Keeping a Red Ranger pair for breeding?

[MossyRockFarm]

Hi all, we have kept egg layers for years, but ordered a batch of meat birds(red rangers).. I want to be as self sufficient as possible so have been debating on what to do with my last few chickens.. i have 2 ladies and a roo left and I want to keep at least the roo to breed with our heritage egg layers.. or maybe one of the ladies he already is comfortable with. I have my egg layers and meat birds separate as my wife insists she doesn't want to eat fertilized eggs even though she knows its no different.

Keep a pair, keep all 3, or keep just the roo for breeding with my heritage flock.. Barred Rocks, Buff Orphington, RIR's, and a couple arcana..

It's very cold and snows a lot in Vermont so keeping animals in the winter can be tough, but I have two coops.. hoping I can keep the meat birds coop powered with solar

 

[Mtnmomma3]

Were you able to breed Rangers? I was thinking about it, but one rooster and one hen sounds tricky. Wouldn't the roost pluck all of the hen's feathers out? I've found that most roosters need 10-12 hens to be happy and not injure the girls.

 

[MossyRockFarm]

I tried but the roo had a heart attack one day.. Huge beautiful boy.. Was growing then just fell over dead.. The hens ha e turned out to be good layers.

 

[havery]

I have heard of people keeping back Red Rangers to breed, but bear in mind they are a hybrid bird and won't breed true (though I can't imagine the offspring could be small). My thing is, I can't imagine the ridiculous feed bill those rangers would rack up as mature adults. I had 14 that we butchered at 12 weeks and combined with 5 Cornish X, they were eating 15 lbs of feed a day! And that's with moving the tractor to new ground every day for them to forage. Also, there's no way you can expect to keep a single hen and rooster, that rooster would ride her to death especially considering how massive he would be. Honestly, I feel like breeding a flock of straight dual purpose breed would give you better, more consistent outcomes and an overall healthier flock.

 

[MossyRockFarm]

He had 9 hens to choose from, but man did he get big.. Rip big red.

 

[Dave C]

How old was he when he died?

And did you manage to hatch any eggs from him with your heritage breeds ?