Freedom Ranger update @ 7 weeks Lots & Lots of PICTURES!!!!

[miss_jayne]

that one orange, furry chicken looks like a cat! what breed is it? do they all have whiskers?

i want a bunch of those!

 

[moenmitz]

It is a very rare breed, beautiful and friendly, but the eggs taste pretty bad.........I'll sell ya some.....

 

[SandraMort]

My rangers are 24 days old and not looking anywhere near as plump as the other photos from 3 and 4 weeks old. What am I doing wrong? They've got all the broiler food they want and I check on the feeders 3-5 times a day. Until today, they were only in the barn, too, so it wasn't that they were getting too much exercise.

 

[PurpleChicken]

Give them more time. They seem to grow in surges. I sorta remember them growing
the most between 4 and 6 weeks. Mine are 10 and slowing down a lot. There is a BIG
difference in size between the roos and hens too.

 

[Cason]

Seems to me my "Easter Eggers" (sent to me as "meat birds by mistake) take a REALLY long time to get large enough to process. REALLY long time.

 

[2manyhats]

Quote:
Same birds actually...if you do the search in BYC, you will read the whole story. Basically, Freedom Rangers went out of business and sold the breeding stock, but not the name, to JM Hatchery. He sells them as "colored range broilers" They were originally marketed in Europe under the name Label Rouge...google it and you can learn more specifics.

The F.R. are normal birds, albeit "chunky" ones. They are VERY active, from the start, and can live and breed like a normal chicken. I am not sure if their life expectancy is as long as dual purpose chickens, but it is much longer than the Cornish. They do not breed true, as they are hybrid, but alot of people on here are experimenting with breeding them to get some meaty birds-plan on trying it myself.

Ours run around ALOT, really funny watching them run around flapping their wings in an attempt at flying...they get about a foot off the ground at the most, but it doesnt stop them from trying! They REALLY get into chasing bugs, and while they ADORE their feeder, they will pass it up to eat something that MOVES every time.

Sounds a lot like why I raise the heritage turkeys. They can be kept to adulthood and produce healthy offspring. I'll have to look into FR for meat birds. This is the first I've heard of them. Learn something new (usually lots of somethings) every time I get on BYC.

 

[Bassleg]

What I want to know is what time is this chicken dinner? 7 weeks looks good.

 

[Zookeeper9000]

Hi I read somewhere that you should plan on 25# of feed for each meat bird from birth to butcher. Do you all find that true. I don't need an exact but wanted to be prepared for the expense.

Nice looking nuggets there.

Thanks

 

[moenmitz]

OK, here is my best "guesstimate" so far. I started with 100 rangers, lost a bunch right away, got some replacements a week later,. lost a few more along the way due to accidental deaths, and now have about 90 Rangers. They have been sharing their feed, which is turkey starter, with 12 turkey poults (who eat very little by comparison) since the second week. I have used approximately 450-500 lbs of feed in almost 8 weeks. I can't be precise as on occasion, the Rangers "borrowed" from the other feed bins when I ran short for a day or two, and the other birds have similarly borrowed from the turkey starter a few times- but 500 lbs is pretty close I think. So basically, for us, 100 birds have gone through about 5 lbs each of food. Not bad. Keep in mind though, they have 3 weeks to go, and their appetites have been increasing substantially the bigger they get. I have them out grazing about 12 hours a day since they were a little over 2 weeks old I believe. There is a big variation in size with my ultimate "fatso" weighing in at 5 lbs, 8 oz this morning-others are as small as 3 lbs. Fatty stays pretty close to the feeder, while some of the others do laps aorund the pasture all day-obviosuly the amount of exercise and bug-hunting they do is going to have a big effect in that area. Nest batch, I wont be raising so many different birds together, hopefully can avoid untimely deaths having learned from my mistakes, and can hopefully keep a more exact cost account per bird. I will definitely be posting the final figures after processing these guys though. Hope that helps....

 

[PurpleChicken]

Going on 10 weeks now. We got the the third week of July. My roos are crowing in
the barn as I type this.