Does anyone have a preferance of either the freedom or rainbow ranger birds? Or anyone have any complaints about either. Im really considering the Freedom rangers from freedomrangerhatchery.com ... thanks
I *think* the general consensus is that most of the "freedom rangers" and "red broilers" and the like are actually the same birds, just sold under a different name.
Ditto WhiteMountainsRanch. The Meyers catalog illustration is the same as Freedom Ranger Hatchery's. I think Meyers gets them drop-shipped from FRH and just changed the name slightly.
No complaints about Freedom Rangers here! Ours were fun to raise and tasty to eat!
My first batch I did Cornish, now I am doing Red Broilers. (Think those are similar/ same as Freedom Rangers) So far they seem to grow A LOT slower, but they are still young, we'll have to wait and see!
Thanks for the replies, I kind of figured they were the same but I wanted to make sure. Yea, meyers description is exactly the same as the Freedom rangers one but they cost more at Meyer. I am going to try my luck with these broilers, I tried one batch of the Cornish X and not only did I fail miserably but they were kind of creepy little birds with their rapid growth, lack of movement or anything a normal chicken does except eat and poop for that matter!
Just wanted to let you guys know that I did both the Red Broilers and the Freedom Rangers and they are NOT the same at all, the Freedom Rangers are a nicer all around meat bird.
White mountain, I enjoyed reading your post but I was wondering how your findings were influenced by a small population sampling. There would be other factors to consider like time of year, etc.
I'd love to hear more from people who raised both the Freedom Rangers and Red Broilers to see if they had similar results. I'm raising the Red Broilers now (13 birds) and plan on going with a different type come late summer/fall to compare. I think I also may keep two of the RB pullets to breed to my NHR roo.
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Yes I would have liked to do the "tests" with a bigger population sample. However I do think that my experiences gave me a pretty good general idea how that breed was. The only varying factor I could see is if the specific breed was from a different hatchery.
I definitely agree that there are always varying factors. I tried to keep everything as similar as I can. All were fed the same food, same schedules, same suppliments, etc.
And while time of year definitely matters, it doesn't so much here in San Diego, it's fairly constant weather, especially this year we aren't getting all the usual hot weather.