22% protein for Red Rangers?

[idahoan]

I have raised Cornish crosses, but they required 22% protein in their feed.
This year I am contemplating raising Red Rangers. Do they also require 22% protein.
High protein is really expensive. If Red Rangers do require high protein, then what meat breed does not require it.?

 

[Beekissed]

They don't actually require high pro at all unless you are pushing for fast weight gains by a certain age. Many people just give regular flock rations or even laying rations and get good finishing weights on their birds.

I'm currently raising 50 CX on free range, mixed grains and 16% layer ration. They are incredibly healthy, forage better than any DP breed I've ever owned and they are growing well.

I finished out 20 CX a couple of years ago on the same regimen and they had average finishing weights of 10 lbs with a dressed wt avg between 5 and 6. I processed at 11 wks but could have done it at 8, as the birds seemed to plateau at that age and didn't show any appreciable gains past that age.

 

[wsmoak]

They don't actually require high pro at all unless you are pushing for fast weight gains by a certain age.

This. I'm processing Freedom Rangers now and they've been on 20% Purina Flock Raiser their whole lives.

If I had let them forage more and fed them a lower protein ration they probably would have weighed a bit less. So it just depends on what you're going for.

Feed them the best that you can get economically and see how they do. You can always adjust things with the next batch.

 

[Buster52]

It does matter what you feed them, if you want some size, though. After a search for chickens, I saw a craigslist ad selling 8 week old CX for $5 each, which I figured would be a steal. Then, I noticed the date was for a month ago, making them 12 weeks. I figured they would all be sold or dead by now, but I fired off an email just in case. Lady wrote back and said she had two left.

I rushed over last night after work, figuring I was about pick up some monsters. I looked at the little birds in the cage and wondered where she was keeping these 12 week old giants. I had to take a really close look at them to make sure they were CX, and they were. We took them home and put them in the broiler pen with my 5 week old batch. I went to check on them this morning and had a hard time picking them out, as they are about the same size. Now they are on my broiler mix, so hopefully they won't get left behind. They jumped right on that stuff like they were starving.

In her defense, the lady I bought them from did say she didn't know anything about chickens. She had got them from her daughter. I'm wondering if she fed them at all, expecting them to free range and eat table scraps like the olden days.

Lesson learned. If I want a decent bird in a reasonable time, stick with the high protein stuff.

 

[Beekissed]

Two underweight birds fed on mystery feed isn't quite the same as people feeding lower protein feeds on a regimen.

There are many of us out there who are feeding less protein and getting 100% survival rates, good finishing weights and in a decent amount of time.

In the end, a person just has to find out for themselves if it's that important to you to save money and have healthy animals to place on the table. If that isn't of great importance, then one is pretty much okay feeding whatever the hatchery tells you to feed.

 

[Buster52]

Well, I'm no CX expert, seeings the 200 or so I am raising are my first shot at it. Just that my personal observations so far jive with what experienced folks here and elsewhere have been saying for years. This is just one more such observation. Everyone is free to take it or leave it.

 

[SmokinChick]

I'm feeding CXers 18% mash and am right on schedule with the Welp Hatchery chart. And doing a lazy 12 on 12 off schedule. At 4 weeks the biggest was 3lb 6oz and the lightest was 2lb 5oz.

 

[idahoan]

My granddaughter and my neighbor both raised CX's last year on regular mash. They lost over 50% of the birds. Some hardly grew and some up and died. I raised CX's at the same time and fed 22% protein and only 1 died. They had great weight gains. Since I prefer dark meat, I would like to raise the Red Rangers. My granddaughter also raised Red Rangers last year and she lost alot of them.and some hardly grew just like the CXs.
From your answers it seems that Red Rangers would be a good choice.
Thanks for your input.

 

[Oregon Blues]

Birds don't grow, build muscle, and build bone out of thin air. They need the components to do that.

No protein, no calcium, no vitamins and minerals and they have nothing to use to grow with.

Bee Kissed is using a lower protein, but it is a fermented feed, which apparently makes the component nutrition more accessible and easier to digest. Bee kissed is also ranging birds in an area of excellent forage, so no telling how much protein, in the form of bugs, the birds are getting.

I know that none of us are raising birds in battery cages, but several universities have done controlled studies on feeding broilers, and there is information, gained in scientific controlled studies, about what is the optimum amount of protein to feed them. That information is valid and we can use it for best results.

Good forage can be used to feed chickens. Just turning them loose in a large area is not necessarily good forage. Grass isn't really premium chicken feed. They need an area with seed heads and lots of nice bugs. If that isn't available, the large area is good for them because it provides exercise and sunshine, but they will need supplemental feed in order to grow well.

 

[Beekissed]

Good points all, OB! The weights on my birds are one week behind what the hatcheries say they should weigh right now, so I'm not too far off schedules but that is my goal anyway, so I'm pretty pleased. I'm going for a slower, steadier build of muscle as opposed to quickly obtained, softer, less tonic muscle fibers. Since my bird will have more compact muscle tissue, it actually weighs more than it appears...like any good, fit athlete will.

Sort of the difference between a sumo wrestler and a professional wrestler, I imagine. Protein without exercise doesn't build good muscle, just a lot of soft tissue. Try it yourself...eat a diet high in proteins and carbs, never move farther than the table or the bathroom and see how much actual muscle tissue you build. Sure, you'll have it because it holds your body together and you are lifting your weight enough to walk back and forth, but you won't have healthy, toned muscle. Actually, you'll probably feel and look like crap...which is what I see in the photos of the typical CX.

What I'm shooting for is a bird that tastes and has texture much like a DP, with the health and good life of a DP, but with more total meat than a DP, done on the same money as the DP. I think I'm getting there.... I'll let you know if my teeth break when I eat one.

The last time they were very succulent and tender, just not mushy like the store birds.

So far my birds are 5 wks, are only a week behind the hatchery schedule and I've used $41 in feed, lost three chicks to a freak drowning in the dog bucket incident early on and one to a rooster incident(he has since been eaten), the rest are thriving, active and so fast I can't catch them in the open. My coop doesn't stink, the birds are clean and white, and they require a very minimal work input...takes a few minutes a day, if that. All 50 use less than 2 gal. of water a week, if that much. Their feed is moist but not sopping wet and they have only been fed once a day for the last 3 weeks, prior to that they were fed twice a day.