Broiler heritage crosses, anyone?

sovietkennels · Sep 28, 2018

Has anyone bred their their broiler (cornish, red broiler, husky red, freedom ranger, red ranger, Dixie) to a heritage breed? Can you post any pictures of the results? And maybe some info on adult weights and sizes? Thank you

dan26552 · Sep 28, 2018

I have red rangers and I’ve had them cross with a number of my heritage breeds, Australorps, Brown Leghorns And Rhode Island Reds mostjey. The crosses have varried a good bit in weight and looks, even from the same cross. The Australorp cross roosters have come in three colors, Black with red leakage, black with gold leakage and black with silver leakage. The pullets so far have only come out with red leakage, I’m not sure why :confused:

The males have been big boys though smaller than the rangers, around 6-7 lbs 7-8 months (my Australorps are a little on the small side) They grew faster than the Australorps but a bit slower than the rangers and were leaner breasted but still pretty meaty.

The RIR crosses were a little slower growing than the BAs and at 6 1/2 months the boys are still a little small to butcher, the pullets are a pretty good size though, about 5lbs. I don’t have any pictures of the Roos but they all pretty much look like pure RIRs.

The Leghorn crosses have been quite interesting to watch grow out, the roosters came out almost identical to my ranger rooster but with a deeper hue of red, unfortunately neither made it to butchering but both stayed relatively small, around 4lbs. The pullets came out very different, one is a light buff with the brown Leghorn markings, she’s also really big, as big and broad as the pure ranger pullets I hatched out, somewhere between 6-7lbs the other came out a dark red with Leghorn markings and is tiny, around 4lbs.