Hi Everyone!
As you may know from my previous posts, I am a newbie to meat chickens and we are on our first batch of 26 Freedom Rangers. They are seven weeks old now and yesterday I noticed what I'm assuming is the leg problems we hear about with meaties. His legs are very "bowed" out and wobbly when he walks and it almost looks as if they could collapse under him at any moment. Weakness seems to be at the upper part of the leg. I know leg problems are said to be possible vitamin deficiencies with the Rangers. But at 7 weeks and with this bird being one of the larger ones, I wonder if it's just too much weight for his poor legs. He is between 4-5 lbs currently. Any thoughts from you more experienced meatie raisers? I started giving a vitamin supplement in case it's a deficiency issue and I'll be keeping a close eye on the others. We were planning to choose 2 birds to butcher this weekend as a trial run before we do the whole bunch in a few weeks, so I'm guessing this guy is going to be one of the chosen. Just hope we don't have to do it before Saturday...I'm still waiting for some of my supplies to arrive (tomorrow).
As you may know from my previous posts, I am a newbie to meat chickens and we are on our first batch of 26 Freedom Rangers. They are seven weeks old now and yesterday I noticed what I'm assuming is the leg problems we hear about with meaties. His legs are very "bowed" out and wobbly when he walks and it almost looks as if they could collapse under him at any moment. Weakness seems to be at the upper part of the leg. I know leg problems are said to be possible vitamin deficiencies with the Rangers. But at 7 weeks and with this bird being one of the larger ones, I wonder if it's just too much weight for his poor legs. He is between 4-5 lbs currently. Any thoughts from you more experienced meatie raisers? I started giving a vitamin supplement in case it's a deficiency issue and I'll be keeping a close eye on the others. We were planning to choose 2 birds to butcher this weekend as a trial run before we do the whole bunch in a few weeks, so I'm guessing this guy is going to be one of the chosen. Just hope we don't have to do it before Saturday...I'm still waiting for some of my supplies to arrive (tomorrow).
