Crossing my Red Ranger Hens.

[Compost King]

Its not really a Meat Bird experiment, in fact its the opposite, tiny bantams! I have 4 broody Bantam Hens sitting in the same huge nesting box. 2 hatched yesterday and I snagged a picture when I shut the coops. A Red Pyle OEGB and a Serama chick hatched. many more to come. They switch piles of eggs, trade eggs back and forth, and seem to have a 4 broody mama team going on. The Coop this nesting box is attached to is not the best coop for young ones so I am building a brooding coop for them. The Bantam Coop will flood if we get a very heavy rain fall. Nothing Adult bantams can not handle but young chicks would not have a good time with it.

Instead of making a thread about it I figured I would just share the picture in here with people who follow the thread. Although I am not sure how many eggs there are but I estimate about 7 eggs under each hen so I will have possibly 28 chicks and the majority will be Red Pyle Old English Game bantams, a few will be a mix between OEGB and Japanese Bantams, and a few Serama eggs were added by me.

 

[ChickenFox]

Its not really a Meat Bird experiment, in fact its the opposite, tiny bantams! I have 4 broody Bantam Hens sitting in the same huge nesting box. 2 hatched yesterday and I snagged a picture when I shut the coops. A Red Pyle OEGB and a Serama chick hatched. many more to come. They switch piles of eggs, trade eggs back and forth, and seem to have a 4 broody mama team going on. The Coop this nesting box is attached to is not the best coop for young ones so I am building a brooding coop for them. The Bantam Coop will flood if we get a very heavy rain fall. Nothing Adult bantams can not handle but young chicks would not have a good time with it. View attachment 1724374
Instead of making a thread about it I figured I would just share the picture in here with people who follow the thread. Although I am not sure how many eggs there are but I estimate about 7 eggs under each hen so I will have possibly 28 chicks and the majority will be Red Pyle Old English Game bantams, a few will be a mix between OEGB and Japanese Bantams, and a few Serama eggs were added by me.

Banty babies!!! It's your thread so you post what you want. Lol I certainly won't complain about seeing baby bants. Can't wait for mine to hatch for the HAL. EE, d'uccle and sebrights.

 

[Compost King]

Banty babies!!! It's your thread so you post what you want. Lol I certainly won't complain about seeing baby bants. Can't wait for mine to hatch for the HAL. EE, d'uccle and sebrights.

The best part about Bantams is that if you over produce them they still won't eat much... now my meat birds are causing me very high feed bills.

 

[Chickenheadmate]

I have bred him (Naked Neck) with the Red Rangers, the oldest offspring from that is running around with my CX hen right now but they are a long way away from laying I believe they are 6 and 7 weeks old. I Crossed the Naked Neck with some of my Fibro (black meat) birds but they were the culls and ones already mixed and out of about half a dozen chicks only one had the Fibro trait.

Besides color, have you noticed any other difference in the meat?
Or is it just like a personal preference for you or maybe customers; if you sell it.

 

[Compost King]

Besides color, have you noticed any other difference in the meat?
Or is it just like a personal preference for you or maybe customers; if you sell it.

I haven't processed a chicken with black meat yet. I did eat some males from a crossing but the trait is sex linked and only the females carried the trait over from the males. The Females (2) went back into breeding.
If I were to target a customers for black meat it would be Asians who tend to love black meat birds. To most Americans it's just a Novelty. I won't be doing anything like that but if I do stumble across something that may be in demand I would gladly sell my breeding stock to someone who knows what they are doing, or even give it away. I just need chicken manure for my composting project. Meanwhile as chickens take part in my compost production I am breeding and experimenting to learn. My day job is my plant nursery and chickens just supplement my compost production.

 

[Compost King]

my youngest batch of Silver Grey Dorking x Red Rangers are 12 weeks old today so I weighed one. I grabbed the 2nd biggest one because I am starting to believe the largest one was really hatched with the earlier group and I somehow got him mixed in with the wrong batch. At 12 weeks the random one I picked weighed in at 4.2 pounds. I am too tired to really put much more effort into figuring out what the weight means right now. I can only say I like these crosses because they are much larger than standard fowl that hatched at the same time. I also noticed that Dorking X Ranger crosses spend more time at the feeder than the Cemanis X Rangers (who I did not weigh) but the Dorking Crosses are a bit larger with a bit longer breast keel.

 

[Compost King]

Sunday Update... 16 week old batch (Silver Grey Dorking x Red Ranger). A Random one I picked out came in at 4.7 pounds. probably big enough to eat now. These seem to get a bit larger than the Ayam Cemanis X Red Ranger. If someone took the time to chart my weigh ins you might find many anomalies because I am far from scientific on this. I won't invest the time for that. I also am likely not weighing them perfectly. I just want to see if I can get decent meat in a sustainable way. Last batch of AC X RR they did not put on weight until between 16 and 18 weeks, this Dorking cross seems to be putting on weight sooner even though Dorking's are very slow to put on weight.

Pictures.
To Compare Pure Dorkings to the crosses with Red Rangers.

The Dorkings (darker birds) are either the same age or a week older than the crosses, depends on which cross they are standing near. I haven't weighed the Dorking's yet but they weigh less than they look when I pick them up. They mass up later in life. They are also very frail the first month of age. These Dorkings are 16 weeks of age today and they aren't very large at all. The Crosses on the other hand started massing up quiet early.

This is a photo of the oldest SGD x RR Rooster with an undersized Delaware Hen. I am going to breed him to the Delaware and in a few generations I am hoping to make my own version of Delawares that are real dual Purpose Delawares. I doubt they make the Standard of Perfection but they will taste good so who cares. I am worried I put him into breeding so I wouldn't kill the first one due to emotional attachment. Not a good habit for someone who wants to make meat birds.

The CX Pullet I plan to breed. She is 7 weeks old but not as large as other 7 week old CX I have had, that's good because I am rationing feed. Before this week she would leave the feeding area after 10 minutes because her buddy in the back ground would leave and go free range after 10 minutes. Now the CX will stay until I take the feed away as the 8 week old Naked Neck X Red Ranger goes off to free range. I will be weighing the NN X RR after the SGD X RR have been consumed or put into breeding programs.

I was going to take a picture of the Naked Neck with the Red Rangers, But the Hens went to roosting early. I am still collecting eggs from them. Eventually he will be breeding with Slow White Broilers and the CX. Not sure exactly how I am going to do it because its a bit in the future but I want to make my version of a meat bird that will have a large single comb, naked neck and white feathers. I really like the toads on another thread so I will model my approach like Duluth Ralphie did with Toads.

(not meat Birds but people love tiny little chicks so I added this)
And the Bantam mommies with their chicks in a brooding house I made specifically for them. These are the smallest of bantams and only they can get through the tiny door, this is to keep the CX from getting in there and eating the 24% protein feed. The Black Hen is a Grey Japanese Bantam and the only one who has Mom experience. The other 2 are Red Pyle Old English Bantams. Between the 3 they only have 6 chicks. 2 of them abandoned their eggs to help the first mom to hatch raise her chicks, a 4th Broody Bantam is back in the original nesting Box sitting on all the abandoned eggs plus her own. I have no idea if these 3 moms will allow her to join when the final eggs hatch. I have never had more than one hen have chicks at the same time.

My 2 Dorking hens went broody yesterday and today. Half their eggs are of my meat crosses.. NN X RR and NN x( AC x RR) and AC x (AC x RR) ... by the time they hatch the SGD x RR Pullets will be in their pen. They have the Coop and Pen designed for broody hens. I need to get to bed, so forgive the typos and screw ups I am not taking time to proof read it.

 

[BlueBaby]

@Compost King I think that your intended crosses with the NN roo will be something to see. The CX pullet look's to have a good sized breast, and mixed with the NN, that should give the chick's better height, chest size, plus help slow them down from standing at the feed bowl so much.

 

[Compost King]

Week 13 update on the youngest batch of Silver Grey Dorking X Red Ranger. 4.4 pounds which is a hefty weight for 13 weeks. The youngest batch seems to be larger than the batch 3 and a half weeks older. Environmental differences? I didn't keep track of such things. I just know this batch could be butchered at a pretty young age and get a decent bit of meat off of them. There is one runt in the group though.

I moved all (I believe all) the females from the 16 and a half week group and put them in with the Silver Grey Dorking Rooster for further breeding. The males will be eaten Easter or later because that's when they turn 18 weeks. I believe this crossing could be eaten earlier to save on feed. They are massing out faster than the previous crossing.

I mentioned previously I would start weighing the Naked Neck x Red Ranger crossings. I only have one that is near the age to start weighing but she is on a rationed diet... not that she needs on but I have her on a buddy system with my one CX where they free range most of the day and get rationed feed at night. She will be extreme under weight for a meat bird. So it could be a while before the next batch is big enough to start weighing.

 

[Compost King]

I did my Sunday weigh ins before the birds went to roost. I was able to catch them easily so I went and got it out of the way. The 17 week old SGD X RR weigh ins. I grabbed the one that was tagged to be 3 weeks younger because I believe there was a mix up and he some how got mixed in with the younger chicks because he is so much bigger than everyone else and matured so much fast. I also weighed the next largest one. The weights were 5.5 and 4.9 pounds. These guys are definitely big enough to dress out now but I am doing it next week end. Next Easter is the taste test. May I have another small batch of SGD x RR to dress out and then some time off as I only had one Red Ranger Cross in the Month of February due to the Red Rangers not laying eggs. That one that hatched out is going to be bred back to her father to make full Naked Necks.
(addition through edit)
I went back to March 12 on here to see what the first Bird weighed at 18 weeks. 6.5 pounds. So if the largest one gains 1 pound in the next 7 days he will be the same size. The 4.9 pound bird may be female, it has the same pattern that the males have with this cross but has no Cockerel traits. If it turns out to be female it goes into a breeding program.