Freedom Rangers

[PurpleCArTires]

Good Morning! I am thinking of buying some freedom rangers as a project to breed out some birds specifically for meat. (Right now i just process my extra Roos)

Does anyone have experinace with them? Will they breed on their own? How is their breast meat size in comparison with cornish cross? Do they develop the health issues if trying to keep a breeding stock? Whats the average weight you can get from them?

Any details are helpful! Thank you!

 

[TOR]

I have never raised cornish cross, but have raised rangers. Yes they will breed though I have not hatched any eggs from them. Nor have the hens become broody at least so far.
Cornish cross have more breast meat and rangers will have more leg meat.
I have not had any health issues from Rangers. I still have 4 hens from last year I use for egg laying.
I have kept the Rangers about 16 weeks and 5 to 10 lbs. Rosters being the heaviest of course. At about 12 weeks seems to me was about 3.5 to 8 lbs. I did not keep records dont really remember the exact details anymore. This is roughly my weights.
This last year I left some roosters for later harvest and they were 20 plus weeks old and they were some big boys and extra fat inside also. This last year was store bought food and free range.
At about 12 weeks we butchered a few and if I remember correctly was roughly $2.00 pound to raise them (after butchering). This was with store bought feed and not much free ranging. I also figured in direct and indirect cost.
I get my rangers from a hatchery here in Wisconsin, not sure if I can put the name or I violate terms of service.

There is many youtube videos rangers vs cornish cross and many articles. I really liked this series on youtube. They did a series on raising both varieties. I thought the series was done very good and there is several videos.

Hope this helps some.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I get my rangers from a hatchery here in Wisconsin, not sure if I can put the name or I violate terms of service.

You can mention hatcheries. We talk about where to get supplies and such, there is even a forum section to talk about chicken breeders and hatcheries. They are not supposed to advertise on here without paying the forum owner but we can and do mention them.

What you are not supposed to do is mention or link to other chicken forums. Something that would be a competitor to this forum.

 

[PurpleCArTires]

I have never raised cornish cross, but have raised rangers. Yes they will breed though I have not hatched any eggs from them. Nor have the hens become broody at least so far.
Cornish cross have more breast meat and rangers will have more leg meat.
I have not had any health issues from Rangers. I still have 4 hens from last year I use for egg laying.
I have kept the Rangers about 16 weeks and 5 to 10 lbs. Rosters being the heaviest of course. At about 12 weeks seems to me was about 3.5 to 8 lbs. I did not keep records dont really remember the exact details anymore. This is roughly my weights.
This last year I left some roosters for later harvest and they were 20 plus weeks old and they were some big boys and extra fat inside also. This last year was store bought food and free range.
At about 12 weeks we butchered a few and if I remember correctly was roughly $2.00 pound to raise them (after butchering). This was with store bought feed and not much free ranging. I also figured in direct and indirect cost.
I get my rangers from a hatchery here in Wisconsin, not sure if I can put the name or I violate terms of service.

There is many youtube videos rangers vs cornish cross and many articles. I really liked this series on youtube. They did a series on raising both varieties. I thought the series was done very good and there is several videos.

Hope this helps some.

Thank you for all the info!! Good to hear they wont have heart attacks if i tried to keep a few!. I will check out the video also!

 

[iwltfum]

Thank you for all the info!! Good to hear they wont have heart attacks if i tried to keep a few!. I will check out the video also!

Freedom rangers are different specifically from "red rangers" from your average hatchery. They are a proprietary breed that comes from France and no other hatchery has the same cross. Mostly red rangers from other hatcheries are all different mixes. Just know that all rangers are not created equally. They will all give you different results. I raise about 250-300 freedom rangers every year but have never kept them longer than 10 weeks. From what I understand, they do not breed true and have dwarf recessive gene that shows up when interbreeding.

 

[PurpleCArTires]

Freedom rangers are different specifically from "red rangers" from your average hatchery. They are a proprietary breed that comes from France and no other hatchery has the same cross. Mostly red rangers from other hatcheries are all different mixes. Just know that all rangers are not created equally. They will all give you different results. I raise about 250-300 freedom rangers every year but have never kept them longer than 10 weeks. From what I understand, they do not breed true and have dwarf recessive gene that shows up when interbreeding.

Oh i didnt know there was a difference! Thank you. I did see in another post there was a few born with tiny legs. If i do try it, i might keep a few hens and breed it with my large RIR roo, he has very thick strong legs. Maybe get some quicker growing mutts out of the mix. My extra RIR roos are barely table weight by 20 weeks. And not real fatty. So just looking to breed out something at home that might be a better source of meat.

I also checked out some other articles where they said the Rangers had more fat and way more flavorful than CX. But are more expensive, so i dont want to buy them every year lol. And CX (if thry are like the grocery store meat...) No thank you. Lol. It tastes like Styrofoam to me.

I like to let my chickens free range so i thought Rangers would be a better option and maybe find some of their own food lol

 

[MissE]

My experience with them is they don't live that long. I bought 24 straight run in June of 2019. Butched all but one roo, and decided to keep him and the 8 hens through the winter. I was down to 3 ISAs and wanted the extra heat in the coop. The plan was to butcher them in the spring. Then I changed my mind and just kept them. The hens turned out to be pretty good layers but 5 have just up and died. (Another one was put down due a run in with my butthead GSD) Of the 2 that are left, one lays a cream colored egg and the other lays a brown egg. Eggs are large to extra large size. The roo is doing well and is the mellowist roo I've ever seen. I thought about hatching the eggs just to see what happens, but my understanding is they don't breed true.

 

[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

 

[MissE]

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

They don't seem too big. Certainly not freakish like cornish cross. They have no problem flying up on the roost or racing around the yard. They were bred to be dinner, not for longevity, so I think that is the main issue. One option would be to wait until they are 18-24 months old and then only breed those ones. Granted, that does mean the possibilty of dead chickens.