Chick Mix-up

If you followed me on the old site, you probably know we bought chickens this spring. If you're new, you only missed my thoughts on my first 5 weeks as a chicken owner.

We purchased 6 Buff Orpington chicks, but there was an error and we had 5 white birds. We hoped it was just a color error and not breed. As the weeks went by our buff began to look like a runt compared to the whites, so we felt pretty certain that they weren't the same breed. After a little search on backyardchickens.com it became blatantly obvious we had 5 Cornish Cross chickens.

We are still a bit heartbroken by the news. Cornish Cross are considered meat birds. They were bred to be table ready in as little as 6 weeks. Ours are closer to 9 weeks at this point.

From all the research we've done, we would be lucky if any of them lived to 18 months. They are prone to heart problems and have even been known to get so big so fast that their legs break.

Ours are doing extremely well because we have been feeding them a regular chicken diet instead of a boosted diet. Even so, you can tell they aren't always very comfortable. We certainly aren't opposed to raising meat birds, but we're mostly in it for the eggs and figured we wouldn't need to cull one for a couple years.

The store we bought them from only sells them for a limited time each year, so we looked around for various hatcheries and were pleasantly surprised to find a wonderful couple that is NPIP certified and only a little over an hour away from our house. David and I were both astounded by their setup and now have all sorts of ideas for the maybe-someday file. If you live in central Ohio and would like to buy some chickens, I highly recommend sending Darby Ridge Chicks an e-mail (jason@darbyridgechicks.com) for more information.

For a very reasonable price, we purchased 4 black Australorps (1 cockerel and 3 pullets) and 1 black sex-link pullet. The best part is that they are 8 weeks, so all of our chickens should be able to get along.

What's your favorite chicken breed?