Ranger Grow-Out Journals

[Mrs. Mucket]

Pigfarmer, great report--how old were your FRs?

I am continually amazed at these birds--you can visually see them get bigger by the day. Our 25 are 6 weeks, foraging and eating meatbird crumble. There are some skittish ones but most of them have personality. We've tagged some breeding keepers and potentials. We have very few girls so we may be keeping them all. We haven't done any live weighing but will have a processing report in another month or so.

Looking forward to TimG and you starting a "Ranger Breeding Journal" in a few months.

 

[petrelline]

Hey pigfarmer those are terrific weights -- I'd also like to know old your birds were at those weights.

I talked to a woman who bought some FR chicks from me -- same batch, same age -- and hers are a good pound heavier than mine are. She's been feeding a slightly higher protein feed (21%), BUT hers have also been more confined than mine throughout their lifetime (so far). I think confinement definitely helps with weight gain with these birds. I'm also however taking Bossroo's comment to heart and I'm switching feeds -- I've found a higher quality organic feed which I have to drive farther to get and costs me $2/more/50lbs to buy but I'm hoping it'll help with the weight gain. Obviously I can't make up the difference at this point but maybe it'll speed things up for the last half.

I hope all my mistakes in raising these chickens will be helpful for people who come along after me.

I also had one chick with a badly deformed leg -- it was twisted and stretched out behind him. I only noticed it when I moved the chicks from the brooder into the growout pen. For a while he seemed to be doing OK -- he could flop around on the good leg, and get to the food and water just fine. But in the last week or so it looked like he was having a harder time keeping up, and he wasn't gaining weight as well as the other chickens, so I went ahead and culled him. He was still a pound and a half, though, so I skinned and cleaned him and I'll fry him up for a good tiny lunch sometime this week.

 

[pigfarmer]

My birds "born on date" was/is 3/24, putting them at 12 weeks old.
I fed them with starter crumbles for a few bags, and switched them to either breeder pels or layer pels, along with free ranging.
They also get/got pig bread when I come home with it (for the pigs). They get the heavier bread(s), multi grains.

The smaller bird with the goofy legs was something that happened like over night... never noticed it in the brooder
or as he got older, outside in the coop. I noted he would just lay in the corner all the time, with every other bird walking
all over him......... so I would force him outside to walk around.
Unfortunately he was the best looking bird in the flock :{

I plan on hatching eggs from them, as soon as they start laying... and it seems to be coming soon

And feed them flock raiser, a higher protein food, after starter feed.

I have 1 more roo (being a real A@%hole) to me... he bit me on the wrist good last nite, as with several other times.

That would leave 2 roos and 6 hens.

 

[TimG]

I one of my Ranger cockerels dead in the coop on Sunday. He was lying on his back... He was 13 1/2 weeks at the time. I thought it odd that he was on his back and seem to think that this is a symptom of "flip". No signs of sickness before showing up dead.

The abnormally small pullet that I have still seems perfectly healthy -- no issues with legs -- and seems more active than the others.

Pigfarmer: did you miscount? I think our Rangers would have been 13 weeks old on June 23rd (and 14 weeks old today). I've been thinking about sending an e-mail to the others who ordered chicks with us to see how theirs turned out.

Tim

 

[pigfarmer]

Hi Tim
I guess I did miscount the "time"... the B.O.D. was 3/24, but I calculated the time wrong.
I am missing a bird... don't know where it went???????????????
Had 18 birds several nights, up to about 2 weeks ago (ish), then was counting 17......................................DUNNO??????

I have not weighed the pullets yet because I plan on keeping them, for now.

How were the fat deposits on your processed birds?


Looking for turkeys???
Midget whites and or Bourbon Reds???????????


Brian

 

[TimG]

The three I processed myself (at about 10 weeks) didn't have any unusual fat deposits, very lean in fact. I haven't eaten any that were processed closer to 12 weeks.

I do have some interest in turkeys, but haven't done my research -- I don't know one breed from another -- I do know that it's right to wait until the end of July or even August if you're raising a meat turkey for Thanksgiving. I think I'll raise just a few (2-3) and get them at the local feed store that always has a few extra.

 

[TimG]

I found a TINY pullet egg yesterday. My Rangers are just shy of 15 weeks. (The Rangers are in with my layers, so there is some small chance this egg was not from a Ranger, but all the other hens have been laying for months and none of them produce eggs nearly so small.)

 

[Mrs. Mucket]

Congrats Tim! I've heard that Rangers lay earlier than most pullets. Was the egg a typical brown or will you be able to tell them apart from other hens' eggs?

 

[TimG]

It was tiny and very light brown. I think it is too early to tell if I will be able to tell them apart from the lighter brown egg layers in the existing flock. But, I've planned on isolating them at some point to make sure the correct rooster is doing the deed and to make sure I know which eggs are which.

In addition to the 8-9 Ranger pullets and 1 Ranger cockerel, I have about 7 2-3 year-old hens, about 6 1 year-old hens and a 1 year-old rooster. I have not seen the Ranger cockerel attempt to mate with any of the 1 year-old hens and I have not seen the 1 year-old rooster attempt to mate with any of the Rangers. But, those roosters can be sneaky, so I'll have to do something to make sure I know which boy is fertilizing which eggs.

 

[Mrs. Mucket]

Just an observation about the growth rate of FRs--Yesterday we moved our 16 week-old layer pullets next door to the 7 week-old Rangers, separated by a wire mesh fence. Now we can see that some of the Rangers are already as big as the standard pullets. Also able to get a pretty good head count of the FRs--looks like about 18 boys and 7 girls. There are good-sized birds of both genders. They are great foragers but still love their feed and come running whenever a human approaches. They are busy at the nipple waterer inside their shelter but also enjoy a saucer of water or water sprayed into a hole in the ground. We've allowed ourselves to get attached to and name only a few that we'll be keeping--but they are fun birds full of personality.