Help guys, need advice on Pullets

chkncrazy

Songster
6 Years
Apr 23, 2017
551
747
222
Connecticut
So today while driving through one of my towns I was near the city and I found a live poultry Market....lollll:duc... apparently you pick out the type of poultry you want and they'll kill it for you and clean it and you can buy it fresh.... or now the Big Four you could also take them home and process them yourself.... so I got the idea of let me stop in and see what they have I may be able to pick out a couple good chickens for a decent price.... to my surprise it was impeccably clean...
On one side they had hundreds of white leghorn that came from a battery hen Farm wish you could clearly see by their condition and missing feathers those were a dollar 99 a pound live weight... then there were the red sex links that came from a battery Farm same price then on the other side they had beautiful pullets that looked like a sort of Barred Rock but they weren't extremely heavy at all and looked to be around 14 to 16 weeks and then they had brown ones with black tails I'm guessing they were some sort of red ranger or Freedom Ranger they also had Cornish cross which you could clearly see because they looked like round basketballs that could barely walk so I got two of the brown pullets with black tails for $25 you can't beat that price it's been so hard to find chickens in my area since this whole covid Breakout everyone's been buying everything on Craigslist as soon as it gets posted and people are charging 50 $60 for sex links..... so I brought home these two gals and right now they're in quarantine but they seem to be in great body condition they don't look overweight at all... actually they weighed about four and a half pounds each 9.6 lbs together...now to get to my question does anybody have adult Freedom Rangers? I've read on other sites that they actually lay well and don't get grotesquely overweight and they are considered as a dual-purpose breed by some....:idunno overall I'm happy with my purchase it was pretty much a steal even if I do use them for meat later on.... any input would be helpful thank you so much guys

Aldo
.
 
Aldo, I do raise freedom rangers, but never to laying age. Farthest I've taken them is 12 weeks and they were pretty heavy. Maybe around 8 pounds live weight. I give them alot of corn in the last few weeks to fatten them though. I believe most ranger type birds breed true, but can't confirm that for sure. Our farm would have to have some serious incubating and hatching equipment if we wanted to start hatching our own FR's.

I would be pretty confident that you could raise your new birds to adulthood in order to get eggs for the purpose of hatching out more meat birds, but I don't know if I would expect them to pay their way when it comes to eggs for the purpose of eating. They have voracious appetites and they might eat more feed than the eggs are worth to you. But I guess it depends on how much you value home raised eggs. If you raise them for much longer than 10 or 12 months, I would not expect the meat to be very tender on them either so thats another factor to consider.

I'm fascinated by the fact that you found a live poultry market in Connecticut - and right now of all times.
 
I raised Red Rangers to laying age for breeding my own meat birds. They were daily layers of huge eggs when laying, usually 2 or 3 months on, 1 month off and during moult they took about 3 months off. When laying they ate far too much feed to be worth having them as economical layers, When not laying they ate much less but still too much for a hen just sustaining herself. Not an economical layer by any means. They free ranged well and can fly over 5 foot fences if they want to but not real flighty. These ladies tended to be high up in a pecking order and a bit aggressive towards smaller birds but they didn't take chase and bully anyone into corner.
The only reason I would keep any of these alternative free ranging meat birds around for eggs would be to breed them. Possibly if I liked the personality of a bird I might make her a pet. If paying for feed is not an issue and you like huge eggs then go ahead an keep them as layers because sometimes its just nice to have a diverse flock and adding a few of them as layers may be a fun thing to do.
 
Hey thanks for the responses sorry I didn't get back to you sooner..... I was astonished I found a live poultry Market as well and yes they were Freedom Rangers one of them just started laying and they are nice size light brown eggs I'm still waiting on the other one and they aren't that heavy both females are about 6 lbs each!!!! If it Wasn't So Far Away about a 45-minute drive I would have gone there today and gotten a couple more...
 

New posts New threads Active threads

Back
Top Bottom