Red rangers & chicken tractors with some free range?

[figit]

Howdy folks, we had a great run of 60 CX in our tractors but we want to try Red Rangers come spring. Rather than restrict them to the internal footprint of our tractors (pictured below) full-time we'd love to allow them to roam about a 1/2 acre area during the day. The general area is clear (basically what you see in the photos) with a fairly heavily wooded tree-line on 2 sides with a small 1/4 acre pond down the slope.

I'd provision doors that we can secure at night but we aren't familiar with Red Ranger general behavior. Will they naturally flock into the tractors during the evening or would we need to round them up every time.

Thanks y'all in advance for any insight!

 

[Logar]

Howdy folks, we had a great run of 60 CX in our tractors but we want to try Red Rangers come spring. Rather than restrict them to the internal footprint of our tractors (pictured below) full-time we'd love to allow them to roam about a 1/2 acre area during the day. The general area is clear (basically what you see in the photos) with a fairly heavily wooded tree-line on 2 sides with a small 1/4 acre pond down the slope.

I'd provision doors that we can secure at night but we aren't familiar with Red Ranger general behavior. Will they naturally flock into the tractors during the evening or would we need to round them up every time.

Thanks y'all in advance for any insight!

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it depends on the predators you get around you. From what I have heard about them, they seem to be decent for free ranging. I would just make sure they have lots of cover and places to hide if needed.

I have never raised them, or any meat birds for that matter, so I am just going off of what I have heard and seen people say about them.

 

[HenriettaPizzaNolan]

Mine free/ranged like normal chickens during the day and would put themselves in the coop at night. How many are you planning to run? Just keep them in the tractor a few days before ranging so they know where home is, and make sure they can easily return to it. It should be fine. There's no real point in using tractors at that point, unless you don't have anything else. A regular stationary coop or hoop coop would be perfectly suitable for rangers in my opinion.

 

[figit]

Mine free/ranged like normal chickens during the day and would put themselves in the coop at night. How many are you planning to run? Just keep them in the tractor a few days before ranging so they know where home is, and make sure they can easily return to it. It should be fine. There's no real point in using tractors at that point, unless you don't have anything else. A regular stationary coop or hoop coop would be perfectly suitable for rangers in my opinion.

We'd probably go with 60 or 70. That's excellent to hear, it would be nice if we could keep the tractors stationary-ish but I assumed we'd need to move them a little to encourage exploration but perhaps rangers are more like standard layers in that regard? My assumption based on some reading has been they'd range far more than CX but less than what we've seen with our layers. I have a partition that I use in the tractors while in the shop as a brooder and we can certainly keep them in the tractor for the first few days once outside.

 

[HenriettaPizzaNolan]

We'd probably go with 60 or 70. That's excellent to hear, it would be nice if we could keep the tractors stationary-ish but I assumed we'd need to move them a little to encourage exploration but perhaps rangers are more like standard layers in that regard? My assumption based on some reading has been they'd range far more than CX but less than what we've seen with our layers. I have a partition that I use in the tractors while in the shop as a brooder and we can certainly keep them in the tractor for the first few days once outside.

I have only raised one batch of Rangers (CX are better suited for my urban property) and honestly, I thought they behaved like normal chickens until the very end. They were mobile and loved to forage. Keep in mind though that I feed only 18% protein after about week 2 or 3 (20% before that to promote feathering). I've always had more natural growth that way and I honestly think most of the typical ailments people attribute to CX and Rangers are mainly due to overfeeding or too high or protein. Even my CX forage around until their last days and they grow to a nice weight in 8-10 weeks. Nice 5-8# birds, dressed.