Cornish Cross vs. Freedom Ranger

Can I be honest with you? I don’t like raising meat birds. I love being able to fill my freezer and I love the price point of raising the chickens too. however, we’ve just never had good luck with raising the birds and there seems to be something that always goes wrong. The first year, we had some that nearly died the week before butcher. I shared all about it in this post. The second year, we were given Americanas instead of cornish cross from the farm store. The third year we decided to order freedom rangers from our local hatchery- Townline Hatchery. Now, I’m going to share the comparison of cornish cross vs. freedom ranger and why I still don’t like raising them.

Initial Cost

The initial cost is the first difference in cornish cross vs. freedom ranger. The cost to start freedom rangers is a tad higher. They don’t sell them at the local store so the cost is a bit higher. Plus you’ll need to pick them up from the post office when they call you so it can be inconvenient.

The cornish cross can be bought right from our local stores. The only issue with that is the one we ran into before- you can get the wrong bird. It’s a pretty big risk and one we don’t take lightly. However, you can also get some really, really good deals on these birds too. Once they get older the store offloads them for a $1 each which is super cheap and really adds up to a lot of meat for a little cost.

Growing Time

It’s pretty well known that the freedom rangers take a bit more time. We found that they took 2-3 weeks more time than cornish cross. In the long run, that isn’t a lot of time. However, when you are raising meat birds and having to care for them, it’s 2 weeks more of all the effort that you have to put in. Plus, that equates to a longer feeding time too so the cost can go up a little bit on them.

I also noticed that there are differences in how they grow. The freedom rangers really took off quickly. They really only needed to be in the brooder tank for about a week, maybe two. However, the cornish start out a little slower. The freedom rangers grow tall first and the cornish seem to grow proportionately at first. After a few weeks the cornish start to grow wider rather than taller and the freedom rangers flip to growing proportionately.

Feathers & Looks

One of the biggest comparisons that I want to make about cornish cross vs. freedom ranger is how they look. The cornish cross are the laziest birds and they tend to look it, too. They are very fat don’t usually feather out really well, from our experience. The freedom rangers tend to look like laying hens. They are really good looking chickens, actually. We were very impressed with their cleanliness and very happy with how they looked.

Health

This is a mixed bag for us. We lost A LOT of chickens this year and we aren’t sure why. Our first incident happened when they got too hot and the freedom rangers stood on each other and died. I take full responsibility for that because we should have gotten them out of the brooder. We just weren’t used to them getting so tall and so big quite so quickly.

After we lost those, I went and purchased some cornish cross from our local store to replace them. We ended up losing some of the cornish too but not nearly as many as the freedom rangers.

It felt like we were losing one daily. I had heard that freedom rangers could have unlimited feed but we started pulling it at night and that seemed to curb the death rate a little bit. Overall, when comparing cornish cross vs. freedom ranger I don’t think either of them has better health than the other one. They are both just as susceptible to death.

Butchering

The butchering process was only slightly impacted by breed of bird. We found we had a little trouble removing feathers from the freedom rangers. We needed to dunk them in the hot water for a tad longer than the cornish cross. Once we realized what was happening it didn’t take long to rectify the problem so, again, in the comparison of cornish cross vs. freedom rangers there is no clear winner here.

In Summary: Cornish Cross vs. Freedom Ranger

In my eyes, there isn’t a clear winner. I do think that the freedom rangers are a little more pretty and more easily kept than the cornish cross. However, putting the two together also had a positive impact on the cornish cross. It kept them more active and they feathered better and didn’t have any of end of life health issues that we had with our first batch. Honestly, if it’s my choice I’d always do a mix of both. Cornish so we get really meaty birds and freedom rangers to keep them all moving and in line.

What type of bird do you raise for meat? I also want to try an American Bresse but the cost of the chicks is much higher for that.