chick next to her is a leghorn. Mongo seems pretty happy and can walk almost normally. Unfortunately not all of the Cornish Cross can.
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Two of the cornish cross chicks were placed under a trio of hens raising their own chicks. This group included a banty cross hen, a white jersey giant, and a spanish black turkey hen. They accepted the cornish cross chicks (and a couple of maran and buff orpingtons I also slid under there) very nicely and treated them as their own. I guess with so many different types of chicks they had no idea which were their own and just decided to raise whatever peeped at them. They were a nice family for a while and the Cornish Cross were keeping up just fine - and were slimmer than my bunch in the brooder box which I think is much healthier. Then one one of the CC started having leg trouble - I could not tell whether it was a genetic thing or she was stepped on by a horse so she had to return to the house.
Shortly thereafter the chick in the barn got a name - Carin. She is doing great - keeping up with the other chicks, eating all sorts of things including chick food, grass, bugs, worms, etc. She stays slim and fit. Although she is not quite slim enough to fly! The chick in the house got a name too - one reflective of all the extra food she started eating due to lack of activity - Mongo. I take Mongo out everyday into a small chick run that has grass and sunshine. She and the other chicks (the other Cornish Cross, some leghorns, and some turkey poults) have a great time scratching and taking mini-dust baths. It has always amazed me that even without the example set by a mother, little chicks immediately take a dust bath when presented with dirt or grass. Of all the CC chicks in this pen Mongo is the most active - I think because she had some experience being free range. She is the biggest of the CC chicks but the most healthy and robust. Two of the others are moderately active but the third just scoots her blob like body around on the ground and eats and poops. She does not seemed phased by it but I feel so sad for her. She can't run or fly or act like a chick. I hope she does not miss it.
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Is it genetics or the way Cornish Cross chicks are raised that cause them to have so many health problems? That's the question I set out to answer when I bought five Cornish Cross chicks at the local feed store. Cornish Cross chickens are the most common commercially raised chicken providing a quick growth time, excellent feed conversion, and ample breast meat. But the downside is that these chickens are freaks of nature - they have difficulty walking, can't fly, get sick too easily, and often drop dead of heart attacks for no reason.
So why did I bring them home? I wondered if such a bird raised in a free range environment would do better? Its my little science experiment. So I brought the five chicks home and placed two under a trio of hens that just hatched out their chicks - one bantum hen, one Jersey giant, and one Spanish Black turkey. I figured they had so many different chicks of different species that they would be likely to accept these Cornish Cross chicks. And they did!
The other three chicks were kept indoors to be raised by hand but still in a natural environment.
In the posts that follow I will keep everyone posted on my experiment.
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Welcome to the Wind Dancer Ranch blog! Here you will find the latest activities going on at Wind Dancer Ranch including information about our horses, heritage livestock and poultry, farm improvements, orchards, and simple country living. By way of introduction....Wind Dancer Ranch is a small family farm with diverse interests including Arabian, Appaloosa, and Friesian horses, walnut and almond orchards, Navajo-Churro sheep, and heritage breeds of turkeys and chickens. We do eat meat and believe the animals that provide our family with nourishment should be raised eating natural things and allowed freedom to live a natural life expressing natural behaviors. Our poultry are really free-range - not the commercial definition of that word. Rather they can go where they want and often travel acres into our orchards to seek out bugs and other interesting things to eat. We respect and appreciate our animals and believe its our duty to provide them the best life possible. And when they are intended for food, a quick, stress free and painless death. You can see more of our animals at our web site www.winddancerranch.us
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