Show notes
Feeding Cornish Cross chickens the right way is so important. If you overfeed them, you will end up with leg issues, heart attacks, and early death. So how much food should they eat? What does it cost to raise a Cornish Cross from day old chick all the way to freezer camp? Let me share with you the stats and tips I've learned after seven years of raising them.
(Listen to today’s podcast by clicking on the play button on the black player bar above, or find the Farmish Kind of Life podcast on your favorite podcast player!)
Amy, hold up. If Cornish Cross need such special care, why raise them? Why not raise a bird with more room for error?
We've tried other meat birds, but choose to raise Cornish Cross because when all is said and done, we get the most bang for our buck with this breed. Dollar in, dollar out, it's the most efficient bird to raise for the meat you get.
If you're trying to figure out what kind of meat bird is right for your homestead—because Cornish Cross aren't always the best choice—you can check out my book Choosing the Right Meat Chicken for Your Homestead, which compares five different chicken breed options that are often suggested to raise for meat.
New to feeding Cornish Cross chickens?
If you are new to raising and feeding Cornish Cross chickens, you may not realize how different they are from other chicken breeds. Cornish Cross birds are bred to grow fast. If you don't feed them correctly, they will grow too quickly and that's when you start to see sloth like birds that do nothing but sit and wait at the food pan for their next meal—partly because they're lazy, but also because they can't walk due to leg issues. You will also have chickens die off early because their hearts can't keep up with the growth.
The best way to explain Cornish Cross is by telling you about a dog we used to have when I was younger. He used to bring us his food bowl when he was hungry. We thought it was cute, so we'd refill it. Every. Single. Time.
You can imagine what happened.
Cornish Cross are like that dog because they will try to convince you every time they see you that they are hungry and need to eat and if you don't feed them right now, they are going to die.
And so the first time you raise them (just like our first time raising them) you may find that you're going through a ton of food—and totally overfeeding them. Which means they grow too fast. They have lots of issues. They die early.
So let's talk about a better way to feed them.
Suggested stats for feeding Cornish Cross
Let's be clear: you cannot free feed Cornish Cross. You have to pay attention to how much you are feeding them.
According to the back of the 50 lb bag of meat bird feed that we purchase, it states that (in a perfect world) in 8 weeks, 10-12 pounds of food will raise a Cornish Cross to a 5 lb. dressed product. (Dressed means feathers gone, insides gone, cleaned, bagged, ready for the freezer. Basically, what you'd be buying at the store if you went to purchase a whole bird for supper.)
So. 1 bird. 8 weeks. 10-12 pounds of feed = 5 lb dressed bird.
Which means—using the 12 lb per bird amount—50 birds would require 600 pounds of food total over the course of 8 weeks, or 12 (50 lb) bags of feed total.
Doing the math, if it is suggested that 12 bags of feed will raise up 50 Cornish Cross in 8 weeks, that means you're feeding a little more than a bag a week to a flock of 50 birds. But is this realistic?
Well. Let's see what we did.
Our stats for feeding Cornish Cross (CC)
In full disclosure, our stats are from CC raised in a very (very) large coop. My commentary on free ranging/chicken tractoring CCs is at the end of this blog post.
We started with 50 chicks. One died the day after shipping.
(Listen to today’s podcast by clicking on the play button on the black player bar above, or find the Farmish Kind of Life podcast on your favorite podcast player!)
Amy, hold up. If Cornish Cross need such special care, why raise them? Why not raise a bird with more room for error?
We've tried other meat birds, but choose to raise Cornish Cross because when all is said and done, we get the most bang for our buck with this breed. Dollar in, dollar out, it's the most efficient bird to raise for the meat you get.
If you're trying to figure out what kind of meat bird is right for your homestead—because Cornish Cross aren't always the best choice—you can check out my book Choosing the Right Meat Chicken for Your Homestead, which compares five different chicken breed options that are often suggested to raise for meat.
New to feeding Cornish Cross chickens?
If you are new to raising and feeding Cornish Cross chickens, you may not realize how different they are from other chicken breeds. Cornish Cross birds are bred to grow fast. If you don't feed them correctly, they will grow too quickly and that's when you start to see sloth like birds that do nothing but sit and wait at the food pan for their next meal—partly because they're lazy, but also because they can't walk due to leg issues. You will also have chickens die off early because their hearts can't keep up with the growth.
The best way to explain Cornish Cross is by telling you about a dog we used to have when I was younger. He used to bring us his food bowl when he was hungry. We thought it was cute, so we'd refill it. Every. Single. Time.
You can imagine what happened.
Cornish Cross are like that dog because they will try to convince you every time they see you that they are hungry and need to eat and if you don't feed them right now, they are going to die.
And so the first time you raise them (just like our first time raising them) you may find that you're going through a ton of food—and totally overfeeding them. Which means they grow too fast. They have lots of issues. They die early.
So let's talk about a better way to feed them.
Suggested stats for feeding Cornish Cross
Let's be clear: you cannot free feed Cornish Cross. You have to pay attention to how much you are feeding them.
According to the back of the 50 lb bag of meat bird feed that we purchase, it states that (in a perfect world) in 8 weeks, 10-12 pounds of food will raise a Cornish Cross to a 5 lb. dressed product. (Dressed means feathers gone, insides gone, cleaned, bagged, ready for the freezer. Basically, what you'd be buying at the store if you went to purchase a whole bird for supper.)
So. 1 bird. 8 weeks. 10-12 pounds of feed = 5 lb dressed bird.
Which means—using the 12 lb per bird amount—50 birds would require 600 pounds of food total over the course of 8 weeks, or 12 (50 lb) bags of feed total.
Doing the math, if it is suggested that 12 bags of feed will raise up 50 Cornish Cross in 8 weeks, that means you're feeding a little more than a bag a week to a flock of 50 birds. But is this realistic?
Well. Let's see what we did.
Our stats for feeding Cornish Cross (CC)
In full disclosure, our stats are from CC raised in a very (very) large coop. My commentary on free ranging/chicken tractoring CCs is at the end of this blog post.
We started with 50 chicks. One died the day after shipping.