Pics & weights of "Freedom Rangers" @ 4 weeks

[moenmitz]

Average is just a smidge under 2 lbs. By comparison, the Buff Orpington Roo in the bottom photo is 8 weeks, and weighs almost the exact same, a bit less in fact, though they are twice the size of the broilers. And the Orps are not exactly "teeny bits of fluff"- they are much stouter than all of the other dual purpose birds at that age.

 

[chickenfever]

So do you feed any chicken feed at all or just free range?

 

[perfectly_polish]

Quote:
These are meat birds so you would want to feed them broiler feed or a high protein food. Freedom range meaties are ready to process in about 12 weeks. Ours are about 8 weeks and weigh around 4 pounds.

Here are some of ours:

 

[chickenfever]

So, Freedom Rangers is a type of chicken? Sorry, I'm new to this.

 

[perfectly_polish]

Quote:
Freedom rangers are not the name of the breed, they are a type of meat chicken. They have less health problems then the cornish crosses, take a little longer to grow, but are a great meat bird! They are also called Color range broilers, or RedBro's.

http://www.jmhatchery.com/Colored-Range-Chicks-p5.html

 

[moenmitz]

We have ours on turkey starter since their second week, (first week was chick starter) They have only been free ranging for three days as I was letting them get big enough to not be quite so tempting to the kitty cats around here...

 

[Peruvian]

Lots of folks have been sharing their FR photos this summer, which is great. However I don't really see them being all that active (maybe it's easier to take a photo of a bird that's laying down

). I thought the idea is that the FRs are much more active on pasture than CXs?

Can someone give a sense of the FRs feed ratio? How many 50 lb bags of feed to get 25 FRs to full weight at 11-12 weeks?

 

[moenmitz]

Peruvian- maybe this pic will help clear it up...lol.

I have never had the Cornish before, but I can say that the F.R. are every bit as adventuresome as my dual purpose birds. They have only been out of the brooder a few days, so they are still learning that food comes in soemthing other than a big metal scoop. I gave them some ears of corn that they are very suspicious of, but moving things, like bugs, flies, worms...they are hunted ferociously. This morning when I let them out of their dog house coop they charged right past the feeder, with a few exceptions, and went bug-hunting in the garden.

As for feed use...cant help you a whole lot as this is my first batch and I am still waiting to see the end results. I have approximately 100 (approximately because I lost a few, but they are bunking with 11 turkey poults too) I think we have gone through about 150 lbs of feed in 4 weeks...cant say for sure as the dual purpose birds shared some of teh feed when theirs ran out a couple of times. If they had the opportunity to graze earlier in life, that would probably have a significant impact on how much feed they went through too, but as I mentioned, we have some predatory felines on the loose, so they have to stay in the barn until they are at least big enough to not slip through the chin link fence on the garden.