Tag: Freedom Ranger chickens

Turkey Tracks: New Chickens

Turkey Tracks:  September 2, 2011

New Chickens

Over the summer, I have replenished and expanded, by one, our chicken flock.

First, two of the older Copper Black Maran hens went to Rose’s farm.  She wanted more dark brown eggs, and we have the new CB chickens, so she will keep the best of those roosters and try to place the rest.  Remember, that we got a “straight run” of 15 CBM chicks from Tom Culpepper last May.  Half of all “straight runs” are, statistically, male.  To no one’s surprise, we have 7 CB Maran roosters.  Indeed, half of all just-born farm animals are male.  And, you cannot keep a lot of males.  Rose has a big flock, so she may be able to have two strong roosters.  But, maybe not.  They still have to go into the same chicken house at night.  Anyway, Rose now has breeding stock to reproduce the CBMs next spring, and I have a back-up CBM rooster.

Napoleon, or “Nappy,” has been rehomed to a lovely woman just starting a flock up north of Belfast.  Rose has agreed to part with one of the two older hens so Julia can have a pair and can raise babies.  Nappy was a terrific rooster with the hens–he took such good care of them–but when they were laying or when he was fenced, he was very protective of the coop and the hens.  He was just too aggressive for the grandchildren or for Jessica’s children–when she comes to take care of the house, chickens, and dogs when we go to Charleston or otherwise travel.  As beautiful as he was–and he was GORGEOUS, it wasn’t worth the risk.

Valentine, otherwise listed here earlier as Chickie Honey Ginger, changed her name when she got a bit bigger.  She’s a sweetheart–a Freedom Ranger meat bird/layer.  She’s HUGE, and, at first, layed a tiny little rosy brown pullet egg when she was only barely four months old.  Here’s a picture.  The larger, darker brown egg is Chickie Annie’s, a CBM who is a year old now.  The cool thing about Valentine’s eggs are that, even as tiny pullet eggs, they are almost always double yolked!

Here’s a picture of Valentine with our 3 “older” hens now–the two wheaten Americaunas, Sally and Nancy, and the CBM chick I raised last summer, Annabelle, or Chickie Annie.

Valentine is only about 10 days older than the CBMaran chicks and the “blue egg” chicks Rose raised this spring.  But, she’s TWICE their size.  She kind of moves between the older hens and the newer three, 2 CBMs and 1 wheaten Americauna from Rose’s rooster William–part of Rose’s “blue egg” chick bunch this spring.  The new girls are scared to death of the old girls and scared of us, though they are gradually settling in now and will come close to us.  I took this picture of them hanging out on the edge of the “chicken briar patch,” the raspberries, about a week ago.

That’s Pearl and Rosie, with our new roo, Pretty Pierre.  Ninja is in the briar patch.  These names come from the grandchildren this summer.

Here’s a picture of Pierre, the best I can do at the moment since he’s new to the group and is only just learning his roo duties.  AND, how to crow.

When Pierre first came, Valentine was very taken with him.  She tried to follow him, and that totally freaked Pierre out.  Remember she’s a very impressive fully grown hen, and he’s just a baby really.  When he got upset, she got even more upset, fluffed up all her feathers, which made her look even bigger, and charged him.  Mercy!  That was his first hour outside the coop cage.  John and I had to get him down out of the tall bushes to put him to bed in the coop that night.

Something happened the next day, as she had a torn comb and was all bloody.  John and I took her inside, washed it off, and put some calendula cream on it.  Here she is with her poor bloody head:

By the second night, she was sleeping next to Pierre in the coop.

So, we go into the fall and winter with 8 chickens–7 hens and a rooster.  The new girls will start laying this month.  We will be rolling in soy-free eggs from healthy chickens.  And, Valentine follows me everywhere when I’m in the yard, earnestly talking to me the whole time.

Chicken love!

Turkey Tracks: Around and About–June 2011

Turkey Tracks:  June 15, 2011

Around and About–June 2011

Chive is in full bloom everywhere now.  Here’s one in Margaret and Ronald’s garden.  I have three or four now as well.  They reseed themselves all over the place.  The leaves are wonderful snipped with scissors over a salad, over cheese (goat, feta, yogurt), or soup.  But, I didn’t know until coming to Maine that the flowers are also delicious.  I kept asking people at potlucks, “what are these lavender things in the salad?”   The chive is one of the earliest herbs to come back in Maine spring (and yes it is still spring here; we don’t get summer until July 4th or so), and it lasts all summer and up to a killing frost.

Margaret got  two pigs about 10 days ago.  They’re pink, so will sunburn; thus, the umbrella.  Margaret has always wanted to see what pigs would do on their land.   She’s talked about it as long as I’ve known her.  Now she’ll find out.  She’s moved them once already, and they had completely tilled their former pen at least a foot deep overnight.   They’re now in an area filled with alders–an area M&R would like to clear out for more gardens.  So, they just cut down the alders, put the pigs in, and voila!

I’m still awestruck at how big pigs will get and how quickly they do it and how much they eat–all info gleaned from FARM CITY, by Novella Carpenter, which is a terrific read!

M&R are also raising Freedom Ranger chicks.  Here’s one–a beauty–with her tail cocked and ready to fly!

The lupines are blooming everywhere–all along the side of the roads.  It’s a glorious sight.  Maine lupine come in a variety of colors:  the most common is blue/purple, but there are also pink and lavender shades and white.   Here’s some up at our neighbor’s home, Sarah Rheault:

Here’s some on the side of a road leading west out of Camden.  Lupines line both sides of the road:

Rose and Pete have finished their bread oven, and Rose is learning how to use it and developing recipes.  Here’s a pic of some bread in progress:

Our River Birches are something to behold.  I couldn’t resist taking this picture of the shedding bark:

We went out for lunch today and came back via Barrett’s Cove–one of our swimming holes and a beautiful view.  Here it is:

This little tour does not begin to cover everything exciting that is happening these days.  But, that’s Maine for you!

Turkey Tracks: Chicken Update

Turkey Tracks:  June 8, 2011

Chicken Update

The Freedom Ranger chickens are 7 weeks old now.  We’ll slaughter some of them in 3 weeks time–at 10-11 weeks.  They’re beautiful, healthy birds.  The color variations are so interesting.  I’ll have a hard time choosing one of them to keep as a layer.  We can’t tell the hens from the roosters yet, though some of the roos are starting to try to crow.

 HEre they are in the shade of their tractor.  Rose and Pete move them every day, so they always have fresh grass and a new set of bugs to catch.

Here are the batch of Copper Black Marans, Wheaten Americaunas, two Barbanters, and backyarders.   We’re starting to see which of the CBMs will be roosters as their wing feathers are turning orange.  They are loose in Rose and Pete’s yard.  Below them to the right is a planting field, and behind them are some protective shrubs.  They run from their tractor–you can see the edge propped up in the back right of the picture–to the shrub.  They’re already looking for and eating bugs from the yard.   I just happened to catch mostly marans in this picture.

Here are some of the others.  The little speckled chicks are the two Barbanters.  They are a week or so behind the marans.  Look at the topknot on the one at the right.  Probably a rooster in the making.  The Wheatens and backyarders (all from blue eggs) are about 6 weeks old now.   You can see a purebred wheaten–the blondie in the front.  And that bigger backyarder is quite striking in that s/he has coloring like an eagle–with a white head.  There are 3 of them like that.   The maran in front will be a roo–see the copper coming in on his wings?

Oh what fun we are having this spring!

Turkey Tracks: Freedom Ranger Update

Turkey Tracks:  May 24, 2011

Freedom Ranger Update

 The Freedom Ranger meat/layer chickens are growing like weeds.  You might remember that they arrived in the mail about a week before we left for our Charleston trip.  Here’s a picture of one that’s about a week old.  Rose and I were admiring the wing colors.  Freedom Rangers are hybrids, with four distinct grandparents.  So, it’s impossible to reproduce a Freedom Ranger by breeding them to each other.  There is only one company that markets the eggs–and only a handful of companies worldwide that market all hatching eggs commercially.  Freedom Rangers are the famous “Red Label” chicken sold in France.  They are both meat chickens and layers, and they arrive with varying color combinations.  They are good foragers, food sturdy birds.

Here’s what they looked like last week when we arrived home.  Now they are about three weeks old.  They’re growing so fast that they have bare patches under wings and the like, so they look quite scruffy.  But, their feathers will catch up with their bodies soon.

Look at the size of the feet!  We think the real “big foots” may be roosters.

As soon as we can tell hens from roosters, I’m bringing home one of the hens as a layer.  It will be hard to pick one out as they are all so beautiful.

Turkey Tracks: First Freedom Rangers

Turkey Tracks:  April 16, 2011

First Freedom Rangers

Here they are!

Our first Freedom Ranger chickens!

All 77 (75 plus two extras “in case”…) arrived at the Lincolnville, Maine, post office bright and early on Friday morning, April 15th.  Pete went to pick them up, and I met him at the house.  Margaret was there, too, as she was taking 15 of them.

As you can see, they are big, and lively.  There wasn’t a frail one in the bunch.

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Freedom Rangers are good layers and good meat birds.  We will have some of each.

Freedom Rangers DO NOT HAVE any Cornish chicken in them, which makes them unique for meat birds.  The market, as I discussed in Tipping Points 9 on meat chickens, settled on meat birds which are all, virtually, Cornish or Cornish crosses.  The Cornish breed grows to over 5 pounds in 6 weeks and has a HUGE white, tasteless breast–produced for a market that went crazy about fat-free meat.  These chickens grow so quickly and are so heavy that their bones and organs won’t support them.  They are Frankensteins.  Their flesh has no texture and melts in your mouth.  Their bones don’t have the minerals they should have, so bone broths made from these bones aren’t as healthy as they should be.

Last year we tried Silver Cross’s–a cross between a barred rock and a Cornish.  The meat texture was lovely–like chicken I remember growing up.  The taste–was wanting.

Freedom Rangers are the same bird as the French sell under their Red label–which is highly sought after in France for taste and texture.

We’ll let you know in about 3 months.  Meanwhile, on Howe Hill, we have one frozen chicken left in the freezer.