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A Follow Up on the Freedom Ranger Questions

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I got a few replies on the last post and thought I’d give an answer.  This answer is my understanding, based on knowledge I’ve gleaned from reading a few different sites.

high altitude freedom ranger chickens

The Freedom Ranger is a hybrid of 4 different chickens.  If you breed a Freedom Ranger to a Freedom Ranger, it won’t breed true, meaning you won’t get a Freedom Ranger Chick; you get a lesser product.  It’s sort of like how people breed Californian and New Zealand rabbits for the hybrid vigor.  The end result is a rabbit that is (usually) larger than the parents and grows very quickly.  However, if you breed hybrid NZ/Cali to hybrid NZ/Cali, you don’t necessarily get the same result.

Another comparison may work for the gardeners out there.  Most vegetables in the stores today come from hybrid seeds.  They are the result of two lines of a specific vegetable that have been cross bred for size, taste, or, in the case of most commercial growers, the seed was bred so that the plant would rot slowly making it easier transported regionally.

If you take a seed from, say, a spaghetti squash from the store and plant it in the ground (I’m speaking from experience), you will end up with a genetically weaker product.  When I did what I’m describing, I got a beautiful green plant that produced tangerine-sized squash that rotted on the vine, was misshapen and had poor resistance to bugs.

All that being said, if I kept a rooster and a hen from this crew and they bred, the result would likely be a smaller bird that may not lay much, if at all.

What’s the answer?

This is theory, not necessarily what I’m going to do -

I could keep a hen and get another Brahma rooster.  Brahmas are a meaty bird and the cross might result in a decent meat bird.  It would likely be smaller than an FR, but still beefy.

I could keep a rooster and breed him to my Buff Orpingtons.  Buffs are considered dual purpose.  The results could be good.  I’m not sure I want to keep an Arnold Scharrzer-whats-his-face rooster to service the girls.  A big chicken jumping on smaller chickens could do some damage.

So, while I’d like to ponder the experiment, I’ll likely put it out of my head and accept my losses.

Or, you know, I could start my own breed of chickens and name it after myself.

Pax Domini Sit Semper Vobiscum,

Mike Oscar Hotel



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