My Colored Rangers are not ranging!

[Baybrio]

I have 26 chubby little Colored Rangers from JM Hatchery. They arrived on July 10th so they'd be about three weeks old today. They've been very healthy, no losses, even the one small chick is getting hard to identify.

They are eating a 21% meat chick crumble feed. I have them in a secure tractor, with access to a fenced section of my yard. I lock them in at night.

I also have 20 black Australorps that are a week older. They have their own secure tractor but both groups have access to the fenced yard during the day as well as their tractors and feed.

The little segregationists do not interact much and always go back to their own tractors at night.

My little chubby rangers are not taking much advantage of the yard. They come out but mostly bask in the sun. They are certainly growing well, they are huge compared to the Australorps, but they don't appear to be eating much grass or clover, or chasing many bugs.

Do you think I need to change the way I am raising them in any way? I don't want them to grow too fast but they remind me of the Cornish Cross I raised last year.

Thanks

 

[zephyrcreek]

To me it sounds like you are doing everything right. My guess is to give them another week. It seems like my colored range birds were curious about the grass, but did not really start to forage much on it until 4-4 1/2 weeks. I also have noticed that they seem to forage more during free range then while in the tractor. Either I'm just not looking at the right times, or they just prefer to be outside where they can pick whatever they want. Another idea is to restrict feed during the day. Mine only had feed 2x a day that lasted 30 minutes at the most. Everything else was free range. Heck, my CX started foraging like crazy when they watche the CRB example. And yes they did have grass in their crops at butchering time so I know it was not a figment of my imagination.

 

[UncleHoot]

Mine eat greens like crazy, and they are exactly the same age. I've had mine outside for a week now. In fact, one of my activities is to grab some big dandelion leaves and watch them act like piranha's, devouring the entire leaf in a matter of seconds (I need to get that on video).

Chickens seem to eat less in mid-day. Check on them in the early morning and late evening and they may be eating more of the grass than you realize.

I'm not sure what your exact setup is, but try picking bits of clover and/or dandelion and hand feeding them. I try to start doing that at about 1 week old. The earlier you get them started, the better they seem to do later, but it's certainly not too late yet.

Is the range just grass? Or does it have a lot of weeds mixed in? From what I've seen, the weeds seem more appetizing to them (dandelion, clover, wild carrot, chickory, etc.).

 

[Baybrio]

Thanks UncleHoot and zephyrcreek,

I believe I figured out why I don't see them grazing as much as I expected. First, the little chubby chicks have for the most part a really mellow temperament. They seldom squabble among themselves. I believe they were a little intimidated by the quicker layer chicks. Now that they are out sizing the layer chicks significantly they feel more secure when challenged to a staring contest (my layer chicks are not aggressive but they do like their staring contests).

I also think while the Rangers do graze and forage they are less interested in running after insects. The layer chicks spend a lot of time chasing after things. I consider their lack of constantly chasing after flies a very good trait for a meat type bird!

I am going to also try putting their feed out in the shade during the day so they are encouraged to move around a bit more.

I am also hoping hoping that when I move them from the lawn to a section of old horse paddock with more weeds (although my lawn has lots of clover and other "weeds") they will find foraging a bit more interesting.

Thanks for the all the info on these birds and your experiences.