First time meat chicks: fermented feed, breed, and other questions

[rowechicks]

Hello! I got laying chicks in spring and am starting to get the hang of it. I was in our local Tractor Supply and found fall chicks for a quarter! I brought them home only to find out that they are meat chickens! What can others tell me about Red Rangers (I'm not finding much)? I read a post about making your feed last by fermenting it. Is it safe to give chicks fermented feed? I read that they are big enough to butcher at 12 weeks, and so I'm going to try to get my 50lb bag of chick feed last 12 weeks. I only have 6 chicks. Do they grow faster? The store said that they were a week old (hence the quarter), but they are getting in their grown up feathers and look partially naked. We are still having 90 degree days, but the nights are between 40-50 degrees. At what point is it safe to move them into the coop? We are finishing our built-in brooder, but don't have any electricity going out to it right. They seem to be doing fine in the insulated part of our garage without a heat lamp, but it retains heat through the night and I'm not sure how well the coop will. It is currently housing 6 laying hens....that should be laying in a week or so. Thank you for any help!

 

[ChickNanny13]

Not to familiar with the Red Rangers but there's several threads about them on BYC, check it out. Type in the search box - Red Rangers

There also a thread on Fermenting Feed, it's LONG but very informative. Simple & yes it does stretch your bag of feed out cause they tend to eat less and get the nutritional benefits due to the fermenting. You can feed it to chicks, a 50# bag will last "forever".

Where are you located? Chicks are usually fully feather at 8wks & can go out but make sure they can get out of the draft & have shelter from the weather. If you're planning on putting them in with your 6 Laying Hens, you'll have to go through the "introduction", not just put them together. There's a thread on introduction/integration for separate groups.

To do these searches - Go to the top where it says Search Forums, click on that then you'll see a Search Box, type in what you want to "research". There is alot of information on this site, everything you want/need to know.

 

[Egghead_Jr]

We brood chicks to 4 weeks of age then put out to coop and run. They should have a heat source at his age. I'm surprised they are not chirping constantly and huddled together without it. Maybe your from the south, here in the North our highs are 70 and lows 40 F already. Neither is good for week old chicks without heat.

Meat birds grow faster than layers. The red and black broiler types don't grow nearly as fast as CornishX but will still be larger than layers. They consume more feed. Fermented feed can be served to chicks and you can read a lot about it. It's not a miracle feed and doesn't cure cancer. You'll be using more than one bag of feed to grow out six meat birds to 12 weeks. If you restrict feed they wont grow to their potential and take longer to grow. 12 weeks is a good target age for red broilers and you shouldn't skimp on feed for them or it could take longer to grow them out which makes for the same feed intake or more and an older tougher bird.