Well they are definitely not a hen feathered breed. They are spoiled and get a high quality of feed with plenty of volume on top of free-range all day, I am confident of that. If I had it to do over I would have started them on a gamebird starter, but they got a fermented mash of ground hemp, boss and oats as 25% of their diet along with plenty of 18% starter crumble and black soldier fly grubs. Now they get (daily) 6 cups of 18% all-flock, the same fermented feed (2.5 cups) half a cup of wheat bran, half a cup of black soldier fly grubs (freeze-dried) and scraps of vegetables, shrimp shells, scrambled eggs, lots of stuff. There are 11 left (5 roosters and 6 hens) out of the 12 I originally reared. I received 13 on my auction win of "10+" but one died the first night. The ration comes out to 0.26lbs of feed per day by dry weight, before the kitchen scraps. And they chased bugs all summer and eat plenty of weeds and grass (still some bugs here and there) so I think they are well-fed.
I only lost 1 small hen to a hawk and she was a wanderer, so (knock-on-wood) I am very happy about that overall. I let them out at 7AM and they go back in about 30 min before sunset. I only leave them locked up all day if I know its going to be rainy. And its not that they haven't had other run ins with hawks, I witnessed them defend against a rather large hawk and I was very impressed. I've also seen hawks sizing them up and deciding against it. Their impressive size and disposition is why I wanted them to begin with.
They are also (evidently) fair slow to mature. I say that because at 5 months they barely have spurs, their combs are no where near the size of others I see in pictures and they weigh 6 lbs and stand approx 22" - 24" tall, though I'm not sure how to measure that because its not like they normally stand with their heads raised all the time. If I were to measure them in their upright stance I would call them 26" tall at this point.
I got them from Greenfire (on an auction) and they told me to expect them to reach their full height between 6 and 8 months and their full weight at about 12 months. Looking back at their pictures now and they all have saddle feathers.
https://greenfirefarms.com/liege_fighter.html
I should have looked there first, but I just noticed the one's saddle-feathers this morning.
