Question about meat birds

notjustair · Apr 25, 2015

My supplier fell short on Cornish cross meat birds. I ended up with most of my order but the hatchery shorted them. I've only used those as meat birds and butcher at 6 weeks.

I found a supply of "pan fry" breed. Anyone used these? I'm not going to bother getting another breed if they won't mature at the same rate.

Greg1959 · Apr 25, 2015

I don't know if you are still looking for cornish cross but here is where I always buy mine. Looks like they have plenty.

I have no experience with the 'pan fry' chicken.

Although this hatchery does have a 'fry pan' special. Seems they are White Leghorns. For me White Leghorns will take a lot longer than six weeks to even reach a 'fryer' size.

Here is their quote- "Some people prefer a smaller, lighter bird for fryers and these will fill that bill. They are white feathered, yellow skinned, light breed cockerel chicks from our White Leghorns. They are delicious fryers, that take longer to reach butchering size. They will not be as large as Cornish X Rock or Cornish Roasters. Many of our customers buy the Frying Pan Special for butchering and raise them with the pullets they order."

Link for Fryers...https://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/frying_pan_special.html
Murray McMurray Hatchery for Cornish cross

john in la · Apr 25, 2015

Do not know what hatchery you are dealing with so it is hard to be sure.

But with the hatchery I deal with frying pan special is just male chicks of egg laying birds.
Barred rocks; Rhode Island Red; ect

Nate V. IA · Apr 25, 2015

To give you an idea of the growth of a white leghorn rooster...
I have 24,000 leghorn chicks (contract grower), 1/3 of those are roosters, I weigh 500 males every two weeks. My chicks hatched and housed on Feb 26, they were eight weeks old Thursday and weighed on average 721 grams 721/453.5 is 1.59 lbs.

My last flock was a brown egg layer, much beefier chicken, at 8 weeks the males weighed 1174 grams 1174/453.5 is 2.59 lbs.

I have no control over the feed and I couldn't tell you anything about it other than it's a pellet, I'm not sure how much more growth you can get out of layer breeds if you were to feed them a broiler ration.

There is not much of a carcass on these egg laying breeds until 12 weeks of age.
Nate

Dave H (MI) · Apr 26, 2015

Greg, do a comparison with Welp Hatchery. I buy birds from MM from time to time but all my meat birds come from Welp.

Greg1959 · Apr 26, 2015

Dave H (MI) Thanks for the suggestion, seems they are about 40 cents 'cheeper' per chick.

Question about meat birds

notjustair

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Greg1959

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john in la

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Nate V. IA

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Dave H (MI)

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Greg1959

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