Letting chickens forage ONLY?

[chickengeorgeto]

I concur. If you want free ranging poultry then that hen or rooster needs to be able when startled to fly 30 feet straight up.

 

[AnthNDacula]

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.

 

[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]

This thread was started nearly six years ago! Fortunately those with allergies are getting more options for grain free feed. My little niece is allergic to soy so my sister has chickens on a soy free AND corn free feed. Scratch and Peck makes one. I think that was the main purpose for foraging chickens right? I don't think it's really possible to forage ONLY chickens anymore. Chickens have changed a lot in the last 150 years, as has our demands on them and their living situation not always being on a farm. While mine do forage a lot in the day there's no way in the winter they could survive on it. I think even in spring and summer it would be hard on them. "Old time" chickens just weren't expected to drop an egg every other day to every day and this has certainly been bred into our current chickens.

 

[Phoenixxx]

From what I found on some other threads...  Chickens are good foragers, very adaptable, and afterall. this is how our forefathers raised chickens!  It should work.

Im going to try with 50 straight run birds this spring.

They would do best if you had at least one experienced adult to "show them the ropes". Mature roosters are particularly helpful because when they find something good to eat the tell the flock and hang back until the ladies and youngsters have had their fill while also keeping an eye/ear open for predators.

 

[Phoenixxx]

They would do best if you had at least one experienced adult to "show them the ropes". Mature roosters are particularly helpful because when they find something good to eat the tell the flock and hang back until the ladies and youngsters have had their fill while also keeping an eye/ear open for predators.

I should add that good roosters are fairly easy to come by at a very minimum of cost - as in, often free

 

[dickhuhn]

This is a comparison of Nutrients (Nährstoff) - Eggs fom chickens in a cage (Ei aus Käfighaltung) - Eggs from foraging chickens ("Wiesen"-Ei) - Showing the difference (Unterschied)



Extreme isn't it and shows how much better chickens do when they can select their food!

 

[Ridgerunner]

This thread was started nearly six years ago!  Fortunately those with allergies are getting more options for grain free feed.  My little niece is allergic to soy so my sister has chickens on a soy free AND corn free feed.  Scratch and Peck makes one.  I think that was the main purpose for foraging chickens right?  I don't think it's really possible to forage ONLY chickens anymore.  Chickens have changed a lot in the last 150 years, as has our demands on them and their living situation not always being on a farm.  While mine do forage a lot in the day there's no way in the winter they could survive on it.  I think even in spring and summer it would be hard on them.  "Old time" chickens just weren't expected to drop an egg every other day to every day and this has certainly been bred into our current chickens.

I’m not quite 150 years old and I grew up on one of those farms. It’s been a few decades but not 150 years. I’ve worked in Europe, Africa, and Asia. I still have family ties to people that don’t live in urban areas in the US. There are feral chickens in urban and rural areas that get by foraging. Mike Rowe had an episode on “Dirty Jobs” where he was trying to catch feral chickens in Miami. Many people would be absolutely shocked at how well chickens can support themselves foraging even today around the world and not that far from home.

A big part of that is the quality of the forage. That means a variety of grasses and weeds, grass and weed seeds, creepy crawlies and flying things, and whatever they can scratch up. Very few of us have that kind of forage. A manicured lawn doesn’t have that much diversity. Obviously forage is better in summer than winter, though if you live where snow doesn’t cover the ground that much they do a lot better in winter than many people would think. After all, the songbirds that overwinter manage. Songbirds overwinter in the country where people are not putting out feeders for them so don’t give me that all of them depend on humans to feed them in winter. If you live where winter has a serious effect supplemental feed is good in winter. We gave our chickens corn in the winter to helps them out even though the ground was seldom covered in snow.

Let’s do a little economic comparison. Consider one case where chickens lay fairly well, maybe not a double extra huge egg 6 days a week but a decent sized egg 4 to 5 day a week, which most of them do, and you buy zero food in the summer. Zilch! Nada! Those eggs cost you absolutely nothing in the summer, but you probably have to supplement their forage in the winter.

Then the other case where you have to buy food for them. You may get a few more and larger eggs, but you are spending money. That is money out of your pocket. Which do you consider the best economic model?

I’m not advocating for people to depend on forage and not feed their chickens. It won’t work for most of us. We don’t have the quality of forage they need and predator pressure would sure make it a losing proposition for most of us. The best chickens for foraging are the smaller game or Leghorn type chickens, though Dad bought hatchery Dominique and New Hampshire to boost the size of his flock some. If you get the huge show-quality dual purpose chickens they probably would not do well depending on forage but from what I’ve see of today’s hatchery chickens they would do well foraging in the right conditions.

I saw that growing up and still occasionally see it today. Chickens can do quite well foraging for themselves if the conditions are right. But the conditions have to be right and most of us don’t have the right conditions. But don’t try to tell me I cannot be done in the right circumstances. It’s going on all over the world today.

 

[Bridebeliever]

I’m not quite 150 years old and I grew up on one of those farms. It’s been a few decades but not 150 years. I’ve worked in Europe, Africa, and Asia. I still have family ties to people that don’t live in urban areas in the US. There are feral chickens in urban and rural areas that get by foraging. Mike Rowe had an episode on “Dirty Jobs” where he was trying to catch feral chickens in Miami. Many people would be absolutely shocked at how well chickens can support themselves foraging even today around the world and not that far from home.

A big part of that is the quality of the forage. That means a variety of grasses and weeds, grass and weed seeds, creepy crawlies and flying things, and whatever they can scratch up. Very few of us have that kind of forage. A manicured lawn doesn’t have that much diversity. Obviously forage is better in summer than winter, though if you live where snow doesn’t cover the ground that much they do a lot better in winter than many people would think. After all, the songbirds that overwinter manage. Songbirds overwinter in the country where people are not putting out feeders for them so don’t give me that all of them depend on humans to feed them in winter. If you live where winter has a serious effect supplemental feed is good in winter. We gave our chickens corn in the winter to helps them out even though the ground was seldom covered in snow.

Let’s do a little economic comparison. Consider one case where chickens lay fairly well, maybe not a double extra huge egg 6 days a week but a decent sized egg 4 to 5 day a week, which most of them do, and you buy zero food in the summer. Zilch! Nada! Those eggs cost you absolutely nothing in the summer, but you probably have to supplement their forage in the winter.

Then the other case where you have to buy food for them. You may get a few more and larger eggs, but you are spending money. That is money out of your pocket. Which do you consider the best economic model?

I’m not advocating for people to depend on forage and not feed their chickens. It won’t work for most of us. We don’t have the quality of forage they need and predator pressure would sure make it a losing proposition for most of us. The best chickens for foraging are the smaller game or Leghorn type chickens, though Dad bought hatchery Dominique and New Hampshire to boost the size of his flock some. If you get the huge show-quality dual purpose chickens they probably would not do well depending on forage but from what I’ve see of today’s hatchery chickens they would do well foraging in the right conditions.

I saw that growing up and still occasionally see it today. Chickens can do quite well foraging for themselves if the conditions are right. But the conditions have to be right and most of us don’t have the right conditions. But don’t try to tell me I cannot be done in the right circumstances. It’s going on all over the world today.

150 years...pioneer times, vastly different birds from what we have today. I've venture to say the birds of 50 years ago are different than the hatchery birds we get today. Do I think my chickens could "survive" on foraging only? Sure, no doubt they could survive on our 44 acres of forested property. I just don't want them to survive, I want plump productive chickens. Sorry I said it "couldn't be done". For sure, look at Hawaii as only one example! I wouldn't want to try it on my little flock though. Originally I think the OP was searching for how a chicken could be grain free, and really I was stating that we have more options feed wise 6 years later without going to a forage only.

 

[Lady of McCamley]

Very interesting thread. Fun to read the memories of years gone by. Interesting conjectures. Definitely differing opinions and philosophies.

I personally think it is important to remain balanced in your philosophy and chicken rearing approach...neither becoming too commercialized (where profit is the only bottom line) nor becoming too romantic towards "natural" and the way they did it years ago (presuming then was more sustainable and "natural").

To support my conclusions, let me wander a bit into nostalgia of my own childhood.

My grandma (and grandpa) grew up on farms in the late 1800's. When they married in 1919, they owned a farm in South Dakota, which they lost during the dust bowl (not bad farming on their part, just the drought and those dang blasted locusts). This forced an exodus to the west (yes, via Grapes of Wrath migration) to set up family homesteading in southern Arizona. There they raised customary food stuff and livestock just for the family, as cheaply and easily as possible, as grandpa found living better by doing postal work. Years later when Grandma "retired," she took her savings and followed her life long dream to go into the egg business, which would have been the late 40's through early 60's.

She strictly raised for egg production and sold her eggs to stores and customers, so set up for business. She was still living in southern Arizona, so in a dry arid place. Even in the arid place, I'm sure the chickens would have found something for foraging year round, like on their homestead farm, but the coyotes would have picked them off fast and her eye again was for production. So, she kept them in large, open to sunlight but secure pens and coops, and fed them predominately, if not solely, commercial feed. I know this for a fact as, living with my grandparents, I grew up wearing clothing from the cast off commercial feed sacks...back then the feed company made sacks out of nice linen with flower prints. I remember the day grandma was bitterly disappointed that the feed sacks changed to rough burlap. I was overjoyed that her Scotch nature didn't continue to use those sacks for my clothing. (It's a little awkward when you match the feed bags at the feed store, but burlap would have been horrible to wear.)

She purchased her young chicks in the spring...what seemed to my young eyes like a truck load....and they were delivered by a truck straight to the farm. She heated them in a large building with overhead lamps. The cheeping was deafening. So she did not brood with brooding hens.

She collected eggs daily, and there were always a lot. And I remember her washing, candling and sizing eggs to place in cartons according to USDA standards.

The birds, from what I remember in my mind, must have been predominately White Leghorns or more likely White Rocks, as they were heavy enough to butcher and get some meat. We butchered young hens for the dinner table. I know they were hens and not cocks as we would salvage any new pullet eggs from them as we butchered, and it was my job to do the "treasure hunt" to see if there were any eggs in the new pullet. She only occasionally used her older hens, and only for pressure cooked stewing, as in her opinion they simply were not worth the effort as they were always stringy and chewy and off tasting being older. She had a strong dislike for older and farm "foraged" birds.

How strong her dislike was made clear when I was in high school. My French class held a dinner to raise money for a class trip to tour Western Europe (which I went on). The whole class was enlisted to cook and provide the food. A number of us were assigned Coq a Vin, and someone had donated an older flock of hens, whom I am pretty sure did a lot of foraging with some feed, and little oversight, as I remember going to their small homestead to get the birds. As a class we went out and plucked them on butcher day, then took our apportioned lot to cook at home. Grandma took one look at those birds and promptly threw them away and went to the store and bought nice fryer chickens saying "you can't do nothing with these old, spent (and ranged) hens if you want a nice meal for your dinner." I must say that my dish was the one that was quickly cleaned up first, and the difference between those plump fresh fryers and the craggy older foragers was strong...both in appearance and taste.

To sum up...my grandmother was thankful for the new advances that occurred in farming over her lifetime as she had spent far too many hard, lean years scraping a living off the land. She knew her birds would be bettered cared for in pens and houses (with plenty of sunshine and space), supplied with good balanced feed and fresh water. She never once worried about feeding too much commercial feed to the bird but was pleased with healthy birds that laid well and were tender to eat (if young). In her mind, that was far, far better than the skinny, tough birds she had grown up with.

I think the lesson to be learned is to be willing to adapt when needed and not allow any romanticized philosophy to trump common sense and good husbandry or science. It is important to keep a balanced eye when reminiscing about those "good old days" or vilifying the evil commercial ag industry. Many of our changes have come about from honest pressures of food production and survival.

I personally have only 1/3 acre to work with, so little hope of foraging for all their needs. I feed a good quality commercial grain feed, and supply some table scraps. I have, at times, worked with an organic grocer and brought home plastic bins of their produce toss...but be forewarned...you have to get your birds accustomed to eating greens if they have a choice for the commercial feed as they will turn to the feed more than a lot of the greens.

My thoughts, experiences, (and memories)
LofMc