On July 28th we had 55 chickens show up at the local post office. 30 were Cornish Cross and 25 were the Ideal Nursery’s 236. The 236 is a proprietary breed that Ideal has been selling since the 60’s, apparently involving a Leghorn crossed with a couple of other chickens. The 236 chickens will become the foundation of our laying endeavor.
The 236’s on the other
hand were all fully feathered by the end of week three. Zero have died of
natural causes, and even though their coop isn’t 100% snake proof, I haven’t
lost any of them to snakes since week 3 due to their ability to fly and roost
as high as they can. The FrankenChickens on the other hand have had 2 succumb
to snakes over the last 3 weeks, in part, I think, due to their inability to
fly and/or roost above ground level. The other thing I’ve been impressed with
since I started letting them free range during the day is how little feed
they’re consuming.
We won’t know until they
actually start laying how truly efficient their egg production is. That’s the
real baseline I’m concerned with is how close can I come to breaking even on my
feed costs through selling the excess eggs. They love going outside to forage and as it starts to get dark they head back into the coop without too much prodding. They all sleep off the ground, roosting like chickens should.
Overall, I
couldn’t be any happier with the 236 chickens. They have been easy to raise and
vigorous growers.
We’re 5 weeks in and what a difference in the 236 chickens from the FrankenChickens. They’ve been vibrant, active, curious, and healthy. They were the same size as the Cornish Cross when they arrived, and while the Cornish are now roughly 4 times bigger the Cornish look rough, and are nowhere near being completely feathered out. Yesterday I found one of the Cornish who looked as though he’d just gone to sleep and didn’t wake up. No abuse from his buddies, just dead.
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