Crossing my Red Ranger Hens.

[ijon]

Yes
I put a whole 12 lbs 2 1/2 yrs in for an hour and a half... tender
I have a 12qt so it fit... different brand

They say a cut up old roo should cook tender in 75 min

About 30 min for a whole 16 WK

Thanks

 

[Molpet]

Thanks

Make sure you do a natural release of pressure...or it will be tough they say

 

[Compost King]

Why?

What's the difference?

Because I can, do I need another reason?

 

[Morrigan]

Extremely Tender but he spent his last week eating scratch grains soaked in Heavy Whipping Cream.

That sounds like quite a diet. I bet he gobbled that up!

 

[123RedBeard]

Because I can, do I need another reason?

No, do what you want.

I was just curious ... wondering if it was tastier? Or stayed tender "on the hoof" longer ... Or something else???

 

[BlueBaby]

So, how's your project coming along now @Compost King ?

 

[16Chickens Keeper]

So this is a breeding project right because I love these.

 

[Compost King]

Today is week 18 (my target week with my breedings) for the Dorking X RR.

I have a scale this time! The one Chicken (turns out to be a male) from that hatch weighed in at 6.5 pounds. I honestly had no idea what that means because I never weighed a chicken before so I weighed the one other male from that hatch which was an Olive egger Maran and Americuna mix, he weighed in at 4.0 pounds. Typical average healthy egg laying chicken so my meat chicken came in 1.5 pounds heavier than a typical egg layer. I have another batch of 5 that I hatched a month later and noticed inconsistent sizing. I have one runt that will likely get thrown into the egg laying breeding program as I want to make a some Columbian Patterned Mutts for my Red Sex Links of the future.


I also weighed the Father Dorking and Mother Red Ranger of the my Dorking X Ranger cross. I am just curious as to how much they weighed. The Red Ranger Mother is 14.0 pounds and the Dorking Roster is 7.3.

for a scale I use a bathroom scale I bought from Amazon and it gives the same weight for me as the doctors office does. I stand the scale alone and then again holding the chicken, I do both weighings twice to verify I am getting a consistent reading. every once in a while my first weighing is off from the 2nd and I do it again and every time the 2nd and 3rd have been the same when I have had to do that. I like that method since I do not handle my chickens often it gives me a chance to hold them and its a nice feeling to hold something you take care of. Chickens still hate it lol.

On the Ayam Cemani X Red Ranger (full disclosure I do not believe its an Ayam Cemani Father but its fully black every feather every toe and deep into the mouth, probably a cross of with a larger chicken, that is why I choose it over my pure Ayam Cemanis for meat birding)
The males have been consumed and did not have Fibromelanin (sp?) but the Females did receive the trait. They are small semi heavy and dense, definitely larger and heavier than the pure bred Cemanis I hatched at the same time. They Lay like crazy an egg a day from both. On occasion one might miss a day. Their feed consumption was not measured but they and the one rooster I have them with are not eating faster than my other egg laying trios. In fact they eat less than the Production Red Rooster with his Delaware and Columbian Wyandotte hen in the pen next to them. The only down side is that the eggs are not much larger than a bantam egg. Maybe they get bigger with age. This has me wondering if I have created an ideal dual purpose hybrid where the males get large enough to be worth eating and the females become laying machines.

The Naked Neck x Red Ranger. I currently only have one chick at 4 weeks old, I had 2 but one died and I have no idea why. The last hatch none of them hatched and I had very few eggs due to the Red Rangers stopping laying for about a month. Currently in the incubator (on day 3) I have I believe 8 or 9 NNxRR, and I put 3 eggs in with the Dorking's because they are likely to go broody soon.

Even though its not part of the meat bird project (yet) I thought I would share another Naked Neck crossing. I crossed Fibromelanin (sp?) hen with the Naked Neck Rooster and one out of the 5 that hatched ended up with black skin. I imagine the hen has diluted genetics because she was supposed to be an Ayam Cemani but after she hatched (eBay eggs) and devloped feathers she obviously was not. But she did have black skin and features so I used her for this crossing. Currently I have the Ayam Cemani x Red Rangers in with the Naked Neck, just put them there today.

 

[Morrigan]

That Dorking X RR is looking really good. If it dressed out at 70% of its live weight, that is a nice size for its age.

Thanks for all the info. and pictures. I enjoy hearing about your crosses.

 

[BlueBaby]

Thank's for the update on your crossing project's. The Dorking/RR mixes have some nice color of feathering going on. It will be interesting to see how those NN crossed chick's turn out for you. My NN/Breese crossed hen's are laying nice big egg's now.