Freedom Ranges and Chicken Tractors

[jpace]

I’ve been reading up on it and the 25 we have are going into a hoop house tractor moved daily. If it gets bad at the end maybe I’ll move it when I get home from Work and again at bed time. If you do free range let us know your results.

With the Cornish I had raised, they did require moving twice near the end. I will post pics as I go along. I am ordering 50 today.

 

[potatoesgonnapotate]

I have a large covered outdoor dog kennel that my meat birds go in, and I have been using a big cardboard box with shavings or hay in it for them to sleep in. I'm going to have to figure out something bigger as my batches are getting bigger as I gain experience and confidence. I also have a pen attached to the kennel (the door stays open so they can go in and out as they please), so they have plenty of grass and roaming/scratching space. This will probably increase in size once I can afford the extra t posts and hardware cloth. It's portable enough that I can move it as needed, but big enough that I don't have to all the time with my current batch. I'm also fairly limited because I live in a suburban area, so I think I'm doing pretty well, considering.

 

[Compost King]

I have 4 Red Rangers I picked up at Tractor Supply just because I was curious. End up with 2 males and 2 females and the males are much heavier at 8 weeks. The Females I am going to breed with Dorkings and Delawares, the males I will probably eat. They ended up being the bully of their age group of full sized chickens, complete opposite of Cornish X Rock who got bullied by faster nimble birds. The Females just this past week got moved into an egg laying flock where they are struggling to be accepted, the males are in a compost pen half the day and roaming the yard in the afternoon when I work out in the yard. They are not nimble enough to avoid predators but they do forage swiftly and get from corner to corner in the yard and under everything they can fit under.

 

[Hummingbird Hollow]

I've raised Freedom Rangers for maybe 6 years years, this year and last starting with 50. Once they are out of the garage brooders half go into a 4'X10' coop in a maybe 1/4 acre fenced run and the other in a mini-van turned chicken coop with an attached 12'X5' tractor/run. We have a lot of predators here, so we need to be sure they are secure, really secure at night. The tractored Freedom Rangers are moved every day, and during the afternoon when I'm home and the dogs are outside I let them free range for a few hours. I've never lost any to a predator, but they don't wander far.

Personally, I like the taste and texture of the Freedom Rangers way more than CX. There is a bit more dark meat and a bit less white meat, and there is more texture, but I would never call them tough. You are butchering at 9 - 12 weeks, rather than what...7-9 weeks with the CX so they are still young.

 

[jpace]

I've raised Freedom Rangers for maybe 6 years years, this year and last starting with 50. Once they are out of the garage brooders half go into a 4'X10' coop in a maybe 1/4 acre fenced run and the other in a mini-van turned chicken coop with an attached 12'X5' tractor/run.

How long do you keep them in the brooder?

 

[Hummingbird Hollow]

How long do you keep them in the brooder?

It partly depends on the weather here in Colorado. We can get snow up through May. My current Freedom Rangers are a little over 5 weeks old and I plan on moving half of them to the 4X10 coop this weekend. Right now it has 4 young rabbits in it that need to be butchered, so assuming I get that done today and the coop cleaned out and a heat lamp installed, 25 FRs will get out of the garage. I need to wait a bit longer for the mini-van tractor as it is harder to regulate the temperature and can get really hot inside if left closed up but could get really cold inside if left open.

I usually get my chicks later in the spring so can move them all outside by 5 weeks of age, but this year I started a early because we have a family reunion to attend in early July and I wanted to makes sure all the FRs were in the freezer before I left home.

 

[Ahavati]

We keep ours in the brooder until between 4-5 weeks.

We are about to butcher our first batch (cornish, the rangers aren't ready for a about 3 more weeks or so) and What I've learned is 70 birds can poop up that area fairly quickly. It's not really bad except under the tractors where they sleep. Of course there are almost 40 in each tractor. So we do have to move the tractor every few days, but not multiple times a day if they were living in them full time. We are thinking of moving the fence to another spot for the duration of the rest of the birds that don't get processed this next week.

 

[Ahavati]

Also both our rangers and cornish are pretty active in there. They have their moments of laying around but they all get up and go all over the area that is fenced in. The fun part is getting them in the tractors every night to lock up lol. They def aren't like layers in that respect.