Freedom Rangers

[TOR]

Ranger roosters I have had kept are mean. I will never try to keep one again. I still have 3 ranger hens. Had 1 die last fall unknown why.
I did hatch some birds recently. One was brahma/ranger. After 2 weeks it was outgrowing the others very visibly, but I sold it with the other light brahma chicks.
The other chickens I have are australorp.
The ranger hens get along with the other hens fine.
Have more going to hatch so be interesting see what happens with growth rate.

Thank you so much for this. Its good to hear I could take a shot at keeping some and mixing them with my RIR for a faster sustainable meat bird. Right now, my Barnyard Mixes and spare RIR roos take about 5 months to get to about 5-6 lbs. Its alot of feed, lol. I dont want to make a new breed, just influence my flock to grow a little quicker and larger lol.

 

[August Coldwell]

Ranger roosters I have had kept are mean. I will never try to keep one again. I still have 3 ranger hens. Had 1 die last fall unknown why.
I did hatch some birds recently. One was brahma/ranger. After 2 weeks it was outgrowing the others very visibly, but I sold it with the other light brahma chicks.
The other chickens I have are australorp.
The ranger hens get along with the other hens fine.
Have more going to hatch so be interesting see what happens with growth rate.

That’s awesome. I hope you let us know how they do.

 

[PurpleCArTires]

My rooster has been pretty chill. I think he saw what happened to his buddies and knows what I'm capable of. He's 20 months old now, so if he was going to have an attitude, it should have shown itself.

I should clarify, I have the Rudd Rangers, Hoover's version of the Red/Freedom Ranger. They seemed hardy as chicks and young adults. Didn't lose my first one until they were about a year old. They were pretty fast growing, but I still didn't process the males until 18 weeks or so I think. Hatched June 1st and went to freezer camp in mid Oct. Could have done it sooner, but I had other projects going on, which is why I got them. Wanted the flexibility you don't get with CX.

The two hens I have left from the same batch just started laying again. They were literally scheduled for the chopping block a couple weeks ago. Pretty sure they heard me and got back to work.

I am thinking of hatching some eggs from my Speckled Sussex crossed with my rooster. The SS are little meat bricks compared to my hybrid layers, and I'm hoping to get some decent size and growth rate. I might keep a couple females just to see how well they lay. The Rangers did lay well that first winter, and the eggs were good size. The SS also decent layers, but the eggs are on the small size. Worst case scenario, I eat my mistakes.

Lol! Love it! If you do cross the SS and Ranger, please let me know how it works out.

 

[MissE]

Lol! Love it! If you do cross the SS and Ranger, please let me know how it works out.

I will be posting here with updates when I do it: https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/thinking-of-an-experiment.1450335/

 

[PurpleCArTires]

sorry to hear about your loss! But thank you for the heads up of them just keeling over. I dont want to wake up to a dead chicken either :/. I also dont want to let them get too big and they live horrible lives. Lol

 

[PurpleCArTires]

Do you have any recommendations for a good heritage meat bird? Not dual purpose. My RIR are excellent layers, but not that good for meat lol

 

[PurpleCArTires]

Late to this conversation, but interesting year with Freedom Rangers. This is my experience with the breed:

I bought six Freedom Rangers chicks in March of 2020 to add to my flock. I figured dual purpose was not a bad thing, given the way things felt back then.

The chickens grew freakishly fast, fastest I've ever seen. And they became huge by 12 weeks. They were raised with a few Sebright chicks and even though they always towered over them, they were always sweet towards the Sebrights, almost nurturing.

Around week thirteen, two of them just died suddenly. I never weighed them, but my neighbor, a homesteader with a mixed flock, picked one up and said it felt like a small turkey. He said, thinking that they were more for meat, "They seem like they should be in the freezer." They were ginormous.

Two turned out to be roosters, Hector and Billy Bob. I have never known stranger roosters. Hector was free range most of the time and took to hiding in the bushes to ambush us from behind. We separated the two because Hector was just brutal to Billy Bob, chasing him and ambushing him whenever he could. It was almost embarrassing seeing these two fat roosters running, one chasing the other. We are not allowed to have roosters in our town, and they were crowing rarely so we thought we might hang on to them. Well, one day a switch was thrown and they both started singing to each other every minute on the minute, it seemed. So we decided to process them. I gave Hector to my neighbor to process and I processed Billy Bob. On the day the neighbor took Hector,
he chokingly yelled to Billy Bob, "Hey do you want one last shot at this guy, Billy Bob?" and he held Hector about a foot off the ground. Billy Bob made a sprint right up to Hector and pecked him right on the head. It was stunning.

The meat was excellent. The skin very yellow and fatty.

The two girls remaining, Hellen and Gertie, are good egg layers and gave us eggs through most of this winter. They lay medium sized brown eggs. Helen is at the top of the order and Gertie is her enforcer.

Compared to my Australorps and Marans, Hellen and Gertie are not particularly friendly and on the flighty side.

I would not buy this breed again. If I was raising birds to process in the tenth or eleventh week, I would consider them, however.

Btw, at what age did they actually start laying?

 

[PurpleCArTires]

Ranger roosters I have had kept are mean. I will never try to keep one again. I still have 3 ranger hens. Had 1 die last fall unknown why.
I did hatch some birds recently. One was brahma/ranger. After 2 weeks it was outgrowing the others very visibly, but I sold it with the other light brahma chicks.
The other chickens I have are australorp.
The ranger hens get along with the other hens fine.
Have more going to hatch so be interesting see what happens with growth rate.

Yes! Plz let me know how it works out!

 

[PurpleCArTires]

I will be posting here with updates when I do it: https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/thinking-of-an-experiment.1450335/

Thank you!