Freedom Rangers and Feed

[mrs_organized_chaos]

I am new to chickens and I got my first chicks 4 weeks ago. They are almost five weeks and I have my meat and egg chicks together currently. I am feeding Purina Starter/ Grower currently and they are all in the brooder together. Is this going to cause my meat chickens to grow slower? The feed, I mean. It has 18% protein. My meat chickens look good, have feathered out nicely, and are much larger than my egg layers. I plan on processing at 10 weeks but will I need to delay that awhile longer due to the feed? I chose Freedom Rangers because they are a slower growing breed and (based on research) are more active than the Cornish X. I have read other threads about feed, but feel slightly overwhelmed by all the info and different feed and protein ratios available.

 

[trudyg]

I have buff orpingtons and red rangers together. They went through 1 #50 bag of chick starter, then I put them on All Flock (since I have older chickens they'll be in with eventually). The meaties are bigger than the bo's, but they get along just fine. At 8 weeks, the male rangers are big enough to butcher, maybe another week or so for the females. I don't see that they grew any slower due to the feed, but they have plenty of space to run, peck, scratch and eat bugs. Don't worry--I think you'll be right on track at 10 weeks for the meaties. If not, let them go another week. Depends on how big you want them, too.

 

[mrs_organized_chaos]

We are almost through the 50# bag of starter/ grower so I will buy the all flock next time around. I don’t want them to beef up too fast and end up with a whole set of problems. I would rather them grow a little slower than too fast. They aren’t in the coop yet but I try to get them out in a “play area” in the grass as much as possible so they can do “chicken things”.