My own variety of meat birds

[Country chicken lady 2024]

Following. I raise CC but interested in ranger finish weight since I grow a lot of chicken for my dog and cat food

 

[Adorae]

I weighted my chicks on Sunday night. The average Freedom ranger chicks was average 138g, the biggest chicks was 200g and the smallest was 95g. The Freedom Ranger F1 Crosses were hatched on March 22nd/23rd, so they were 1 week and 2 days old.

The Bresse were hatched on the 18th. Somehow I didn't quite get 13 birds weighted, but their numbers were significantly below the FR even being a few days older. The average for the Bresse was 110g, the largest being 152g, and the smallest 68g.

I lost a FR chick over the weekend. I'm not sure exactly what happened. I checked on them on Saturday and the poor thing was breathing heavily under the heat lamp on it's side. I picked it up and tried to cool it off, then placed it in a cooler area in the brooder, right by the water. It kinda moved around for a bit, but by the next day it was gone. It was a slightly heavier bird, but not near the top. Unrelated hopefully, but at the same time in a nearby brooder I lost a splash Orpington chick. It was a pretty puny chick, and passed away much faster.

My meat birds are all on game bird starter now, at 30% protein. They will continue to be under continuous red heat lamp for about 3 more weeks when I will move them to a larger coop space with brooder plates.

I nearly lost my FR rooster Red. He had managed to hurt his leg, but seems to have recovered. While he was hurt I collected a bunch more FR eggs, even though I had put my Dark Cornish Rooster with them, in an attempt to get some more FR chicks to hatch. So I have 22 of those eggs in the incubator and they started on the evening of the 26th.
It will be very easy to separate any chicks that are 1/2 Dark Cornish from the pure Freedom Ranger chicks.

 

[NatJ]

It will be very easy to separate any chicks that are 1/2 Dark Cornish from the pure Freedom Ranger chicks.

Which traits are you planning to use to separate them? Comb type springs to mind as a possibility.

 

[Adorae]

Comb type is one, the DC crosses will have a large peacomb, while the FR will be a single comb, but even easier is down color. The FR mixes are a yellow/orange chick(e+/e+) and the DC crosses should be a dark chipmunk(E+/e^b). Possibly. Even if I can't determine it by down color, the DC mixes will be single laced while the FRs are Columbian patterned, or that's the the chicken calculator is telling me. Either way it should be pretty easy to separate them.

 

[Molpet]

Comb type is one, the DC crosses will have a large peacomb, while the FR will be a single comb, but even easier is down color. The FR mixes are a yellow/orange chick(e+/e+) and the DC crosses should be a dark chipmunk(E+/e^b). Possibly. Even if I can't determine it by down color, the DC mixes will be single laced while the FRs are Columbian patterned, or that's the the chicken calculator is telling me. Either way it should be pretty easy to separate them.

I had a dark standard cornish hatch out yellow and turned to drk cornish. several of his off spring that were part dc did the same. He was the only egg that hatched out of 3 shipments of egg from 2 different breeders. USPS does a number on the mail here

 

[Adorae]

Yeah, the USPS does a number to my shipped eggs and chicks even. it's very frustrating. All of my DC chicks were chipmunks when I picked them up as day old chicks.

It will be really interesting to see if there is a difference between the chick down when it's e+/e+ or e+/e^b. At some point I want to try and get a really good database of the different chick down colors and the genetics behind them, but we'll see how it all goes.

 

[Adorae]

The two week old Bresse with some Orpington chicks. I found a Bresse chick that had been crushed under the water drinker. Pretty upset with myself on that.

The Freedom rangers with their turkeys and 3 egg layer chicks. They really love their wet feed.

I notice on both the bigger Bresse and the Freedom Rangers that they do sit a lot. They are quick to panic and run into the corner when I lean over the pack 'n plays, but typical when I walk into the space I see those birds sitting and chilling, while the other chicks are milling about. I am hoping that will chance as they move to a bigger space in a week-ish.

 

[FunClucks]

The two week old Bresse with some Orpington chicks. I found a Bresse chick that had been crushed under the water drinker. Pretty upset with myself on that.
View attachment 3790301

The Freedom rangers with their turkeys and 3 egg layer chicks. They really love their wet feed.
View attachment 3790302

I notice on both the bigger Bresse and the Freedom Rangers that they do sit a lot. They are quick to panic and run into the corner when I lean over the pack 'n plays, but typical when I walk into the space I see those birds sitting and chilling, while the other chicks are milling about. I am hoping that will chance as they move to a bigger space in a week-ish.

They're looking good! Yea, my meat birds are generally less flighty than my eggers, unless I'm present. I assume because they're heavier.

I crushed a CX chick under a feeder once - I was setting it up and didn't realize they hadn't all moved out of the way. I'm still upset about it, and will make sure it never happens again. Accidents happen sometimes in spite of our best efforts.

 

[NatJ]

I notice on both the bigger Bresse and the Freedom Rangers that they do sit a lot. They are quick to panic and run into the corner when I lean over the pack 'n plays, but typical when I walk into the space I see those birds sitting and chilling, while the other chicks are milling about. I am hoping that will chance as they move to a bigger space in a week-ish.

Is there a reason to move them to a bigger space in a week, rather than now?

 

[Adorae]

That's when I can move chicken around. I need to collect eggs from the chickens currently in there for my next hatch. Once I get the eggs the space opens up for the chicks. After I clean it up first. Next weekend I have my sister and BIL coming over to help me build another chicken tractor so I won't need to use the space for the adult birds going forward. If they start acting stressed I have an option to set up another pack n play and divide up the chicks a bit more, but outside of feeding they have space to spread out.