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PurpleCArTires
Crowing
Btw, at what age did they actually start laying?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.