Freedom Ranger backyard broilers - feed amount, feed conversion and growth

[jmarie]

what a great post! I was calculating what it would cost with organic feed and it came out to $8 a chicken, a little steep... hmmmmm I wonder what it would come out to with fermented feed!

 

[SunnySkies]

Well, my 30 Freedom Rangers should arrive today from PA (I think the breeder is here on BYC too) and I'll be using this chart as a guideline as I have a few more birds than the OP. My feed options are limited to Southern States store brand, TSC's Dumor, and Purina.

 

[Troutfamily1]

Good Morning, I'm on night shift so I gotta lot of time to research and take notes.

My wife and I are planning on raising our first run of meat chickens. The plan is to build a mobile tractor and use techniques from PolyFace Farms, Joel Salatin's experience. Just one tractor this time. 40ish chickens Hatched from our laying hens (a mix of Barred Rock, Comets, RIR, Speckled Sussex, a couple Easter eggers, & a couple Buffs (# depending on fertility and hatching %'s),

Plus we plan to buy about 20 chicks from Freedom Ranger Hatchery, Hopefully timing the hatching chicks with the delivery of newbies. I have been researching and working on calculating the feed per bird of the whole cycle, Hatch to "Harvest". (don't want to spend more money on feed than have too)

We hope to put some in our freezer, sell some at cost (to Raise) and sell about 20, at retail price (local and Farmers Market), to friends and coworkers to cover the cost of raising this batch.

We only have about 1 acre of usable clear land to use to run our first tractor on (Hope this will also help with not having to cut the grass on this part as often).

I hope you don't mind us using your #'s to help with feeding our meat flock.

Those last #'s are they for your whole group of 25-26?

Hopefully I can learn from Ya'll and ad input as I learn from my batch too.

 

[Arielle]

Good luck, keepus posted on how it goes!!

 

[meganblythe]

Good Morning, I'm on night shift so I gotta lot of time to research and take notes.

My wife and I are planning on raising our first run of meat chickens. The plan is to build a mobile tractor and use techniques from PolyFace Farms, Joel Salatin's experience. Just one tractor this time. 40ish chickens Hatched from our laying hens (a mix of Barred Rock, Comets, RIR, Speckled Sussex, a couple Easter eggers, & a couple Buffs (# depending on fertility and hatching %'s),

Plus we plan to buy about 20 chicks from Freedom Ranger Hatchery, Hopefully timing the hatching chicks with the delivery of newbies. I have been researching and working on calculating the feed per bird of the whole cycle, Hatch to "Harvest". (don't want to spend more money on feed than have too)

We hope to put some in our freezer, sell some at cost (to Raise) and sell about 20, at retail price (local and Farmers Market), to friends and coworkers to cover the cost of raising this batch.

We only have about 1 acre of usable clear land to use to run our first tractor on (Hope this will also help with not having to cut the grass on this part as often).

I hope you don't mind us using your #'s to help with feeding our meat flock.

Those last #'s are they for your whole group of 25-26?

Hopefully I can learn from Ya'll and ad input as I learn from my batch too.

The last numbers that I posted (posted again below for clarity) were what I plan to do for my next batch of 25-26 birds, based on what I learned the first time. Also note that I fed them twice per day, so I divided the pounds/day amount in half and gave them that amount once on the morning and once in the evening. I read somewhere that feeding chickens twice a day lowers stress levels and can be beneficial to production. And I was feeding freshly milled feed - I don't know if pellets or crumbles have the same nutritional content per pound. Good luck, and let us know how everything goes for you!

Week Pounds/day
1 free choice
2 free choice
3 free choice
4 3.5
5 4
6 5
7 5.5
8 6.5
9 7
10 8
11 8.5
12 9

 

[Arielle]

FOr clarity, what % protein was the feed you use, and was it all vegetable , or did it have some meat products??

 

[meganblythe]

FOr clarity, what % protein was the feed you use, and was it all vegetable , or did it have some meat products??

All vegetable feed. Weeks 1-3 were 21-24% protein. Weeks 4-6 were 20% protein. Weeks 7-12 were 16-20% protein.

 

[Marcy54]

The last numbers that I posted (posted again below for clarity) were what I plan to do for my next batch of 25-26 birds, based on what I learned the first time. Also note that I fed them twice per day, so I divided the pounds/day amount in half and gave them that amount once on the morning and once in the evening. I read somewhere that feeding chickens twice a day lowers stress levels and can be beneficial to production. And I was feeding freshly milled feed - I don't know if pellets or crumbles have the same nutritional content per pound. Good luck, and let us know how everything goes for you!

Week Pounds/day
1 free choice
2 free choice
3 free choice
4 3.5
5 4
6 5
7 5.5
8 6.5
9 7
10 8
11 8.5
12 9

Did you pasture your birds as well as supply feed?

 

[meganblythe]

Pasturing is probably a bit of a generous term for what I did - I moved them daily through my grassy backyard. It wasn't lush pasture by any means, but they did have access to green grass and some bugs and such. (I had about 25 birds in a 4'x8' structure.)

 

[circlecsranch]

Know this is an older post, but so glad I found it!