Meat breeds for legs

[CNJ]

Would you say Rangers have more dark meat than Orpingtons do, relative to body weight?

Orpingtons are skinny/boney in comparison to Red Ranger or Murray McMurray's Big Red Broilers. The Orpington roosters take 5 months to reach 4 to 5 lbs and Red Rangers or Big Red Broilers get bigger than 7 lbs in just 12 weeks. In addition the Red Ranger and Big Red Broiler are good jumbo egg layers.
https://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/big_red_broiler.html

 

[K0k0shka]

Orpingtons are skinny/boney in comparison to Red Ranger or Murray McMurray's Big Red Broilers. The Orpington roosters take 5 months to reach 4 to 5 lbs and Red Rangers or Big Red Broilers get bigger than 7 lbs in just 12 weeks. In addition the Red Ranger and Big Red Broiler are good jumbo egg layers.
https://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/big_red_broiler.html

I’m intrigued! Never heard of the Big Red Broiler, seems to be a newer development. So basically it’s like a Cornish X but without the issues? Can be fed and raised normally? Does it have better dark meat ratio than the Cornish X?

 

[CNJ]

Does it have better dark meat ratio than the Cornish X?

 

[K0k0shka]

This is exactly what I needed, thanks! I’m sold. Red Broilers sound like my kind of chicken! Now if I could only find hatching eggs…

 

[iwltfum]

This is exactly what I needed, thanks! I’m sold. Red Broilers sound like my kind of chicken! Now if I could only find hatching eggs…

Freedom ranger ships their stock as hatching eggs as well as day old chicks.
https://www.freedomrangerhatchery.com/details.asp?List=1&Product=20

Definitely way faster growers than orpingtons but I do love black orpingtons for free range layers.

 

[K0k0shka]

Freedom ranger ships their stock as hatching eggs as well as day old chicks.
https://www.freedomrangerhatchery.com/details.asp?List=1&Product=20

Good to know, thanks!

 

[K0k0shka]

Thank you everybody for your input. This is all very helpful. My homework now: reading up on the difference between Freedom Rangers, Red Rangers, and Red Broilers If anybody can give me the cliff notes version, that would be much appreciated!

Also, do these fast growers crow before harvest time? I can't keep roosters where I live and I'm wondering how much I can get out of the males before having to get rid of them.

I also don't have the time and energy to hand-raise chicks and deal with integration (nor do I have space for a secondary coop/run), so whichever variety of these dark meat birds I can find as hatching eggs, will decide which kind I get. I get broodies often, so the plan is to stick some eggs under one and have her raise them for me with the flock until it's time to eat them.

 

[iwltfum]

Freedom rangers start crowing at 10-12 weeks from my experience.

I'm not sure the technical difference between the red ranger variety birds. I believe some of them are very similar genetic lines and a few are a bit different. But they are generally all very heavy, fast growing birds- reaching roasting size within about 12 weeks.

It seems that there is alot of conflicting information about the differences and similarities of the ranger breeds. Stems from the fact that alot of the companies that hatch them hold their lines proprietary so it becomes a guessing game mostly.

 

[NatJ]

I also don't have the time and energy to hand-raise chicks and deal with integration (nor do I have space for a secondary coop/run), so whichever variety of these dark meat birds I can find as hatching eggs, will decide which kind I get. I get broodies often, so the plan is to stick some eggs under one and have her raise them for me with the flock until it's time to eat them.

It has worked for me to let broodies sit on fake eggs, then order chicks for them to adopt. (It might take 2 broodies to raise one order of chicks, depending on what the hatchery's minimum is.)

When the chicks arrive in the mail, I put them in a brooder with a heat lamp to eat & drink that first day, then put them under the broody after dark that night. By morning, she and they have decided they belong. If it's a large number of chicks, I leave about half in the brooder for one more day, and put those underneath the hen on the second night (the hen seems able to cover more chicks when she's had a day to practice with live chicks rather than eggs.) Because it's only a day or two, the brooder does not need to be as big as usual for raising chicks, and they are still too young to fly out, so I can get by with a plastic bin or cardboard box a foot deep, paper towels for bedding, and they're out before it needs cleaning.

Yes, I've had some losses, but overall my success rate has been quite high, with a number of different hens and chicks.

This way probably takes more fussing than just putting the eggs under the hen, but it works with sexed chicks and with breeds that are not available as eggs. After the first few days, I don't see any difference between adopted chicks and ones that hatched under the hen.

 

[K0k0shka]

It has worked for me to let broodies sit on fake eggs, then order chicks for them to adopt. (It might take 2 broodies to raise one order of chicks, depending on what the hatchery's minimum is.)

When the chicks arrive in the mail, I put them in a brooder with a heat lamp to eat & drink that first day, then put them under the broody after dark that night. By morning, she and they have decided they belong. If it's a large number of chicks, I leave about half in the brooder for one more day, and put those underneath the hen on the second night (the hen seems able to cover more chicks when she's had a day to practice with live chicks rather than eggs.) Because it's only a day or two, the brooder does not need to be as big as usual for raising chicks, and they are still too young to fly out, so I can get by with a plastic bin or cardboard box a foot deep, paper towels for bedding, and they're out before it needs cleaning.

Yes, I've had some losses, but overall my success rate has been quite high, with a number of different hens and chicks.

This way probably takes more fussing than just putting the eggs under the hen, but it works with sexed chicks and with breeds that are not available as eggs. After the first few days, I don't see any difference between adopted chicks and ones that hatched under the hen.

This is a good backup plan in case I can't get hatching eggs. Glad to hear it's working out for you. Putting chicks under a broody seems to be hit or miss in terms of her accepting them, from what I've read, so I'm a little hesitant to try it. I also want to avoid having cute little chicks in the house for any period of time, because then my kids and I are gonna fall in love with them and not want to give them up - whether to the broody or to the freezer later