Raising Pastured Colored Range chicken

[HollywoodLivestock]

Has any one used a Movable pen to raise the colored range chickens?

 

[minifarmer]

I started mine out in pens, but they are just as active as any 'normal' chickens, so I ended up going to that premier electric fencing after a few weeks. Karla

 

[HollywoodLivestock]

So you do not think they will work in pens like cornish cross do in salatin pens?

 

[jaku]

Quote:
I raise Cornish X's in tractors, but I know there are many people on here who do colored range birds in them, and they work fine.

 

[ohiofarmgirl]

mine just popped around the chicken yard. we used hog panels like we do for most everything to keep them in one shaded section and it worked out great!

 

[minifarmer]

you should be able to. I wouldn't stock them as heavily as you would with the cornish cross. I raised both at the same time and my cornish needed to be 'encouraged' to forage where the colored broilers were everywhere, chasing bugs and such.My cornish, as a rule, adapted better to containment (modeled after Joel's pens) than my cb's.
Karla
p.s. if you save a few hens, you'll get huge and plentiful eggs. Mine have been laying constantly, since last spring. no molting, yet.

 

[HollywoodLivestock]

What kind of stocking rate would you reccommend?Also what kind of feed mix and FCR were you getting?I wondering if I move the pens everyday if I will have to feed them less?

 

[zephyrcreek]

I have raised them this year in hoop houses and they did very well. Of they 3 breeds I raised them were my favorite, and I had the best FCR's at around 3.5. Next year will be all colored range birds from J&M.

 

[mstricer]

We just made a Hoop house. We were thinking we needed something fast for some chicks that needed to be accumulated to the big girls. Then the light bulb went came on. Use it in spring for a greenhouse (have plastic to cover the greenhouse) Then when garden is planted we will move to the end of our property, where the Freedom Rangers can roam in 3/4 acres of wooded area. Now thats thinking huh?

 

[minifarmer]

If you're using the 10x12 pens with the crb's I, personally wouldn't put more than 60 per pen. Salatin uses 75-100 of the cornish because he said feed conversion dropped (they run around too much). With my crb's, they would try to run around even at 75 -100 stocking rates, and probably fight more.
My pens are 4x8 and 6x8 so I don't need a dolly to help move them and my property isn't flat enough for the bigger pens. I put 15 in the 4x8 and 25 in the 6x8. This was a mix of cx and crb's. so they had about 2 sq. ft. instead of 1.2-1.6. These were moved daily in the beginning and 2-3 times/day towards the end.
I started with the J.S.(Joels) mix, with my first batch, but it's hard to get custom mixes here, so now I just use tractor supply or Purina mix and add fertrell nutribalancer to it. I've only raised 4 batches of meaties, but have had no deaths or leg problems. (from about 250 total birds, 100 were crb's)
I've heard many different figures on how much daily moves will save on the feed bill and several that say it makes the birds eat MORE...e.g.more running around =more caloric intake. I only raised my very first chickens in a garage and they ate almost 1/3 more than my first outside batch, but you may find your results to be different. Karla