Hi from New Hampshire

[NHMounttainman]

Nope my dark Cornish roo was psychotic! The hen was great though! The roo was the meanest thing I've ever seen and he met an earlier than planned demise.

Right now I have 2 Bresse, a Flarry Eyed Grey and a Liege Fighter cockerels in a bachelor coop. So far, no issues. The last two are game cocks, so I may need to separate them at some point, though the breeder tells me that isf there's no hens around, they should be fine. Once grown, the bresse will move to a breeding meat bird area, and the others will move in with egg layer flocks. The game cocks are supposed to be great protectors. At 5 moths old, they are still very easy going - good with me and love being near the dog. We'll see how spring things look once the snow melts!

 

[NHMounttainman]

high predator load? You're going to need a new rooster every year or two.

yup... need to plan for some losses!

 

[NHMounttainman]

I did well with electronet, until the birds decided they could fly over it. When they started doing that, I had a Northern Goshawk that moved in. He would have killed a hen every day if I'd not have changed things up. I ended up building a permanent run, 6' tall fence, covered with bird netting. Then, when hawk load seemed to be decreased, I started letting the birds out to free range for a few hours, mid day. Fox moved in and killed a lot of birds. He was brazen. Even when I kept the birds penned up, he would come back in the middle of the day, looking for a meal. I put out one of the corpses, hoping to make a personal acquaintance with him, and show him some lead. He always moved too fast. At one point, I was within 10' of him, and he stared me down, before he decided to move on.

Good that you have a dog. Sounds like he will be your greatest asset in defending your poultry. My dog? She is a good mouser, not worth much else.

I didn't keep a DR roo, so, I can't tell you how long you would expect successive generations to maintain their form. Generally, you should get 3 good breeding years out of a roo. And, your best breeding year with a hen will be her second season. While she may continue to produce for a number of years after that, her egg quality, and perhaps her fertility/hatching rate will go down. So, if you decide to do a breeding program with DR (or any other breed) I suggest that you keep your best roo, hatch the best eggs from your best hens, Then, long about year 3, save his best son, and continue. If you find carcass size decreasing, then you could bring in new stock.

My chickens won't eat hairy caterpillars. I've tried to get them to, and they just stand around talking about them, then wander off. My chickens won't even eat a mouse. Nor will they eat potato bugs or squash bugs. But, they LOVE tomato hornworms.


Putting chickens in your orchard: Good idea, unless they fly up into the trees and decimate your fruit. Let me know how it works out.

Roos in a bachelor pad: I've found that eventually, they do decide to kill each other.

I will raise up a replacement roo in the flock with the alpha roo. Usually, they get along well until the son is about a year old. Then... comes... the... day... They decide that one of them must die! At that point, I have to say good by to the older man, and let the younger one take over.

Thank you again. I remember telling my kids that it's important to not only learn from their mistakes, but learn from others mistakes (I had a whole list of dumb stuff I'd done in high school!) - for the most part they ignored my advice.... But I won't ignore yours.

I was thinking that i would raise the cornishX in the orchard... they won't fly - but I'm hoping they'd eat enough to prevent me from having to spray the apple trees.

Are DR flighty? I'm really not physically up to building a really secure coop and run. Between the flighty turkey with wild turkey birdnappers, and predators for the meat birds - I may need to rethink how much i take on next spring!

 

[NHMounttainman]

DR are not at all flighty. They quickly get too heavy to even consider that option. As for dealing with your electronet, it would be an excellent option in your orchard for your DR or CXR. It will keep out all land predators. All you would then have to worry about would be aerial preds. I've found that it's fairly easy to thwart them.

You would do well to put up the electronet, then run some fish or mason's line between the trees. You could even tie strips of mylar to those lines. Any open areas could then be further booby trapped by driving fiberglass fence posts into the ground. Also, give them several covers to duck under. Trick is to place these in such a fashion that the birds can't use them as platforms to launch themselves over the e-net. I feel fairly confident that this would provide decent safety for any full sized birds that stay INSIDE the electronet.

(Knock on wood). I've had huge hawk issues over the last 4 years. Brazen, bold evil creatures they are. They hang out in the woods to the west of my yard. They would often sit in the trees, and taunt me. I could get within 10' of them, and they'd just sit there and yack at me. They would perch on the top rail of the chicken run. They would run back and forth on the ground in front of my cockerel grow out pen to terrorize them.

My neighbor feeds the birds, which attracts the crows. In spite of other neighbors shooting the crows... (in an ignorant attempt to keep them from digging the grubs out of their lawns. HELLO???? Those crows are doing you a favor!!!) The local crow population is a bit higher than in previous peak hawk years. So... last year, I put electronet around my covered chicken run in a dual attempt to thwart Mr. Fox, and give the birds access to grass. In the open electronet area, I placed fiberglass fence posts about every 5 - 10'. While hawks can easily fly into an electronet enclosure, I've found that when the enclosure is littered with "spikes" they are not willing to risk injury to their wings to do so. The hawks are still around, but I did not sustain any hawk losses last summer.

Finally, if you don't have a good population of crows, I suggest that you attract them. A platform feeder with corn would do the trick nicely. You might have to put up some sort of baffle to keep the wild turkeys from breaking your crow feed budget!

great advice ~ thank you!

 

[NHMounttainman]

My DR came from MMc. I've no doubt that each hatchery sells it's own "brand". (different parent genetics to produce the particular hybrid they are marketing.) MMc no longer carries a bird similar to the ones I had. An extensive hatchery search came up with Rainbow Rangers at Meyer. The photo shows color patterns and description matching the DR I had from MMc. In the photo, all MY pullets resembled the 3solid light red birds at front left of the pic, while all the males resembled the very light red/buff.white bird with tail pointing at 2 o'clock.

https://www.meyerhatchery.com/productinfo.a5w?prodID=RRBS



I wonder how Freedom Rangers would compare to the DR?

Thanks for posting your results with CXR. I think that the grow out stats and results are well worth posting! The DR do not grow out quite as fast, nor do they yield quite as large a carcass. They are ready for freezer before the cockerels reach sexual maturity. I would plan on processing at about 12 weeks, while a similar CXR carcass would likely be processed between 8 - 10 weeks. DR are a bit longer through chest, and much longer through the leg than a CXR of similar dressed weight.

IMO, the benefit of DR: They are sex linked or auto sexing (not really sure which) The females are a light red, solid color: similar to NH Red. IIRC, the females have yellow/willow colored legs. The males are lighter in color, with a combination of red/buff/white feathering. Kind of like a muddied barred pattern. Their legs are bright yellow. And their legs are massive in diameter compared to the pullets. I found the distinct coloring of the males carried through in the second generation even when the chicks from DR were sired by a red based EE.

Dr pullets make great layers. CXR: Not an option!

Taste: I really can't speak to that, since I've not been able to do a side by side comparison. It's been decades since I raised CXR. I found that the DR were great, perhaps not quite as mushy tender as the CXR. CXR easier to process b/c of the white feathers, and they are being processed while a few weeks younger, thus more tender, easier to pluck.

The DR are more active than the CXR. I would be willing to bet that the viability is higher. It would be interesting to see a side by side comparison, of feed conversion rates, with each flock being given access to the same housing, range, same feed schedule. If one were to raise them without access to range, the CXR would win the feed conversion race. On range, I bet it would be equal, or perhaps the DR winning the race.

If I wanted to get a lot of meat in the freezer on a tight time schedule, I'd most likely opt for CXR. I also think they are cheaper to buy. If time was not an issue, and if I had plenty of SAFE range available, I'd opt for the DR.

Thank you - this is SO helpful!

 

[flowerbug]

moose! arg! deer are bad enough... i suspect minimum of 8ft fence for them... never had to deal with them.

 

[NHMounttainman]

You're already retired? wow!! that sounds nice... I can't wait to retire. I just wanna stay home and take care of my kids. Again. Welcome to our forums!

I am in remission, but had a long difficult battle with cancer. Unfortunately - I ended up disabled, so in effect, I'm a retiree. I do miss working - but have to admit that moving to rural area, and starting a big garden and a flock of chickens ha kept me from being bored!
Hope you get to retire on your terms, and enjoy those little ones! I've got 3 grown kids and we are really looking forward to becoming grandparents!