My own variety of meat birds

[Adorae]

Got the weights for the 3 week old Bresse and the just slightly younger Freedom Rangers.

The egg layer I weighed that is being raised within the group weight 3.31oz.

The Bresse were averaging 6.47oz. The biggest being 8.28oz and the smallest 4.51oz.

The Freedom ranger chicks average was 7.73oz and the biggest baby was 10.15oz and the smallest was 4.83oz.
You could feel the muscle on all of the meat chicks when you handle them, and you can feel the lack of muscle on the egg layers.

I'm worried about the Freedom Ranger chicks. The biggest ones are starting to act the way I think Cornish Cross would behave. Hanging out by the feeders and laying around a lot. They get worked up when I reach in there to grab them, they wobble a bit, like their little legs are having trouble supporting them. I think I will raise the next batch on the normal chick crumble to see if they have this problem with a lower protein diet. They are massive though.

 

[Adorae]

I took a whole day off on Friday to try to catch up on chicken stuff and chores around the house, and I only got a few things off my list. Hopefully can get the chicks moved this week.

The average weight for the Freedom ranger chicks was 426.8g, the lowest being 350g and the highest was 496g.

The Bresse's average was 340g, biggest was 446 and the smallest was 240.

The next batch of meat birds are due to hatch on Wednesday. They will either be pure Freedom Ranger or a Dark Cornish and Freedom Ranger cross. After I clean the incubator I will set the eggs I have collected that are all Dark Cornish/Freedom Ranger.
The batch that is about to hatch will be raised on the meatbird 24% protein feed instead of the 30% game bird feed like the current one. I'm interested to see what kind of difference it may or may not make.

 

[Adorae]

The next batch hatched! This batch is a mixed bag because I just grabbed a bunch of eggs from the chicken tractor that had the freedom ranger hens when I thought my freedom ranger rooster had hurt himself. Luckily he recovered, but the eggs had still been set.
So this is a mix of Freedom Rangers, Dark Cornish, and DCxFR.

11 Chicks total have hatched, I have 3 left in the incubator that I will give another day, but I think they are late quits. I'm hoping the late quits are reduced in this next hatch since I have been supplementing the parents with the Ferrell breeder supplement.

The little dark baby is a Silkie mix. I stuck their egg in to try to determine if my Silkie had started laying. One of the Bigger chicks hatched with what I think might be an umbilical hernia. I started a thread in the medical section of the forums.

 

[FunClucks]

View attachment 3804622
The next batch hatched! This batch is a mixed bag because I just grabbed a bunch of eggs from the chicken tractor that had the freedom ranger hens when I thought my freedom ranger rooster had hurt himself. Luckily he recovered, but the eggs had still been set.
So this is a mix of Freedom Rangers, Dark Cornish, and DCxFR.
View attachment 3804623

11 Chicks total have hatched, I have 3 left in the incubator that I will give another day, but I think they are late quits. I'm hoping the late quits are reduced in this next hatch since I have been supplementing the parents with the Ferrell breeder supplement.

The little dark baby is a Silkie mix. I stuck their egg in to try to determine if my Silkie had started laying. One of the Bigger chicks hatched with what I think might be an umbilical hernia. I started a thread in the medical section of the forums.

Let us know if that Ferrell breeder supplement helps things. I'm interested to hear. Also, super cute chicks!!! Glad so many of them hatched for you.

 

[LaurenRitz]

I am free ranging my Rudd Rangers. I give them free choice feed 12 hours, and let them out at dawn. They eat the feed, but apparently prefer grass and bugs.

They seem to do fine free ranging, but at 8 weeks they prefer to eat sitting down, even if they're eating grass.

 

[Adorae]

I was wanting to update earlier but wow had it been busy. The first batch of meat birds were moved to a Suscovich style chicken tractor. I added my own swing on it by putting in a roosting bar and a couple of nesting boxes. These guys are ranging from 2lbs to 3.5lbs right now at just past 6 weeks of age.

The 2nd batch of meat birds has a mix of dark cornish, freedom ranger, and DC/FR.


Dark Cornish

Dark Cornish/Freedom Ranger

Another Dark Cornish/Freedom Ranger

The pure freedom ranger chicks, which are only a couple, look identical to the previous batch, so I didn't get any photos.

The third group is more Dark Cornish/Freedom Ranger chicks and is due to hatch by Friday.

I have a plan to processing a few of the culls on the 18th along with my extra roosters and the stupid guinea.

 

[Adorae]

Alright, Had a busy weekend, but I do have an update. I sold off 5 of the freedom rangers over the weekend, they were roughly 9 weeks old.

I did get some weights before they were sold.
The meat birds were in ounces: 72, 67.5, 79, 65.8, 81, 80, 79, 50, 66.5 =640.8/9 =71.2/16= 4.45lbs, biggest 5.06, smallest 3.12
Kept 1 cockerel, and 3 pullets, The biggest looking Bresse cockerel and pullet were 52oz and 39oz, 3.25lbs and 2.43lbs. The Bresse are 9.5 weeks old.

The 2nd group of meat birds, which are the mix of the Freedom Rangers and the Dark Cornish/Freedom Rangers Are doing well, they got moved to a bigger space this weekend. This is them in the old space, badly needing more. They are 5 weeks old now.

I have another group of meat chicks, that hatched about 2 weeks ago. I need to get pictures of them, but they are all Dark Cornish over Freedom Ranger. I lost about 1/2 of eggs because my incubator didn't keep temperature after I added all the water for lock down. I didn't think the check on it until day 20, so the temp was very low, like 94 degrees for 2 days.
Had a late hatch chick that had an unabsorbed yolk sack that passed after the 1st day.
I have the Columbian Rock over Freedom Ranger pen set up and ready to start collecting eggs, but I need to start giving the breeder supplement for a few days before I can get eggs for incubating. I've been crunched for space, so I didn't want to start another set of eggs until I got the new pens set up and created some space. I also go on vacation for a bit at the beginning of June, so I don't want new chicks until after I get back.

 

[MamaJay]

Alright, Had a busy weekend, but I do have an update. I sold off 5 of the freedom rangers over the weekend, they were roughly 9 weeks old.
View attachment 3838001
View attachment 3838000
I did get some weights before they were sold.
The meat birds were in ounces: 72, 67.5, 79, 65.8, 81, 80, 79, 50, 66.5 =640.8/9 =71.2/16= 4.45lbs, biggest 5.06, smallest 3.12
Kept 1 cockerel, and 3 pullets, The biggest looking Bresse cockerel and pullet were 52oz and 39oz, 3.25lbs and 2.43lbs. The Bresse are 9.5 weeks old.
View attachment 3838004
The 2nd group of meat birds, which are the mix of the Freedom Rangers and the Dark Cornish/Freedom Rangers Are doing well, they got moved to a bigger space this weekend. This is them in the old space, badly needing more. They are 5 weeks old now.
View attachment 3838006
I have another group of meat chicks, that hatched about 2 weeks ago. I need to get pictures of them, but they are all Dark Cornish over Freedom Ranger. I lost about 1/2 of eggs because my incubator didn't keep temperature after I added all the water for lock down. I didn't think the check on it until day 20, so the temp was very low, like 94 degrees for 2 days.
Had a late hatch chick that had an unabsorbed yolk sack that passed after the 1st day.
I have the Columbian Rock over Freedom Ranger pen set up and ready to start collecting eggs, but I need to start giving the breeder supplement for a few days before I can get eggs for incubating. I've been crunched for space, so I didn't want to start another set of eggs until I got the new pens set up and created some space. I also go on vacation for a bit at the beginning of June, so I don't want new chicks until after I get back.

Thank you for sharing your experiment with meat birds! We have been considering crossing Bresse or Freedom Ranger girls with our excellent FBCM boy.

 

[Nicks_Chicks]

I was gonna do something similar my crossing Cornish with bresse

 

[Adorae]

I was gonna do something similar my crossing Cornish with bresse

There's a guy on YouTube that has some videos about that. They looked like really nice looking birds.

I would be interested to learn if there is a noticeable difference in taste between a pure Bresse and a 1/2 Bresse. I'm still growing my Bresse, so I have no idea what the difference is between a Bresse and a young Freedom Ranger. My Bresse are just over 9 weeks old now. So 7 weeks more to go.