Letting chickens forage ONLY?

[aart]

Well in the spirit of natural foraging I left a wild caught brim in the chicken pen to see what they do when they wake up hungry in the morning. My dad is an avid fisherman and brings home 20 to 30 brim every week. He's given them to everyone who will take them, so now I'm going to try feeding them to the chickens and pigs. My investigoogling suggests it will be safe and not affect egg taste. Although the reports on pigs were that you had to get the fish out of their diet a while before butchering or you taste fish in the meat.

That's not 'wild foraging' as humans brought the fish to the chickens.
Just a byproduct of someone's wasteful over-gathering of 'food'.


Nor were grandma chickens living only on 'forage' as they most likely were eating spilled feed of other livestock animals and/or gleaning from what came out the other end of said livestock and/or grains grown by humans on the property as well as the kitchen refuse of farmhouse.

The whole 'that's how grandpa did it' thing rarely takes into account the losses, lack of production and constant and/or annual turnover of stock.

 

[Bridebeliever]

LofMc, that was a lovely tour down your memory lane! I wish I could sit down with you over a cup of coffee and listen to more stories!

 

[Paganrose]

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.

If you want top production this isn't a good way of doing it, but was economical for us. If we fed the birds more feed I am sure we could have had the same production with less birds. But as it was I had 4 year old birds still laying 3 times a week. Plus they were excellent at raising babies, even if they were more aloof.

I couldn't imagine not feeding them through the winter here. Even with the acreage we have they wouldn't find enough to survive.

As others have mentioned chickens eat grain even if we don't give it to them- grass and weed seeds are grains.

 

[Chris09]

To sum up, it seems those numbers are from the following articles (multiple pages):

Meet Real Free-Range Eggs:
http://www.motherearthnews.com/Real-Food/2007-10-01/Tests-Reveal-Healthier-Eggs.aspx

The Good Egg:
http://www.motherearthnews.com/Real-Food/2005-08-01/Free-Range-Eggs.aspx

Numbers:
http://www.motherearthnews.com/~/media/44AF1C816FC14B549DE1AFD92C393856.aspx

At least those links are under the article I got the nutrition table foraging/cage chickens from:


As for the feed, as laid out, the foraging chicken eat what they find and those in cages are likely to get some industrial food.

Strong point with the sun, that could be an additional enhancement to the foraging, please see the above source articles if there is anything pointing to it? I haven'read them.

I really hate to bust mother earth news's bubble but the birds that were housed in a moveable pen are not free range poultry. To be truly free range they would have to be un-confined. Those birds are confided, and they were most likely feed a commercial type diet maybe even a feed that is rich in Bata-Carotin, Omega-3 fatty acids, and vitamins A, D, E.

Since mother earth new didn't add a link to the study, I wouldn't go to much on what they have to say. My thoughts is that from the information that they provided it wasn't a very good study and may have been a bit one sided in order to favor there, "free range" chickens article.

 

[Greg88]

Data can be manipulated in many ways to show the results you want.
I will state that I have not taken the time (yet) to read this entire thread.
I do know a couple things.
1) I am a scientist and have degrees in Animal Science

2) I like the flavor and dark color of my "yard eggs"

3) "free range" has been debated.
a) The definition, as stated is "the opportunity to go outside"
i) my chickens love going out to the bigger pen and forage
ii) Commercially raised chickens (that make our eggs and poultry affordable to the general public) when given the opportunity will RARELY go outside, not sure why. so, most claims of "free range" eggs or poultry (when not from an individual) while they meet the USDA definition of free range since they have been given the opportunity to go outside, rarely do and are little, if any different from the standard poultry.
so the “FREE RANGE: Probably the most misunderstood of all claims, it’s important to note that hens basically stay near their food, water and nests, and the idea of a happy-go-lucky bird scampering across a field is far from the natural way of life. The claim only means that the hens have access to the outdoors, not that they avail themselves of the opportunity." is TRUE! (seen it myself)

4) nutritional value of eggs can be manipulated to resemble free range yard eggs with feed supplements.

This gets away from the original question (from 2011) which is free range only with no feed. I agree that todays chicken will likely need at least a little supplemental feed, esp. in the colder month.

 

[dickhuhn]

It sounds like your system is working very well for you (well, other than the occasional snatching the food out of your mouth).

[..]

Though they forage the whole day, they also eat tons of commercial food in addition, we try to limit, but they know for sure they can easily convince her to give them even more of it. You can hardly give the dogs some meat/bones until those lady went sleeping, they will take it away from the dogs and nice as they are with their hens, they will usually let them go! We have btw not only woods behind, we are just in the middle of it...;-)

Think I need to present them perhaps some more grassland, although this means taking down a bit forest. Dunno how much they need in addition, though they forage also in the forest, but it seems there is not much despite a few bugs, perhaps one additional acre will do?

It seems without the two lgds we wouldn't have a single chicken? The last 8 we bought just a few days old...Now as they have started laying we have trouble eating all those eggs.

 

[chooniecat]

Thanks! And I don't like to think I "coddle" my chickens but I DO want to make sure they are as productive as possible without risking their lives.They put themselves to bed in the chicken shed at dark and I latch their door. There are various degress probably of grass fed so I may just be kind of in the middle of "coddled" and totally grass fed. I have appx. 300+ acres of woods surrounding me and farmland and predators out the yazoo but have never lost a chicken to one(lost 4H bunnies to stray stupid beagles tho). We are going to eat one of the hens this week so that will be interesting as to the difference in my meaties and the retiring layers(shes only 1 yr. old but...)It WOULD be so nice to have more green year round so I envy you. thanks again.

 

[josef]

my chickens forage all day but i still give some corn and hay,for a week i stop the extra fed and notice some getting slimer:/

 

[Amyh]

I think it's possible with enough land in the Summer. I don't think there is enough when it gets cold outside, and I live in the South!!!

Tell her to feed her chickens regular feed, or a special mix that she can make, but it must be offered in case they are not getting enough from the land.

 

[Nigellas]

There has been some talk in the medical community about corn-fed animals (not just cattle) actually causing an increase on the rate of cancer in the people that eat them - My cousin's husband who does cancer research was actually looking to find non-corn fed animals. Ask her if it's just corn she is worried about, or all grain - that might make a difference. as to what you can feed them in the winter

As for my chickens - They free-range daily, we offer food to them at all times - but in the Spring/Summer months they rarely eat it. They definitely need something to supplement their foraging in the winter months though.