⠀ Free Range ONLY, no feed???

[Ridgerunner]

Triplepurpose, Dad would occasionally buy a dozen dual purpose fowl chicks, raise them until they could manage on their own, then turn them loose with the flock. The ones I remember were Dominique and New Hampshire but there were a few others. They did OK in that environment but they certainly were not show quality size. I realize this was several decades ago but they were still hatchery birds. I really don’t think they have changed that much from hatcheries in that time.

By the way Centrarchid uses Dominique and Games and his way of raising them sort of models this.

The basic flock Dad was releasing them into did have a lot of “game” quality in it. It wouldn’t surprise me if they were descendants of chickens that had been roaming farms in Appalachia for a few generations, generations of people, not chickens. I agree Game type birds work really well in this environment but don’t sell the other breeds too short.

On your point on size, Mom could take one of those game type hens and serve a family of five kids with it. Some of the pieces on the platter were gizzard, neck, back, and liver. I don’t know why she didn’t cook the heart. And of course she used chicken ‘n dumplings or stews to really stretch a chicken. You are right, those did not look anything like what most people think of a meat bird today and they were not cooked the same way either.

 

[EastmanEggs]

Great advice.

I hadn't considered the camouflage aspect. I'm sure a hawk that sees a mouse at 100yds would be able to see a chicken at any reasonable distance- BUT I'm still considering it to be a good idea.

I agree, any meat birds bred for fast growth would probably starve or just entirely surround any supplemental food I'd put out.

 

[song of joy]

I'm not sure what scale you're looking at, but broody hens do a GREAT job of teaching their chicks to forage, usually beginning the first couple days after hatch. This would give the chicks a good head start on foraging skills, and they'd have the mother hen to teach them some survival skills as well. Hatchery meat chicks could be fostered to a broody hen, but she'd do best with a relatively small number (6 to 12 max). She'll also teach them to come into the coop to roost at night.

A good rooster would help with flock defense, and in combination with a broody hen(s) would eventually allow you to perpetuate your chick and meat supply without hatchery inputs.

 

[jak2002003]

If you are raising the chickens for eggs then you are going to need to supply extra food.

50 chickens will eat a lot of stuff free ranging and deplete the food in the area. If you don't supply extra food they will begin to wander away in search of more feed and the further they go from their coop the more danger they are going to get into with predators.

They will be less productive without extra food.. because they will be using energy to forage and use less energy into getting fat or making eggs.

I don't agree people never fed their chickens in the summer in the old days. They just fed them a lot less.. perhaps a handful of grain to get them into the coop... and, don't forget, people in the old days used to throw away kitchen scraps, vegetables, etc onto a compost heap.. where the chickens would scratch about and eat them.

 

[centrarchid]

First, I have raised chickens and currently keep 50 laying hens. I am by no means intending to neglect the basic needs of any animal, nor am I some heartless moron. I'm educated on caring for chickens- but I've only ever learned of one way. Secure Coop & run. I want to know if free ranging without providing feed (treats allowed ) is possible.


I want to know if I can purchase chicks this spring, raise them with medicated feed until they're ready to be outdoors, and then move them to a large pen and only provide adequate shelter and water; No Feed.

After 4 months of them no-so-free ranging, collect the birds for meat.

Is it possible and realistic- or is it inhumane and creating malnourishment?


Surely, someone has first hand experience or has witnessed such an operation.

It can be done. Acreage your birds need may be to great when predator management I taken into account. Losses will be incurred by issues other than nutrition and some may be due to drift of birds. Better is effort done with other livestock. I like F1 hybrids between game hens and a meat breed for a variety of reasons. I suggest a feeding / treat station be placed to aid with keeping ranging habits tight. More details if interested on that. Our efforts were possible because predators including raptors were very strongly suppressed. That not always easy these days.

 

[Paganrose]

Copied from a similar thread-

We were free ranging 2 dozen dual purpose chickens, half dozen ducks and a pair of geese, on five acres of mixed pasture and wooded areas. They always got kitchen/garden scraps and were continually turning the compost pile.

In summer we didn't feed them 'feed' much. Just about a quart a day and always in the evening. Our hens averaged 4 eggs a week, but started to lay a few weeks later than average. We would get probly 8-10 eggs a day.

We would always hatch a batch of chicks in the spring. And we would give our 3 or 4 broodies we had eggs to raise also. In fall we would butcher extra roos, and a few cull hens- they would dress out at 5-6 lbs.

As the weather got colder we would up the feed based on how much they attacked the evening feed. When the ground froze we would split the feeding to morning and night. We usually went through 200lbs of feed a month in winter. We would get 2-3 eggs a day in the coldest months from the pullets while the old biddies molted.

I did the math once- a summer egg cost 10 cents, a butchered bird costs 4.50, and a winter egg was almost a dollar.

 

[DrPatrickBiggs]

That’s an interesting question EastmanEggs. While chickens are natural grazers, having a large number of birds in one area most likely wouldn’t allow them to receive the proper amount of nutrition needed for proper growth and development.

When raising birds for meat, it is estimated that a bird will eat 2 pounds of feed for every pound of weight gained. So for example, if you’d collect your birds for meat at about 4 pounds, it probably means they’ve eaten about 8 pounds of feed in their lifetime – a tough task to accomplish when solely living off a specific plot of land and some treats.

If you prefer that majority of your birds’ diet come from free-ranging, I’d recommend at least supplementing with a high protein (at least 20%) feed to ensure that your birds’ nutritional needs aren’t neglected.

 

[triplepurpose]

That’s an interesting question EastmanEggs. While chickens are natural grazers, having a large number of birds in one area most likely wouldn’t allow them to receive the proper amount of nutrition needed for proper growth and development.

When raising birds for meat, it is estimated that a bird will eat 2 pounds of feed for every pound of weight gained. So for example, if you’d collect your birds for meat at about 4 pounds, it probably means they’ve eaten about 8 pounds of feed in their lifetime – a tough task to accomplish when solely living off a specific plot of land and some treats.

If you prefer that majority of your birds’ diet come from free-ranging, I’d recommend at least supplementing with a high protein (at least 20%) feed to ensure that your birds’ nutritional needs aren’t neglected.

Calling chickens "natural grazers" is kind of inaccurate, even misleading to people not so familiar with chickens. "Grazing" means eating grass, and at least implies gaining the bulk of nutrition from it, as cows and sheep. Chickens dont graze (in fact, jungle fowl are not even grassland birds, but evolved in woodlands). they may eat some weeds and the odd blade of grass for roughage, but what they are really after is the bugs and other wildlife in the field. they cant digest grass any better than we can, its just a nice side salad. chickens are omnivores (insectivores mostly) not grazers. now before anybody gets mad because they think im being patronizing, i know that dr pat knows this, and that probably everybody else on this thread knows this. i just really think we should be careful in our terminology so that we dont further confound anybody, since already too many "hip" city folks and other poultry consumers have this absurd and counterproductive notion that there is actually such a thing as a "grass-fed chicken," and that anything else is substandard.

 

[centrarchid]

Calling chickens "natural grazers" is kind of inaccurate, even misleading to people not so familiar with chickens. "Grazing" means eating grass, and at least implies gaining the bulk of nutrition from it, as cows and sheep. Chickens dont graze (in fact, jungle fowl are not even grassland birds, but evolved in woodlands). they may eat some weeds and the odd blade of grass for roughage, but what they are really after is the bugs and other wildlife in the field. they cant digest grass any better than we can, its just a nice side salad.

chickens are omnivores (insectivores mostly) not grazers. now before anybody gets mad because they think im being patronizing, i know that dr pat knows this, and that probably everybody else on this thread knows this. i just really think we should be careful in our terminology so that we dont further confound anybody, since already too many "hip" city folks and other poultry consumers have this absurd and counterproductive notion that there is actually such a thing as a "grass-fed chicken," and that anything else is substandard.

Many chickens can digest greens better than we can. When in settings where the pasture is decidedly over-grazed and formulated feeds is available in excess which is the norm for most people on the website, then plants are not that important.

Chickens are omnivorous foragers that have a strong preference for animal prey. Yet, by volume, the bulk of their intake can be dominated by vegetative greens and those greens selectively taken tend to be dominated by tender and actively growing tissues. Seeds and fruit are often targeted but seldom consumed under natural conditions at rates that come anywhere near what is realized in commercial or backyard settings. Chickens have the ability to extract more nutritional gain from fibers (cellulosic from plants and chitinistic from arthropods) in part because some are processed by the cecum which like in a horse break down some of those fibers. Activities of the cecum may not be significant with diets dominated by formulated feeds but in situations where the diet is not as nutritionally dense, then the cecum's activity is likely to be much more important. The fatty acid profile provided by foraging for natural diets varies greatly from that provided by that of formulated diets especially when the latter is dominated by grains. It is the fatty acid profile differences that cause much of organoleptic differences the hip city folks, other poultry consumers, and people like myself can detect and appreciate. Faster growing breeds like those most frequently used for meat likely do not have the ability to meet an appreciable portion of their needs by fiber fermentation in the cecum therefore must acquire the bulk of their nutrition from more nutrient dense and easier to metabolize sources than typical of natural forages.

If you took a group of 100 birds and spit into two groups of fifty where one group is fed a standard poultry feed and the other is allowed to forage a quality pasture enough to meet needs without supplementation with grains or other feed-stuffs, then you would be able to note the difference yourself.

 

[triplepurpose]

Many chickens can digest greens better than we can. When in settings where the pasture is decidedly over-grazed and formulated feeds is available in excess which is the norm for most people on the website, then plants are not that important.

Chickens are omnivorous foragers that have a strong preference for animal prey. Yet, by volume, the bulk of their intake can be dominated by vegetative greens and those greens selectively taken tend to be dominated by tender and actively growing tissues. Seeds and fruit are often targeted but seldom consumed under natural conditions at rates that come anywhere near what is realized in commercial or backyard settings. Chickens have the ability to extract more nutritional gain from fibers (cellulosic from plants and chitinistic from arthropods) in part because some are processed by the cecum which like in a horse break down some of those fibers. Activities of the cecum may not be significant with diets dominated by formulated feeds but in situations where the diet is not as nutritionally dense, then the cecum's activity is likely to be much more important. The fatty acid profile provided by foraging for natural diets varies greatly from that provided by that of formulated diets especially when the latter is dominated by grains. It is the fatty acid profile differences that cause much of organoleptic differences the hip city folks, other poultry consumers, and people like myself can detect and appreciate. Faster growing breeds like those most frequently used for meat likely do not have the ability to meet an appreciable portion of their needs by fiber fermentation in the cecum therefore must acquire the bulk of their nutrition from more nutrient dense and easier to metabolize sources than typical of natural forages.

If you took a group of 100 birds and spit into two groups of fifty where one group is fed a standard poultry feed and the other is allowed to forage a quality pasture enough to meet needs without supplementation with grains or other feed-stuffs, then you would be able to note the difference yourself.

Hmmm... Intersting stuff on the nutrition! But i dont have 100 chickens myself, or enough "quality pasture" to conduct such a controlled experiment. But, with respect, what does that prove anyway, other than that the chicken digestive system is extremely adaptible (like many omnivores)?

My earlier post wasnt an attempt to define the limits of the digestive ability of poultry, however, but simply a comment on what might and might not be considered "natural diet." To that end, i think actually watching what feral or wild chickens, given unlimited range, seek out and consume, and where and how they do it (like what sort of places they prefer for foraging) is more instructive about the nutritonal habits of poultry generally than drawing conclusions from a group of chickens confined to a pasture (forest birds, on grassland?) and supplied a limited (and, if you will, artificial) ration. Pastured poultry may be good, but wouldnt forest poultry, or orchard poultry with access to compost and mulch piles to find insects in be even better?!

Disclaimer: observing feral chickens is something I HAVE had plenty of opportunity to do myself because my neck of the woods, and farm, is infested with feral chickens!

Hopefully we can all agree that basic, visceral-level "food system literacy" is really important yet neglected in our world right now--otherwise i dont thinkso many of us would be raising chickens in our back yards...