Freedom Rangers 6/23

Just a few shots of the Freedom Rangers taken this morning. They are now 8 weeks 5 days old. A lot bigger than the little hatchlings they used to be, but no where near as big as I'd hoped they'd be at this age. I'm not sure if they are simply not liking the Texas heat or if they are just genetic duds! Maybe I had to high of expectations for them. At any rate, I don't think we're going to be butchering at 9.5 weeks as planned. I weighed a couple yesterday and they were between 4-5 lbs. Sure not big enough to make it worth butchering them. I'm guessing it'll be closer to 11-12 weeks. They better be a LOT bigger by then! I'm starting to think plain old Cornishxrocks don't sound so bad now.

Freedom Rangers Arrive!!

The much anticipated (ok, well the anticipation was driving me crazy anyway!) Freedom Ranger chicks arrived via USPS this morning. All 50 babies looked great and were peeping their little heads off. Odin, Soren and I unloaded them into the brooder and showed each one the waterer. They drank a considerable amount, rested, then found the feeder.

In the case of this poor little fellow, the excitement of the trip caught up with him mid-meal. He fell asleep right on top of the feeder! How cute is that? And on the subject of cuteness, it seems really wrong to me that meat birds should be so darn cute! I ordered red and bronze Rangers, and as you can see in the picture above the colors are pretty and variable from bird to bird. Pretty neat!

As we do with most things, raising the Rangers will be a learning project for the kids. We're going to keep track of the cost of feed, how quickly the birds gain, cost of processing, etc. I'm curious to see what the total cost per bird will turn out to be. We're raising the Rangers naturally. They're on a non-medicated commercial chick starter right now. Once they're bigger they'll go outside into bottomless cages called chicken tractors where they can 'free range' in safety. The cages get moved every day to give the birds fresh ground to range on. We will not be using any chemicals, hormones, antibiotics or coccidiosis meds. The end result will be birds that have had a good life, were butchered humanely, and will provide extremely healthy high quality meat for my family. As a breed the Rangers have been bred specifically for organic/natural farmers that need a hardier, healthier bird. If you'd like to learn more about Freedom Rangers visit: http://www.freedomrangers.net/