Cornish Cross Meat Chickens

We start the new chicks off with a medicated chick starter mix, and then use a meat-bird feed with 28 percent protein in it, when they are ready to go outside.  We keep food and water available for them at all times.  The chicks are voracious eaters, so they get two food containers and two water containers in every box after a couple of days.  We have purchased egg laying chicks at the same time Cornish-cross are purchased and within about two or three weeks the Cornish-cross chicks are twice as big and twice as tall as the egg laying chicks.  They will need a 100 watt light bulb in a lamp until the weather gets warmer.  The chicks in this box are two days old.  The chicks on the left are 3 1/2 weeks old.

 3 1/2 weeks old                                           2 days old