Did the Chicken Farmer Cross the Road to Get Away From the Cornish Cross?

You may have heard about or experienced yourself the amazing, superior taste of pastured poultry. It tastes nothing like the bland meat you buy in the supermarket. But even the most sustainably-raised chicken you can find is probably still a hybrid bred by one of the four huge companies that supply more than 80 percent of the world's chicken: the Cornish Cross.

This is the bird consumers have come to expect when they think of "chicken," with its large breast, plump size, and abundance of white meat. Nothing comes close to getting as much growth from the least feed. They reach their market weight, as big as seven pounds, in just eight weeks.

Unfortunately, phenomenal growth causes a myriad of problems — such as leg deformities, heart attacks, and susceptibility to disease — that frustrate farmers and diminish the birds' quality of life, even in a humane environment. Even more maddening to sustainable farmers, the Cornish Cross is a notoriously lethargic bird that doesn't forage well on pasture and will often die of heat exhaustion rather than traverse 10 feet to get to water.

Also known as the Cornish-Rock, the modern Cornish Cross was originally developed by crossing a White Plymouth Rock with the naturally double-breasted Cornish. From 1945-1951, there was a series of contests to develop a superior meat chicken, the Chicken of Tomorrow. It was from these contests we saw the beginnings of the Cornish Cross, with its faster growth rate, more white meat, and higher feed efficiency. Today the hatcheries use a complicated and well-guarded system of crossing four parent strains to produce the Cornish Cross hybrids, making it impossible for producers to breed the birds themselves. As the big companies pursue ever-high growth rates, the Cornish Cross has become more and more unstable and even more prone to health problems. Farmers are left helplessly on the sidelines to purchase even more supplements and remedies to prop up these delicate birds.

Many sustainable farmers are searching for a way out of this model. But their options are extremely limited. Those that attempt to raise "heritage" chicken breeds have the higher feed costs and twice the growth time to contend with, forcing them to charge a higher premium. They also often struggle to find a market for these smaller, skinnier chickens with more dark meat. Despite what many claim is a superior taste, most people seem unwilling to buy something that has become so strange-looking to the average consumer.

There are a few people out there developing alternative hybrids that have growth rates a bit slower than the Cornish Cross's, and some are trying to bring the slower-growing European genetics utilized by the French Label Rouge system to North America. J.M. Hatchery's "Freedom Ranger" hybrids are one such variety and are starting to gain some popularity. All these strains reach market weight in 9-12 weeks and show a lot of promise, but it will be up to consumers to create demand for them.

To be sure, I'm not trying to simply demonize the Cornish Cross — something that's easy to do when your livelihood doesn't depend on good feed conversion rates. The benefits to the farmer of their economy of feed and speed of growth is hard to overstate, and when I order my first batch of meat chickens this summer, they will most likely be Cornish Crosses. However, none of this means that we should stop searching for and promoting more sustainable strains and methods, just as the broiler breeding companies will never stop searching for a faster-growing chicken. We just need to do it with a clear and realistic understanding of the limits that farmers face and find options that really work.

Chicken farmers: Share your thoughts and experiences!

Photo credit: Katie@! via Flickr