Ranger Grow-Out Journals

[Mrs. Mucket]

Ranger Retrofit: Our Rangers are in a coop with 36" roosts and a nest box 24" off the floor with standard opening. Three of them sleep on the roost but three are always on the floor. The eggs are also always on the floor any old place, often getting squished and soiled.

I'm not sure if they don't want to fly up to the roost and nest or can't get inside the nest box and turn around. So we made a huge nesting box 16"x16" with 12" opening and put it on the floor. At least one hen is using it and hopefully the others will follow her lead. We're also putting up a roost 16" off the floor to see if the floor-dwellers will use it.

One of them laid this very dark almost Marans-looking egg today. Very pretty color (here, next to RIR eggs).

 

[Jared77]

Thats wild! What other roos do you have over those ranger girls?

 

[Mrs. Mucket]

Our FR is the only roo at our place. Just for clarity--the other brown and white eggs were NOT in the Ranger coop! I took the dark one over to the other nest to show the color comparison.

 

[Jared77]

Gotcha I misread that. Still thats a nice egg. I hope they hold out for you so to get some chicks out of them.

 

[KatyTheChickenLady]

Mrs. Mucket :

Our FR is the only roo at our place. Just for clarity--the other brown and white eggs were NOT in the Ranger coop! I took the dark one over to the other nest to show the color comparison.

Could we see some pics of these birds . . . please

how much do they weigh now walking around?​

 

[Mrs. Mucket]

Katy-- I will try to take some good pics and weigh some of them today.

 

[KatyTheChickenLady]

thanks I am really interested.

 

[Mrs. Mucket]

Katy, here are pics of our FR cockerel, D-Boy, and my favorite FR pullet, Colette. They are 8 months old. Out of 26 chicks, Colette was the only dark one. D-Boy looked just like the rest of the chicks for several weeks, but then he developed more tri-coloring while the others all remained red or reddish buff. Colette is the largest of our pullets and today she weighed in at a little over 12#. D-Boy had us fooled--he is so stocky we thought he had to be 16-18#, but he "only" weighs 15#! I included this pic of D-Boy with a White Leghorn pullet for size comparison. Her head is purple from a spray of BluKote where amorous D-Boy tore her comb. I try to keep the WHL's out of the Ranger pen because the WHL are so delicate and D-Boy is so heavy, but Henny and Penny will just fly over the fence to return to D-Boy's harem. Our Barred Rock pullet did the same. Thank goodness the banties can't fly the fence!

 

[draye]

Very nice rooster there. So is he getting the eggs fertile? Just wondering.

 

[Mrs. Mucket]

Yes he's doing his job...I check for bullseyes in the frying pan. The five pullets are laying 3-4 eggs a day but I haven't started tracking to see if all the girls are laying fertile eggs.