My own variety of meat birds

[Adorae]

I realized I misspoke on the age of my birds on Monday. The Bresse were 9 weeks old, not 9.5, and the Freedom Rangers were 8.25 weeks old.

 

[Adorae]

Getting this thread updated. Been pretty busy with everything going on.
Harvested the Bresse on June 15th. I did not get live weights, but we did get carcass weights.
1.942+2.156+3.051+2.925+2.025+3.091+2.330+2.154+3.164=22.838/9 = average 2.537lbs

We had the water get too hot for the first 2 birds, so that's why the 2 carcass look so rough.

Fun story, we were originally going to process 10 Bresse. My nephew was helping and asked to try, but after cutting a cockerels neck and thinking he was bleeding out, the cockerel kicked out of the kill cone and ran under a nearby shed.
We couldn't get him out and gave up trying, and the boy returned to his tractor at the end of the day. So I figured I would keep him, and if he gets mature enough this summer, I'll put him over the meat bird hens and see what happens.
I named him Harry Clucker.

So the meat chicks are all doing well, I'll try to get weights on the 2 age groups this weekend. it will be interesting to see how the DC/FR mixes do compared to pure Freedom Ranger. And then I have a group of chicks hatching today that are Columbian Rock over Freedom Ranger.

I have at least one more hatch of meat birds planned. It's Red the Freedom Ranger rooster over my Freedom Ranger hens, my 2 Naked Neck hens, the Columbian Rock hen, and Dark Cornish hen. This might be my last hatch, or I may do another Freedom Ranger only hatch, since they grow quite quickly, or I may do a hatch with the Bresse if Harry matures quickly.

 

[Adorae]

I forgot to mention I will be processing a bunch of mixed cockerels this weekend, They were hatched at the end of Feburary, so they will be roughly 18 weeks old. I'll do another photo shoot with them and present them as a comparison.

 

[Molpet]

Getting this thread updated. Been pretty busy with everything going on.
Harvested the Bresse on June 15th. I did not get live weights, but we did get carcass weights.
1.942+2.156+3.051+2.925+2.025+3.091+2.330+2.154+3.164=22.838/9 = average 2.537lbs
View attachment 3873570

We had the water get too hot for the first 2 birds, so that's why the 2 carcass look so rough.

Fun story, we were originally going to process 10 Bresse. My nephew was helping and asked to try, but after cutting a cockerels neck and thinking he was bleeding out, the cockerel kicked out of the kill cone and ran under a nearby shed.
We couldn't get him out and gave up trying, and the boy returned to his tractor at the end of the day. So I figured I would keep him, and if he gets mature enough this summer, I'll put him over the meat bird hens and see what happens.
I named him Harry Clucker.

So the meat chicks are all doing well, I'll try to get weights on the 2 age groups this weekend. it will be interesting to see how the DC/FR mixes do compared to pure Freedom Ranger. And then I have a group of chicks hatching today that are Columbian Rock over Freedom Ranger.

I have at least one more hatch of meat birds planned. It's Red the Freedom Ranger rooster over my Freedom Ranger hens, my 2 Naked Neck hens, the Columbian Rock hen, and Dark Cornish hen. This might be my last hatch, or I may do another Freedom Ranger only hatch, since they grow quite quickly, or I may do a hatch with the Bresse if Harry matures quickly.

so these Bresse were 12 wks ?
Thanks for the updates

I think we all have the water too hot thing and the cone jumper happen.

I wrap their ankles with electrical tape so the cone jumpers are easier to catch. Although I did have a turkey that kept his balance on one foot and hopped a good 30 ft before I caught up with him.

 

[Adorae]

The Bresse were hatched March 18th, so they were a day shy of 13 weeks old. I did not finish them in specific way, they just got to be in a chicken tractor starting at around 7? weeks and were fed broiler feed.

 

[Adorae]

So my Sister and I worked on my mixed boys that were hatched at the end of February, 16 total. They were all roughly 18 weeks older.

One was a Ayam Cemani that had a huge amount of leakage, the other larger black one was a "pullet" Mystic Onyx from Tractor Supply. All the weights ranged from 2lbs to 3.5lbs.

My Freedom Ranger rooster is having a hard time in the heat. I think his heart is struggling.

His comb goes back to normal when the weather cools down. I'm going to try to get another batch of chicks out of him before I cull him. I just hope he doesn't pass before then. My 4 hens of the same age seem to be doing fine.

I have 10 Columbian Rock/Freedom Ranger chicks in the brooder, as well as 3 Columbian Rock/Dark Cornish mixes. The older Dark Cornish/Freedom Ranger chicks are out on grass now in the chicken tractor. I will try to get weights on them this weekend. They are roughly 10? weeks old. I also have another batch that's 7 weeks old.

 

[Country chicken lady 2024]

How is it going now?

 

[Adorae]

Wrapping up everything. I'm sorry about the lack of updates, life got really busy. So my results of the Freedom rangers, dark cornish, and columbian rock were pretty conclusive. Even though the freedom rangers were hybrids, they continued to the grow the fastest and filled out nicely.
The Dark cornish/freedom ranger mixes were a close 2nd. The Columbian Rock/Freedom Rangers were a bit disappointing. They grew tall and looked large, but would have taken much longer to fill out than what I gave them.
In comparison to the first 3, the dark cornish/Columbian rock mixes were tiny. I used only hatchery stock, so if you had good stock breed for meat, then I'm sure the result would have been a lot different.

I have one last group growing out, a bresse over freedom ranger mix. I started them pretty late and they are just about ready to come off of heat, but I don't know if the colder weather will effect their weight gain or not.

I think next year I will buy a group of Cornish X, just so I have some experience with them and how they work, and if I'm not a fan, I will just get the Freedom Rangers again. The rooster and hens are at least 2 years of age, though I did lose a FR hen this summer, due to the heat I think. The freedom rangers have been great layers as well, out of a group of 5 I get 3/4 XL/jumbo eggs on average.

I have the FR girls free ranging with the rest of the flock now and they seem to be doing well.

 

[Molpet]

Wrapping up everything. I'm sorry about the lack of updates, life got really busy. So my results of the Freedom rangers, dark cornish, and columbian rock were pretty conclusive. Even though the freedom rangers were hybrids, they continued to the grow the fastest and filled out nicely.
The Dark cornish/freedom ranger mixes were a close 2nd. The Columbian Rock/Freedom Rangers were a bit disappointing. They grew tall and looked large, but would have taken much longer to fill out than what I gave them.
In comparison to the first 3, the dark cornish/Columbian rock mixes were tiny. I used only hatchery stock, so if you had good stock breed for meat, then I'm sure the result would have been a lot different.

I have one last group growing out, a bresse over freedom ranger mix. I started them pretty late and they are just about ready to come off of heat, but I don't know if the colder weather will effect their weight gain or not.

I think next year I will buy a group of Cornish X, just so I have some experience with them and how they work, and if I'm not a fan, I will just get the Freedom Rangers again. The rooster and hens are at least 2 years of age, though I did lose a FR hen this summer, due to the heat I think. The freedom rangers have been great layers as well, out of a group of 5 I get 3/4 XL/jumbo eggs on average.

I have the FR girls free ranging with the rest of the flock now and they seem to be doing well.

Thanks for the update.
Any dressed weights?
My meat mutts dress out around 5 lbs at 16 wks

 

[Adorae]

The Dark Cornish/FR were around the 4/5lb mark, the freedom rangers were the same weight, but a week or so younger, the biggest Columbian Rock/FR was barely 4lbs at over 14 weeks, but very boney. I sold the rest as live birds because they were so scrawny, I figured the girls would be big, but be pretty good layers still. Same with the Dark Cornish/Columbian Rocks. They were just so much smaller I couldn't be bothered to go through all the work of either continuing to feed them, or processing them, and I've been working on reducing my egg layer flock for the winter.