How much space for Meat birds? Taste of Freedom Rangers?

[Hangin Wit My Peeps]

I am getting Freedom Rangers delivered soon and would like to know if they need as much space as the regular hens? We would love to have over a dozen but if they need 3 sq feet of space we may ONLY Have a dozen due to the size of building we would need to build. They will be outside grazing most of the day in a large run so do they need a lot of space inside the coop for the little time they will live there? And how do the freedom rangers taste? Does anyone buy them?

 

[UncleHoot]

I raised about a dozen of them last year. I thought they had a bit more flavor, but it was hard for me to judge. A double-blind taste test would work best, I suppose. ;-)

2 square feet should be fine. You could probably have even less, if they are going to spend most of the day in a large run. If they're really just going to sleep there, and get in from the rain, then even 1 square foot per chicken would probably work ok.

It sounds like you have a fairly small coop, around 30-40 square feet? Combined with a large run, I wouldn't have a problem putting 2+ dozen in there.

I'm considering getting some from JM Hatchery, or S&G Poultry, but I haven't completely made up my mind yet. Raising them to 12 weeks is part of the problem. By the third month, I'd just like to relax, and not have to worry about chickens anymore.

If I do, I may raise 100 of them in my 10x13 tractor/pen, then at 8 weeks, I would divide them up into 2 pens for the remaining 4-5 weeks.

 

[Hangin Wit My Peeps]

Thank you for answering that. As to the coop question...we don't have one yet but heading to menards for the supplies this week. So wanted to know what we would need. Were starting out with only a dozen of them (ordering them from JM and then we will see next year if we want to increase the order. This is our first attempt to raise meat birds and we wanted to only free range them (We have a nice grass/ alfalfa Field for them to graze on for their stay here). Shouldn't take us long to build the coop since there is no insulation needed over the summer here

Then we will put in our order. Thanks again!

 

[brandywine]

Uncle Hoot, your tractor would be very crowded by the time the Rangers were 8 weeks old.

I have a 10 x 10 popup shelter and a 7 x 3.5 tractor that stays open inside the Rangers' electronet. There are 100 of them, and they are not yet six weeks old. They are packed solid when they get under shelter at night or in the rain.

As for flavor, I've so far eaten one (an accident victim at 4 weeks). He was very flavorful and chicken-ey. He dressed to 22 oz.

 

[UncleHoot]

Quote:
People have raised 100 Cornish X in a 10x12. I'm sure it gets pretty crowded as they get bigger. I've got an extra 10 sqft, and about 80 square feet is mostly covered, so I think it would work ok, esp since rangers grow a bit slower (about same size as a 5 week Cornish X at 8 weeks). Mostly, I noticed that the difference between buying 75 and buying 100 means that you get the extra 25 chicks for only a few cents each, so I had to come up with a way to make it feasible.