Freedom Rangers looking "weedy"

[Hummingbird Hollow]

Hi folk, I'm involved with my first venture into raising meat birds. I have 35 Freedom Rangers who will be 2 weeks old in two days. They are growing like mad and seem healthy (although I lost one two days ago) but they are looking pretty "weedy" with areas of thinning feathers. I'm guessing that this is just that they are growing fast and loosing their baby fluff faster than they can grow adult feathers, but thought I'd check in with you more experienced bird folks.

Last spring I raised 8 layers, and remember them going through a ugly "velocaraptor" stage, but thought that was more like four or five weeks along.

 

[Life is Good!]

Here's a picture of our Freedom Rangers at 2wks old (14days) - ours were growing in early April, so it was cooler, not sure if that'd make a difference or not where you are....it was their first day out in the grass! You can see how the wings are getting more feathered, but not anything on the shoulders or body yet. Seems like so long ago - but it was only April 15th!

 

[Hummingbird Hollow]

What are you feeding your Freedom Rangers, and do you give them access to food 24/7?

 

[Life is Good!]

We feed Agrimaster's Grower's crumbles, 21% protein.
I have been giving them feed at morning, noon and bedtime....(I work from home, so I can take a 'chicken break' to get them some extra water or feed or whatever). (so 7:30am, 1:20pm and 7:30pm)
I've documented our adventure here:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/648295/freedom-rangers-in-illinois

We're on week 8 now. Their growth has been steady - and if I offered more feed, I think they'd be further along, as most are roos - but I'm glad they're eating bugs and grass instead of feed. We're only on bag 7 of feed - will need another 2bags to finish them of same feed...but not bad for consumption.

edited to add: We get the Agrimaster from Farm & Fleet....our more local feed store does not stock broiler feed, only layer feed - and their highest percentage is only 18%....I wanted a bit more for these guys.