Looking for a Breed for Non soy Ration

I'm looking forward to seeing how it goes with a different breed!

Last Fall

http://www.buckleybrosinc.com/index.cfm?show=10&mid=9&pid=5

were promoting non GMO, soy free, etc. poultry feeds at the Ohio national poultry show. Is that what you were using?

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigredfeather 

This year I am going to attempt to raise a few batches of meat birds on a soy free ration.  Last time I tried it, I used the CX and they didn't perform well at all.  At 8 weeks they only averaged around 3 pounds.  I'm fairly convinced that the CX is not the proper breed for this ration.  I think it's knda like putting 87 octane in a stock car and expecting it to still run 200MPH.  That being said, I'm interested in finding others that have tried a non soy ration with a differnet breed and had good results or just your opinion of what breed you would try and why.  The non soy ration I am using is a 19% protein.

 

TIA

Last fall i raised Freedom Rangers on non soy from Countryside.

At 9 weeks the avg male was 6.4 lbs with the high being 7lbs and low 5.8. The females avg 5 lbs with the heaviest being 5.6 lbs and lightest at 4.6.

At 11 weeks the males on average weighed 8.56 lb (9.4 high and 7.4 low) and the females averaged 6.8 lbs (7.8 high and 6.0 low).

I did Cornish Crosses on Countryside non-soy Broiler 19%. In the first few weeks I gave some mealworms. I did a small amount of ranging in rye grass.

They dressed out at  around 5 give or take at 8 weeks and at 6.2 pounds at 10 weeks and 6.5 at 11 weeks.  It can be done.  I was happy with the result. I'm now spoiled and don't want to go back to store chicken but probably will have to because I'm not doing meating again til fall and I'll run out of chicken before then.

Don't have specific weights in front of me right now, but we had great results with Freedom Rangers on Hiland Naturals non-soy feed last year.  They were on starter (21%) for about two weeks.  After that, they were on the grower at 19%.  Their growth rate was better than we expected and they were very healthy and easy to deal with.  We processed them at 10 weeks.  Out of 75 birds, we only lost one (to heat stroke during a very hot spell). 

Big Red you are braver than me. I got a quote from my mill for soy free broiler starter and, Oh MY! The price was significantly higher than the soy formulation. My customers would not have paid for that premium and I certainly could not have made a profit for it. 

Of course, this was last spring so prices may have come down since then. We were substituting fish meal to increase protein, which jacked the price up.  I would vote for freedom rangers as well. They are very hardy and seemed to adapt very well to the various conditions I had them under.