Questions about Freedom Ranger breed.

[Molpet]

Heritage study https://projects.sare.org/project-reports/fnc12-866/

 

[HomesteadNowhere]

I'll be interested to see other comments on this. I decided to get some and try some breeding from the freedom ranger hens with other roos. Of 26 I lost one due to stupid chicken launching itself at me from the brooder. It got some kind of injury and lost it. But the rest are great at 10 weeks now. I had limited brooder space and they ended up in too long so I was restricted feeding them. They've been outside a while now and doing well. Our weather has been 80-90*F and Ohio humid. I don't know how that relates to your weather.

I don't have a way to separate the FR from the rest so the lot gets fed morning and night. Ends up around .3 to .4# per bird til I get an actual recount. If I was able to separate the FR cockerels I'm sure they'd eat to bursting and fatten fast. Maybe a consideration for you could be a pen with extra cooling setup and you put some there to finish off. The fattest ones will have the hardest time I'd imagine.

I had inquired with them about retaining birds and egg color. This was the response:
They are bred to grow and put on weight, so you would have to limit their feed to control their weight. They will lay eggs, although not that well, and will not lay at all if the hens weigh too much. A healthy weight for the hens would be around 5 lbs for the hens and maybe 6 or 7 lbs for the males. They lay brown eggs.

I plan to weigh mine soon as I can to see where they are. My rough plan at the moment is to use the best roo of my other breeds on the FR and hatch from them as soon as possible to get a bunch of F1 offspring. Depending on how healthy the FR hens are, breed F1 roos back to them, or possibly another batch of FR hens. And the F1s bred together if they are growing nice.

Another thought is the Noll line of New Hampshires through freedom ranger hatchery. Again though, they've been bred heavily for growth and it's noted on their page that if you want to breed you'll need to restrict feed.

 

[The4Walls]

This is a long read but something that I wrote up for my local feed store. It will certainly help with your decision on which meat bird to choose. I can free range both CC and RR.
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The Rustic Ranger.

My observations after raising this new breed.


My Name is Justin Wall. Summer of 2020 I decided to try out this new breed of Rustic Ranger (RR)chickens and compare them to my usual Cornish Cross (CC) birds. Rustic Rangers are a brand name from Frey’s Hatchery and are virtually identical to many of the most common red dual purpose birds like the Freedom Ranger, Red Ranger and such. 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 and feed from Krauses’ like everyone else. I only raise enough birds for my family and do not sell any.

So, The Rustic Ranger 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.

Those are my observations between the two types of standard meat birds that we get in this area.
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I have one more thing to add to the Article above. I was asked by a friend if I had noticed a difference in feed costs.

I personally didn’t notice any difference with feed costs because I fed them all together. I simply don’t raise enough birds to really affect my decision. I like the taste of both. The Rustic Rangers are certainly more flavourful and make an excellent stock. There is definitely more fat on the white birds. Research from the hatchery suggests that Reds eat less per week but, overall, they consume a few % more to get to an equivellent target weight. That has to do with higher bone density and more energy going into the growth of feathers. So, pound for pound, the rustic rangers eat a bit more overall.
Everyone is always concerned about feed costs and conversion rates. I think people should look at the overall costs. Im sure some of the farms that raise hundreds of birds do more research into this. My gut feeling tells me that the extra feed cost would be offset by the lack of losses compared to the CC birds. The Cornish cross birds tend to just die sometimes. I think losing one CC bird at 6 weeks, after all the food they have consumed, would more than make up the difference in a small flock.

Please feel free to share my observations as they wish. I have posted this on Backyardchickens.com. BYC and The maple trader are really my only social media platforms.

Justin Wall,
Corbeil, On

 

[Molpet]

I would be interested to know if anyone has similar experience or could give me more insight. I

I had a half DZ CX with layer chicks and they acted like chickens. Didn't roam as far, but were healthy

 

[Artichoke Lover]

I had a half DZ CX with layer chicks and they acted like chickens. Didn't roam as far, but were healthy

What does DZ stand for?

 

[Molpet]

What does DZ stand for?

Dozen

 

[Stablecoop]

We saved the lone hen from our batch of FR meat birds last year. We get all roosters and harvest them at 12 weeks. They are about 7 pounds dressed. Our hen, now almost a year old, has been laying about 6 eggs per week, and it’s only February. This is obviously limited data. One hen over a short period of time. We get our meat birds in the early spring so we can avoid super high temps. But there were 4 heatwaves here last spring. The birds were moved to deep shade, and they were hot. No mortality though. I don’t think these birds will do well in the heat, but ours lived through those 4 bouts of extreme heat. We are in Massachusetts.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

We saved the lone hen from our batch of FR meat birds last year. We get all roosters and harvest them at 12 weeks. They are about 7 pounds dressed. Our hen, now almost a year old, has been laying about 6 eggs per week, and it’s only February. This is obviously limited data. One hen over a short period of time. We get our meat birds in the early spring so we can avoid super high temps. But there were 4 heatwaves here last spring. The birds were moved to deep shade, and they were hot. No mortality though. I don’t think these birds will do well in the heat, but ours lived through those 4 bouts of extreme heat. We are in Massachusetts.

Appreciate your coming back and offering the benefits of some experience. I love reading these threads when people try something new - or at least, new to them - but the lack of follow up often frustrates me.

How many of us backyard owners and dreamers embark down a path others have marked the trailhead for, with the same thoughts as those trailblazers, yet no warning of the pitfalls upon the path ahead??? Things we could, potentially, do better - for the benefit of others, who might also be considering it for their path ahead.

 

[Hamburg]

I have thought of doing this, too. A NN male and a Red Ranger hen. I may just order some Red Rangers next year. A fellow BYCer near me has the NN rooster that is the sire of this hen I have so I could get eggs to hatch from her.

This cross is basically the french "Poulet Rouge" meat cross.