? 's about freedom Rangers

[Spitman]

Can they and will live with my layers ? . My chickens spend 85% of day light hrs. out of there Run , in my garden , yard , and woods . But how old do they need to be before I can add them to my flock? . And I dont have to worry about bringing them in at night they all just come back in coop (even the Guinea ) .Will these FR follow suit . I really would like to keep them together to make life easier on myself , is that a problem ?. I harvested a batch of cockerels from my first hatch at 16 weeks. they were put with my other birds at about 9 weeks, and dressed out about 3.5lbs raised on layer feed through the winter , last 4 weeks they had outside ranging but that was in march . How much better would FR Growth speed , Feed & growth rac. Finish wight be , Verses my RIR , BR , BCM , Black Austerlops , and mixed cockerels . I could just hatch my own meat birds by culling the cockerels , what do you think ,There was'nt a very big breast on my last batch but they were cooped up and eat layer feed . Will i get a much bigger breast with FR ? any advice would be great!!! Thanks

 

[Mrs. Mucket]

I can't answer all of your questions but I can say that last summer my Rangers always went in their range shelter at dusk.

 

[Salt and Light]

I find that new batches of birds must be trained to go back to the coop. It only takes a couple nights of training and it's fun.

I basically have a fishing pole with a white plastic shopping bag tied to the end. I use this "weapon" to herd the chicks back to the coop. The birds are TERRIFIED of the bag and make a bee line for shelter. After a couple evenings of this, they get the idea and then no more herding.