The below I posted with some editing about 4 years back. Current reality is I still do some free-range keeping with poultry tight perimeters, some where birds can go beyond pasture area but are still anchored to feeding stations and roost, and finally those anchored only to a roost that free-range much larger areas as most if not all nutrition is acquired by foraging. In addition to keeping a closed population of American Games (replacements are generated from my stock on sight), I also have a closed flock of American Dominiques. I strive for increased importance of forages for meeting nutritional needs but real limitation to that is the area required, limited distance birds will forage from roost / nesting areas, and dispersal from areas where I have effective predator management. These latters issues are often limiting before nutrition.
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We when comes to approximating feral chickens we kept games, lots. Most of our breeding was done on walks (locations where a cock and hens) were kept free range with minimal inputs other than selecting who was to be broodstock and the harvest young starting late summer - early fall. The number of walks numbered between 10 and 20 depending on year. Locations were usually centered on a barn or outbuilding of some sort although some were little more than fence rows with clumps of trees to provide roost and cover. Usually no feed was applied specifically for chickens unless it was really could and that amounted to little more than taking a a dozen ears of corn and shelling it by hand leaving kernels under a bush. Most walks at least had livestock close by, most. Usually better than 2/3' of walks yielded enough harvestable birds to be worth effort. Balance could simply have no survival of young or loss of some or all of breeders. With proven breeding groups, a given cock and hens were allowed to produce for several years before being swapped out. Some groups could operate for 5 years. More than once, walks were not checked because birds were thought lost only to find out 2 or three years later that somebody survived and bred in dunghill fashion without our oversight of birds present of breeding age. Original hens often persisted but old rooster seldom outlasted all of his male offspring. An exceptional group which I have descendants of now persisted for more than 15 years in that fashion and a couple of those years the number of birds approached 40 when flock size was maximal in fall. Predators took a heavy toll and winters with heavy snows were particularly hard on them.
Those games could do pretty much everything needed to survive for at least a couple generations but they always had at least some protection from predators by activities of humans, livestock or farm dogs.
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To put it plainly, my experience with extreme free-range keeping is significant, especially when you consider my personal efforts started back in the 1970's.
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We when comes to approximating feral chickens we kept games, lots. Most of our breeding was done on walks (locations where a cock and hens) were kept free range with minimal inputs other than selecting who was to be broodstock and the harvest young starting late summer - early fall. The number of walks numbered between 10 and 20 depending on year. Locations were usually centered on a barn or outbuilding of some sort although some were little more than fence rows with clumps of trees to provide roost and cover. Usually no feed was applied specifically for chickens unless it was really could and that amounted to little more than taking a a dozen ears of corn and shelling it by hand leaving kernels under a bush. Most walks at least had livestock close by, most. Usually better than 2/3' of walks yielded enough harvestable birds to be worth effort. Balance could simply have no survival of young or loss of some or all of breeders. With proven breeding groups, a given cock and hens were allowed to produce for several years before being swapped out. Some groups could operate for 5 years. More than once, walks were not checked because birds were thought lost only to find out 2 or three years later that somebody survived and bred in dunghill fashion without our oversight of birds present of breeding age. Original hens often persisted but old rooster seldom outlasted all of his male offspring. An exceptional group which I have descendants of now persisted for more than 15 years in that fashion and a couple of those years the number of birds approached 40 when flock size was maximal in fall. Predators took a heavy toll and winters with heavy snows were particularly hard on them.
Those games could do pretty much everything needed to survive for at least a couple generations but they always had at least some protection from predators by activities of humans, livestock or farm dogs.
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To put it plainly, my experience with extreme free-range keeping is significant, especially when you consider my personal efforts started back in the 1970's.
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