Breed this possible

[Andy809]

To make CornishX (also called Cornish Cross, or Rock Cornish Cross, or other variations of those names):

Originally, decades ago, White Plymouth Rock hens bred with White Cornish roosters.

The hybrid chicks grew fast and had big breasts (as compared with other chickens available at the time.)

Of course people tried various other combinations of breeds, and started selectively breeding for the traits they wanted in the chicks.

By now, there special lines of parent stock (that you can't buy anywhere). Two lines are crossed to get hens who lay lots of eggs (so they can hatch lots of chicks) and grow pretty well. Two other lines are crossed to get the right roosters to breed with those hens. Roosters don't have to lay eggs, so the rooster line would be selected especially strongly for fast growth and lots of meat.

The Cornish Cross chicks they produce will grow fast, to a large size, but they have health problems if you try to raise them past about 8 weeks of age. Their parents would have the same health problems, except that they are raised on very limited feed (semi-starved to stunt their growth, so they are closer to normal chicken size instead of enormous balls of meat.)


If you repeat the original cross of White Rock x purebred Cornish, you will find that they grow much slower and are much smaller than the modern Cornish Cross. So the name stuck, but none of the parent types would match any recognized breed of chicken.

I thought it was barred Plymouth

 

[MysteryChicken]

I don't really see many people crossing RIR w/ leghorn and it sounds like an isa brown mix to me.....people like to use RIW X RIR

RIR X White Leghorn was the original Red Sex-link cross. Now there's various other combinations creating different lines of sexlinks.

 

[Andy809]

RIR X White Leghorn was the original Red Sex-link cross. Now there's various other combinations creating different lines of sexlinks.

which Isa brown is correct?

 

[MysteryChicken]

which Isa brown is correct?

Just a Red Sex-link in general. It was the original cross with RIR, & White Leghorn.

Isa Brown have a Complex crossbreeding system.

 

[NatJ]

I thought it was barred Plymouth

I suppose I don't know for sure what color it was, but the current Cornish Cross are definitely white, and I've never heard of "Cornish Cross" in any other color.

Chickens with white feathers have white pinfeathers, which do not show as much if you miss a few when plucking the chicken. White turkeys are common for the same reason.

So I can't remember whether I actually read that the original cross used White Rock, or whether I read that it used Plymouth Rock and I assumed the White color rather than any other color of that breed.

RIR X White Leghorn was the original Red Sex-link cross. Now there's various other combinations creating different lines of sexlinks.

The White Leghorns that are commonly available now cannot produce sexlink chicks. They have Extended Black and Dominant White, so crossing them to any rooster will just give white chicks for both males and females.

So if the original Red Sexlinks were made with White Leghorns, those Leghorns must have had a different set of color genes than the ones that are so widely available now. They must allow large amounts of silver or gold to show, to be sexable by color at hatch.

 

[MysteryChicken]

I suppose I don't know for sure what color it was, but the current Cornish Cross are definitely white, and I've never heard of "Cornish Cross" in any other color.

Chickens with white feathers have white pinfeathers, which do not show as much if you miss a few when plucking the chicken. White turkeys are common for the same reason.

So I can't remember whether I actually read that the original cross used White Rock, or whether I read that it used Plymouth Rock and I assumed the White color rather than any other color of that breed.


The White Leghorns that are commonly available now cannot produce sexlink chicks. They have Extended Black and Dominant White, so crossing them to any rooster will just give white chicks for both males and females.

So if the original Red Sexlinks were made with White Leghorns, those Leghorns must have had a different set of color genes than the ones that are so widely available now. They must allow large amounts of silver or gold to show, to be sexable by color at hatch.

Every breed has undergone changes since then. Still wouldn't hurt to experiment abit.