I raised my CX with layer chicks and the CX didn't go as far free ranging. But everyone came back to the coop.I have a few perspectives on raising both Cornish Cross and Rustic Rangers. In Ontario the Rustic Ranger is the brand from one of the hatcheries. Virtually identical to any of the Ranger or Freedom or red breeds. This past summer I decided to try out this new breed of Rustic Ranger (RR)chickens and compare them to my usual Cornish Cross (CC) birds. I also have a bit of a different perspective because I help my son with his chicken plucking business. We plucked and processed almost 2000 birds for local home producers this past summer. We had the opportunity to process lots of Cornish cross, Rustic rangers, Easter Eggers, Pheasants, Turkeys and Ducks. Just a bit of background so that I can explain my experience. For anyone who has raised the standard meat bird in the past, this information may be useful if you are deciding to try out some of the Rustic rangers. I don’t sell or breed birds and have no commercial interest in which bird you may choose. I buy my birds from the hatchery like everyone else. I only raise enough birds for my family and do not sell any.
So, The Rustic Red is a very nice bird to raise. They are slower growing than the CC bird for sure. It is suggest by the hatchery that the time to harvest CC is about 8 weeks and RR is about 12. My personal preference is to let the CC go out to 10-11 weeks. I find there is a bit more fat and the birds dress out between 6-8 pounds. A lovely roaster. I did take 6 of my CC out to 17 weeks and the hens had just started to lay a few small eggs. The males were huge! They dressed out at about 11 pounds! We had one for thanksgiving dinner and another for Christmas dinner. The only problem with the birds that are larger than about 7 pounds is that you need to get a different size of poultry shrink bags. We happened to have lots of the standard 10x16 poultry shrink bags and some of the larger 12x18 bags because of my son’s plucking business. So keep that in mind if you take your CC birds out past the 10 week mark. There is also reported issue of CC birds having a less healthy constitution due to the specific breed and how incredibly fast they grow. I did not lose any but I also have a large, natural pen and managed to get some of them to free range so I think a bit of exercise helps alleviate this concern.
The RR on the other hand dress out at 4-5 pounds at the 12 week mark. I took them out to 17 weeks as well and they consistently dressed out at 6-7 pounds. Nice size for my needs. There is a slight difference in taste. They are a little more flavourful and richer. The breasts are slightly smaller than an equivalent CC and the thighs and legs are slightly bigger. So for the consumption part of the bird, size and flavour are both personal choice.
Plucking the birds is a big difference. There is about double the amount of feathers that come off a RR compared to a CC. It made no difference to me as we have a Whiz Bang style plucker. There was simply a bigger pile of feathers to clean up at the end. The skin was slightly less likely to tear in the plucker but that is never really an issue as it may happen on 1 in 50 CC birds. We didn’t rip any skin on any of our RR birds or any of our customers RR birds. There was no issue with jamming the plucker with the feathers. It can be an issue when plucking some larger, heritage breed turkeys, muscovy ducks and Canada geese. Some of those feathers are very thick and stiff. You should however take this into consideration if you are plucking by hand as it will be more labour intensive.
The RRs are also a little more intelligent than the CC in that they are easily adapted to free ranging. I found they are very good foragers and are free to roam in the mature forest and grasses around my coop. They like to roost on a low branch or roost in the coop at night. They got into a routine of getting up and on with their day of foraging once the automatic door was opened and were home before the streetlights came on every evening. I did not lose any to predators with my set up. Ive been lucky so far. Milage may vary. I have heard that the CC do not make for good free range birds. From others’ experience, they tend to just plop down wherever they are for the night which would make them very prone to loss due to predators. My first batch of 30 last summer was all CC and I did my usual routine and kept them in the large pen. They were just fine. The second batch I got was a mix of 15 CC and 15 RR. I picked them up as day olds July 15. Once out of the brooder, they went into the pen. It is covered and has some pine trees growing in it for a more natural setting. They were in the pen for a solid 2 weeks before I attempted to see how they would free range. I found the RR instinctively knew how to leave the pen and get back in while the CC birds stayed in the pen even with the door open. After about 4 days the CC birds started to wander out. Surprisingly to me, they all came back in the evening. Initially they did not wander off more then a few meters from the edge of the pen but within about a week they would be happily foraging around in the bush up to about 30 meters away. They always came back at night. They of course have to be locked up secure because they like to roost on the ground. I personally think that the CC birds learned to return to the coop from the example of their RR litter mates. I would be interested to know if anyone has similar experience or could give me more insight. I think that if you had a mixed flock of RR and CC then true free ranging may be an option for the CC birds. It saves a bunch of feed and makes the meat taste more flavourful.
There is one last observation that I would like to make. The Rustic Ranger is listed as a dual purpose bird so I tried out 4 hens and raised them up throughout this winter. They are now at the 6 month mark and are large birds. They are happy and seem cold tolerant. They come out every morning even at 25 below. They have no problem walking on the snow and come up for treats like all the rest of the girls. They are a little more shy than the rest of my mixed flock but I think that they were not handled by the kids like the rest of our hatches. They have started laying eggs and the eggs are massive. Most of the eggs would be considered Jumbo size but some of them are even larger. Like the size of a large goose egg. The eggs are brown and spotted.
my 0.02$
