Free Ranging Meat Birds

[Robbot]

I'm with you cehasz. Free ranged and restricted diet produces a much healthier and far better flavoured bird.

 

[oldrooster]

to the OP or anyone really, did you just free range or did you also use feed of some sort? i really would like to know if a CX or ranger or DP could get up to weight without supplemental feed or "dependable" snacks (i mean scraps once a week or sometimes 4-5 times a day not depending on it on food really).

 

[lazy gardener]

Old rooster: I'm sticking my nose in here: I don't believe it's possible for a CXR or even a Ranger/Pioneer/Dixie Rainbow or any DP bird to reach an acceptable market weight on strictly free range + kitchen/table scraps. If you had excellent free range, and an ample supply of restaurant or other industrial food scraps, you might be able to do it, but the average home kitchen does not provide enough scraps to provide the dietary needs of a flock. That being said, you might want to look at the operation at Vermont compost. This guy produces compost and sells it commercially. He uses hundreds of chickens for free labor, and he also gets eggs to sell as a side benefit. The chickens, to my knowledge subsist 100% on the compost. BUT, the compost is probably measured in amounts of hundreds of tons, or even more, and I think it's supplemented with restaurant waste. So, obviously, there are ways of getting around it, but, I doubt that you or I have the option of having mountains of compost in our back yards! The best I can hope for when raising chickens for meat or eggs, is to have them do a good job ranging my property, and thus, decrease their food bill. I also realize a savings by using sprouts and fermented feed, as well as hatching my own chicks.

 

[CrazyTalk]

@oldrooster - if you're trying to grow meat on nothing, chickens aren't really the way to go - you'd be better off with an animal that's more of a grazer. Geese might work for you.

 

[oldrooster]

I asked because I read so many people on here talking about free ranging but never saying if they do that just to supplement the feed for the chickens or as the sole source of feed, many times the threads read like that's all they do is JUST free range, it sounded odd to me, but I am not an expert on anything

 

[cehasz]

My meat birds are offered feed for a half hour in the morning and a half hour in the evening. By 10 weeks, I get about 2-2 1/2 pounds of meat off each bird. I don't dress mine, I butcher them.

 

[Cabin Katie]

I free range as well. Actually I "open range" (trying to come up with a different name than 'free range' due to the exploitation of that term in the industry).

They are in the chicken tractor when they are chicks but as soon as they are big enough for me I let them out with the rest of the flock. Simple as that. I don't spend a dime on them as soon as I let them out of that tractor. I do all my harvesting during the warm weather months when I don't have to feed my chickens anything and they thrive. I live out in the woods so they get plenty of bugs to eat.

I even experimented a bit. I've done both letting them eat that corn crap and letting them open range

The ones on the store bought food? When they were alive all they wanted was more and more. They were cranky all the time. They're poop smelled horrible. I caved really early on 2 months before harvest, I let them free to open range but it was too late. That dumb corn stuff had them all fiending. Up to their last month before harvest they pecked my leg wide open when I came to feed them. When it came to slaughter, even after isolation, their bodies smelled bad to me.

The ones I've open ranged fed? Cool. Happy. Calm. I could put my nose right up to their poop and not smell it. Ate grass and bugs and didn't complain. Never got into fights with anyone unless something really tasty was found. When it came to slaughter their bodies smelled clean, and the meat tasted better even.

I can understand people who don't open range without the property to do so, I just don't understand people who do not open range when they have plenty of property to.

 

[Ozarkhomesteader]

I free range as well. Actually I "open range" (trying to come up with a different name than 'free range' due to the exploitation of that term in the industry).

They are in the chicken tractor when they are chicks but as soon as they are big enough for me I let them out with the rest of the flock. Simple as that. I don't spend a dime on them as soon as I let them out of that tractor. I do all my harvesting during the warm weather months when I don't have to feed my chickens anything and they thrive. I live out in the woods so they get plenty of bugs to eat.

I even experimented a bit. I've done both letting them eat that corn crap and letting them open range

The ones on the store bought food? When they were alive all they wanted was more and more. They were cranky all the time. They're poop smelled horrible. I caved really early on 2 months before harvest, I let them free to open range but it was too late. That dumb corn stuff had them all fiending. Up to their last month before harvest they pecked my leg wide open when I came to feed them. When it came to slaughter, even after isolation, their bodies smelled bad to me.

The ones I've open ranged fed? Cool. Happy. Calm. I could put my nose right up to their poop and not smell it. Ate grass and bugs and didn't complain. Never got into fights with anyone unless something really tasty was found. When it came to slaughter their bodies smelled clean, and the meat tasted better even.

I can understand people who don't open range without the property to do so, I just don't understand people who do not open range when they have plenty of property to.

2x
i've had similar experiences. Their meat was super yummy, and the birds were really fun to raise. I kind of missed them when we butchered them. They were friendly and really fun to hang out with and watch.

 

[oldrooster]

Quote:
You've just stated what I thought others where doing and a couple of posters above you said it couldn't be done, I have 5 acres to graze them and I could clear another 8-10 for them if needed but I figured in my part of Indiana I could start some early spring and late summer and have them on "yard duty without any or very very little supplemental feed, but I wanted to ask first.

 

[CrazyTalk]

Don't clear land for chickens - they're not grazers. They'll get more out of scratching around in leaf litter looking for things than they will on grass. Bugs and seeds are what they eat.