are cornish x natural?

[smilingcat]

Okay so my partner and I got into a discussion. We grow heirloom varieties including our chicken. Then we come to Cornish X. I realize they are the result of careful breeding programs to develop this Franken bird of sort. Grows much faster than normal birds... The qualities we want for a meatie.

Even though the bird is result of old fashioned breeding program, my partner doesn't consider it natural not like our Brahmas. She likens it more like a GMO plant. We can feed Cornish X with organic feed and claim its an organic bird. We can free range it and call it free ranged bird. But she's not convinced. How do you feel about it?

She does understand the difference between GMO and selective breeding program. With GMO you can insert non-species DNA into it while selective breeding can not. Corn with Bt is a great example of GMO or Glycophosphate resistant crop is another example of GMO seeds. Neither can be developed from old fashioned breeding program.

Cornish X in this sense is natural but with "unnatural" characteristics. How do you view this? And does anyone know what breed of chicken Joel Salatin raises on his polyfarm? My understanding was that he raises about 20,000 meat birds a year.

And no my Brahma are not being raised as a meatie, too expensive as they are very slow growers. I raise them to help maintain genetic diversity in the big picture.

Thanks.

 

[FireTigeris]

Has she considered dogs?

Is a dachshund unnatural?

How about a Husky?

Is a Husky more natural than a dachshund?

A Pomeranian, what about a Chow?

The herding breeds, bread to chase and coroner but not bite to kill... useless in the 'wild'.

Has she considered Horses?

Draft horses? Mini Horses?

What about milk cows?
----

A breeder is selling dachshund from a long healthy line, 30 generations long... are they unnatural?

 

[Fred's Hens]

Another difference is that the CX, like all other such hybrids, do not breed "true". Thus, there are also not sustainable. You have to keep going back to hatcheries to get them and the hatcheries have to keep going back to the genetics companies to refresh their parent stock.

A flock of Brahma were also selectively bred to establish the breed. But once that breed is established, they'll breed true and are sustainable. The same cannot be said for hybrid, commercial birds. In this, they are indeed closer, in philosophy to the GMO crops, perhaps, in that one cannot save GMO seed. One cannot produce GMO seed and one is forever committed to buying new seed from the corporation that produces it, patents it and sells it.

Hope that helps. No, the situations are not the same. The CX wasn't created by gene splitting, but..... both are the result of modern science and agricultural corporations.
I am not passing moral judgement on any of it, just trying to fill in some gaps, perhaps.

 

[FireTigeris]

Another difference is that the CX, like all other such hybrids, do not breed "true". Thus, there are also not sustainable. You have to keep going back to hatcheries to get them and the hatcheries have to keep going back to the genetics companies to refresh their parent stock.

A flock of Brahma were also selectively bred to establish the breed. But once that breed is established, they'll breed true and are sustainable. The same cannot be said for hybrid, commercial birds. In this, they are indeed closer, in philosophy to the GMO crops, perhaps, in that one cannot save GMO seed. One cannot produce GMO seed and one is forever committed to buying new seed from the corporation that produces it, patents it and sells it.

Hope that helps. No, the situations are not the same. The CX wasn't created by gene splitting, but..... both are the result of modern science and agricultural corporations.
I am not passing moral judgement on any of it, just trying to fill in some gaps, perhaps.

True,with that point- there are newer meaty birds that are less 'thick' and do better- are supposedly sustainable.

So they are more like cockapoos and labradoodles...

 

[A.T. Hagan]

Without a clear definition of "natural" and "sustainable" the questions are not answerable.

As I view matters NO domestic breeds or strains of chickens are "natural." The closest to approach that mark would be the various game breeds because when a chicken population goes feral and naturalizes in a given area (as in survives on its own without being cared for by people) they typically end up looking like game birds. Brahmas, especially show bred Brahmas, are not natural. The best examples of their breed cannot even successfully mate without human intervention in many cases. Even for the ones that can they'd quickly end up being predator bait for being too big and slow. Not "natural" at all in my view. Other folks who would define "natural" differently may well view them in an entirely different way.

The same thing with "sustainable", a word that is often used, but rarely clearly defined. To my view Cornish X broilers are far more sustainable than just about any other kind of chicken when one considers how many pounds of feed are needed to produce a pound of edible chicken flesh, the amount of time needed to do so, and the space needed to do it. The old-fashioned methods such as people like myself use (grass raised) cannot hope to approach the efficiency that a well managed broiler plant can produce using modern birds. The only way one could come close using yesterday's management methods would be to use the very same birds the commercial industry does. It's all about the amount of food produced at X amount of inputs. I don't particularly like the modern methods of producing eggs and chicken meat, but cannot fault it for its efficiency.

In the common usage of the word "natural" means whatever someone wants it to mean and is seldom ever clearly defined so that everyone understands what the speaker is talking about.

 

[Fred's Hens]

I used the word sustainable in it's narrowest sense, not in the broader cultural context. Can you continue to breed it and get more after it's kind?

I can "sustain" a flock of heritage Barred Rocks for a century, theoretically, as people have, breeding them over and over and continuing to get Barred Rocks. That is not something I can do with a hybrid chicken. I cannot breed CornishX to each other nor can I breed two birds and create them. The same would be true of my ISA Browns, a commercial, 4 way cross, commercial hen. They won't breed true and I do not have access to the parent stock. The flow of their availability is entirely dependent on the corporation that ultimately holds their fate. Only they can sustain them. The best we can do, using the birds available to us, is to create a similar, though not identical bird.

In the same way, if I want a particular GMO corn or wheat, I cannot create it and I cannot violate patent law. I must return to the seed company as they only can sustain the ongoing production of the seed.

But the OP's concern was "natural". Wow, what is left in this world that is truly "natural", in that ultimate sense? Very, very little indeed.

 

[ChickenJerk]

The broiler chickens erroneously reffered to as "cornish" whatever are more correctly crossbreeds, mutts if you will.

They qualify as hybrids under this consideration from Wikipedia-
"The second type of hybrid consists of crosses between populations, breeds or cultivars within a single species. This meaning is often used in plant and animal breeding, where hybrids are commonly produced and selected because they have desirable characteristics not found or inconsistently present in the parent individuals or populations. This flow of genetic material between populations or races is often called hybridization."

But more correctly from Wikipedia-
"A crossbreed or crossbred usually refers to an animal with purebred parents of two different breeds, varieties, or populations. Crossbreedingrefers to the process of breeding such an animal, often with the intention to create offspring that share the traits of both parent lineages, or producing an animal with hybrid vigor. While crossbreeding is used to maintain health and viability of animals, irresponsible crossbreeding can also produce animals of inferior[clarification needed] quality or dilute a purebred gene pool to the point of extinction of a given breed of animal.
The term is also used at times to refer to a domestic animal of unknown ancestry where the breed status of only one parent or grandparent is known, though the term "mixed breeding" is technically more accurate."
Yet more-
"In general use, the term hybrid is commonly used to refer to plant breeding, such as that of maize, though "hybrid" is also used to describe crosses between animals of the same genus but different species, such as the mule. "Crossbred" is more often used to refer to animal breeding within a single species."

The term "hybrid" was applied to broiler chickens since the first days of the industry. That was a time when "hybrid corn" (true hybrids in that species were crossed) had burst onto the agricultural scene with great sauces. The term hybrid was applied to broilers more as a catchy sales phrase than as anything accurate. Unfortunately it has endured and become the substance of much nonsense.

What is seldom considered is the fact that the four grandparent lines that are used to produce today's broiler chickens meet the requirements of a breed , again from Wikipedia, to wit-
"A breed is a group of domestic animals or plants with a homogeneous appearance, behavior, and other characteristics that distinguish it from other animals or plants of the samespecies, and arrived at through selective breeding. Despite the centrality of the idea of "breeds" to animal husbandry, there is no scientifically accepted definition of the term.[1] A breed is therefore not an objective or biologically verifiable classification, but instead a term of art amongst groups of breeders who share a consensus around what qualities make some members of a given species members of a nameable subset.[2] The term is distinguished from landrace, which refers to a naturally-occurring regional variety of domestic (and sometimes feral) animal through uncontrolled breeding.
When bred together, animals of the same breed pass on these predictable traits to their offspring, and this ability—known as "breeding true"—is a requirement for a breed. Plantbreeds are more commonly known as cultivars. The offspring produced as a result of breeding animals of one breed with other animals of another breed are known as crossbreeds or mixed breeds. Crosses between animal or plant variants above the level of breed/cultivar (species, subspecies, botanical variety, even different genera) are referred to as hybrids."
In fact the "pure lines" maintained by the broiler genetics companies meet all the standards of a breed except for having a name in the common vernacular. A name such as one recognized by the American Poultry Assn. Let me assure you that the grandparents of the broiler chickens in your backyard "breed true" to a greater extent than any of the commonly recognized breeds. The variations seen in a flock of commercial White Plymouth Rocks or Standard Bred White Plymouth Rocks is far greater than you will ever see in the commercial lines.
In fact I think that if you mated a terminal cross male broiler with a female of the same breeding similarity would be far greater than most would imagine. "Breed True?" True to what - they are crossbreeds to begin with.
Sustainability. The offspring generated by the above are perfectly capable of reproducing with the proper management. In fact you would be surprised how hardy they would be - but only with the correct management.

Reread the opions expressed regarding "natural" and "domesticated" above. It is very well stated.

 

[LilyD]

Without a clear definition of "natural" and "sustainable" the questions are not answerable.
As I view matters NO domestic breeds or strains of chickens are "natural." The closest to approach that mark would be the various game breeds because when a chicken population goes feral and naturalizes in a given area (as in survives on its own without being cared for by people) they typically end up looking like game birds. Brahmas, especially show bred Brahmas, are not natural. The best examples of their breed cannot even successfully mate without human intervention in many cases. Even for the ones that can they'd quickly end up being predator bait for being too big and slow. Not "natural" at all in my view. Other folks who would define "natural" differently may well view them in an entirely different way.

I had to laugh when I read this part of your post. I have Large Fowl Light Brahmas and I just spent the better part of the day trying to catch 4 to separate from the others since someone was coming to purchase them. Not sure what I am doing wrong but my birds are definitely not slow and easy to catch at all lol.

I think natural is all dependent on the person doing the breeding. We are essentially playing God when we breed our birds. We are deciding what characteristics we want in our birds and what we wish to carry on. For my breeding program that means I want LF Brahmas that are meaty in the breast area, grow quickly and grow large, lay large eggs well, and yet have a friendly puppy dog personality. I do this by choosing out the birds that match the characteristics I am looking for and breeding only those birds together. No one else gets to breed so I don't get birds that are slow, unable to mate or not to my standard in any way.

While this isn't really natural for the bird because of the fact that left to their own devices they might choose different breeding partners and hens that I won't let breed would be left in the gene pool, it is natural in the sense that my birds breed all on their own ( my rooster is very good at his job) and they go broody and raise their own babies. If the world were to fall apart tomorrow my little flock of Brahmas would be able to endure because they can do these simple things.

For me the CRX couldn't be put in the category of natural just as I wouldn't put my BBW turkeys in that category. They can't breed independently and they can't raise their own young. If they were left to reach adulthood they lay very poorly and don't have the instincts to hatch and raise their own young. They were created for the simply purpose of eating, growing and being eaten. Nothing else. I do still think it is amazing that they grow so fast and so well on the amount of food they eat though.

 

[SteeleFaithFarm]

I put CX in the category of miles and ligers. They produce the most meat in the most efficient way possible. Next spring I'm going to raise my first meat birds. I'm not sure if I'm going to grow CX, freedom rangers or just stock with my Dellies or Dellie Cross. So I wouldn't consider the CX unnatural but definitely put it in the category of hybrid.

 

[Lazy J Farms Feed & Hay]

Why would a Commercial Broiler not be "natural". The birds are simply the result of naturally breeding the best birds to achieve a specific result. In the case of these birds it is meat yield and feed conversion. How is this any different than Rhode Island Red breeders selecting red birds with single combs to get the best colored bird.

Jim