What should be live weight for Freedom Rangers at time of processing?

[Stuart309]

If we want our FR's dressed weight to be 4-5 lbs, what should their live weight be at the time of processing? One source I have read states that dressed weight is 75-80% of live weight; another source states that it is 2/3 of live weight. What help can you give? I love to track weights, feed consumption, feed conversion ratios, etc. and this afternoon (they are aged 60 days) I weighed several of our FRs and they ranged from 2.26 lbs (an obvious female runt) to 6.7 lbs, with most in the 5.5 to 6.5 range. I had thought our FRs would need to be 10 weeks/70 days old to attain a dressed weight of 4-5 lbs, but I think most of them may have already attained that weight. I look forward to your responses.

 

[Saltysteele]

at 12 weeks we had 5.5 pound birds dressed. sorry, don't know their live weights or waste percentages. i'd say you'd be safe at 10-11 weeks.

pull one, process it and see where you're at. that will give you a good idea

 

[bwmichaud]

I never weigh live chickens so I can't really help you there. I can tell you that my Freedom Ranger roosters dressed out at 4 and 4.25 pounds at 7 weeks and another was 4.5 pounds at 8 weeks. This was on a daytime only feeding of 20% protien broiler crumbles.

 

[Stuart309]

Thanks for your comments. We are going to do the deed (ie process them) this Saturday at age 66 days. I'm hoping to weigh some of them just before processing and thus see for myself what the relationship is, dressed weight to live weight.