As part of the evolutionary path most birds eat based on 'at the moment' calorie needs, in general they don't 'over eat' or even eat planning any further ahead then their nightly roost, they spend every day eating for that days needs with little extra converted to fat in the end... The exception would be modern day broilers where selective breeding has turned off that internal calorie limiter... This is why even a few hours without food can cause cause a decrease in egg production,and a few days without food can cause health issue for many birds, birds in general simply don't store much fat, there bodies are designed for a constant food supply entering... Since they only eat what they need at that moment there is generally very little stored as fat, although as you said over they years it can accumulate to some degree but it's a slow process in most birds and generally only happens when they are confined and inactive or a resulted of selective breeding...
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Me neither...that whole paragraph was just blah, blah, blah and meant absolutely nothing. My birds free range over 3 acres of meadow ringed by woods and lay on fat like crazy, young and old, and mostly on foraged feed. The cockerels I butchered this past fall were the fattest male birds I've ever butchered~even fatter than CX birds~with fat stores on their backs, around their organs and along the back of their necks, even, and those birds had fed on mainly foraged feed their whole existence and especially after 2 mo. of age when the older flock kind of segregated them into a bachelor flock that got very few chances to eat at the daily meal.
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