Do red rangers eat as much as cornish x?

[crazzzymike13]

I'm really wanting to raise some meat birds this spring. I've raised chickens most of my life but have never had much experience with meat birds. I've read that cornish x eats a ton of food but they are ready in 6 to 8 weeks. I know the red rangers take a little longer, but do you feed them as much? Any help would be appreciated.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

I've raised them both. A lot of people will put CornishX on a restricted feeding schedule to slow them down but I haven't.
They both eat voraciously but it is about growth rate.
I could be wrong but I think you're looking at the numbers wrong.
Rather than the amount of feed consumed in a given time period, when raising a meat animal, the bottom line is the feed conversion rate (FCR).
That's the ratio measuring the efficiency of livestock to convert feed to edible protein - whether that be flesh, milk, wool or eggs, etc..
Mass of input divided by the useable output.
Thanks to selective breeding and improved nutrition, poultry feed efficiency has improved by 250% since the 1800s.
High performance egg layers have an FCR of about 2 while Cornish cross in commercial poultry FCR is about 1.6/
I don't have a FCR number on red rangers.

While there are flaws in the following studies, here are some links you may find interesting.
https://www.motherearthnews.com/homesteading-and-livestock/wrong-about-freedom-rangers-zb0z10zgri
http://afarmishkindoflife.com/cornish-cross-vs-red-rangers/
https://www.reformationacres.com/2011/04/freedom-ranger-trial.html
http://greenmachinefarm.com/chicken-economics-ranger-vs-cornish/

I don't know if I'll raise either again soon because I raise a rare heritage DP bird now but I was fond of the Freedom Rangers but Cornish X is king of feed conversion.

 

[RUNuts]

@ChickenCanoe - thank you for that.

My situation is a little bit different. Living with close neighbors, I dare not get Freedom Rangers since I will have to butcher before they are full grown due to the noise. I can hope for more hens, but realistically, I'd expect 70% males. That means I'd have 70% small birds in the kitchen.

With Cornish, I've been lead to believe and hopefully will prove next year, that harvest occurs before crowing. That allows me to order straight run for an initial cost saving with the intention of 8 week harvest before first crow.

Several people have mentioned using the Freedom Rangers and harvesting as they find their crow, since everyone hits puberty differently.

So what is your goal? Quick, cheap or good? I'm biased and beginning to believe home raised is all good.

Another factor, if you free range at all, your feed costs will drop for the free feed. I've read that Cornish don't free range as readily as the Freedom Rangers.

 

[junebuggena]

Freedom Rangers won't sit and eat themselves to death. But they do take quite a bit longer to reach table size. I think it averages out to be about the same amount of feed overall. The plus side to the Rangers is that you can hold over a few pullets and a cockerel for breeding next season's meat birds.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

They're both pretty big before they crow and I've usually gotten about 50:50 male/female.
Even with egg breeds, I would butcher before they crowed much to keep the rooster/hen ratio down.
I always butcher Cornish X by 6-7 weeks and both breeds at 3.5 weeks for Cornish game hens. The freedom rangers aren't a lot slower and I butcher them by 8 or 9 weeks. I've never heard one crow.

My goal is good - as in quality delicious food.
Raising small flocks of chickens on the cheap is an oxymoron.
You'll never be able to raise chickens on a small parcel as inexpensively as buying from the grocery store.

They'll both forage but CornishX much less so.

 

[crazzzymike13]

Thanks for everyone's help. I've got another question. Someone told me that i can breed Red rangers and get the same meat bird for a few generation's. Is there any truth to this? I'd like to be able to do this so I don't have to go through the hatcheries. I can just incubate them and have some more next time.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

I've heard people say this but I don't think it is true.
My experience is with Freedom Rangers which are a proprietary hybrid. They, like Cornish X won't breed true.

 

[lazy gardener]

I can't speak for FR, but can speak with experience regarding the future generations of Dixie Rainbow aka Pioneer. Both are hybrids. IME, they breed true enough that you can expect a reasonable second, and perhaps generations beyond that which breed true enough to the original hybrid to be worth your while to hold back a trio for future generations. With Pioneers, I did find that the rooster drama did start before I was ready to process. However, you could process early, and give up a bit of carcass size to avoid the roo drama.

 

[crazzzymike13]

Y'all are awesome and helping me out alot. One more question.ive been dumpster diving at the local grocery store for vegetables for the chickens. They also have some meat scraps that are usually still frozen. I feed my chickens meat scraps on occasion. Can I feed my broilers meat scraps and veggies to kinda relieve some of the feed cost?

 

[lazy gardener]

If you're fairly convinced that the meat scraps are not spoiled, you could take them home and cook them up for your birds. I'd not want to use more than 10% of either meat or veggie in place of their formulated feed.