Self Sufficient Breeding vs. Dual Purpose Breeding

[Pickensandchigs]

In most parts of the US, I think chickens require food in addition to what they can find by foraging for themselves. I don't imagine our "forefathers" were buying it at Tractor Supply, but were providing something. Most likely, it included things they produced themselves, or things they bought and hauled home with a horse an wagon, or carried home in a bag over their shoulder.

No Tractor Supply? what?


Dude, They didn't feed them much. Personally I don't know what they did, but you don't either. I doubt the early americans were hiking miles to somewhere to buy bags of chicken feed to carry over their shoulders.

 

[Pickensandchigs]

Someone owns and is paying the bills for this place. It's their prerogative.

What was your point again?

Chicken snobs.. and geese help with predators.

 

[NatJ]

No Tractor Supply? what?


Dude, They didn't feed them much. Personally I don't know what they did, but you don't either. I doubt the early americans were hiking miles to somewhere to buy bags of chicken feed to carry over their shoulders.

I think many of the farmers were producing their own hay and grain for their cattle and horses, and their own grain for the chickens, and their own maggots and worms for the chickens from the manure pile the horses and cattle made, and so on. So no, they probably were not hiking home with chicken food as a general thing.

But lack of cars does NOT prove that chickens were finding all of their own food with no help from the people.

 

[Pickensandchigs]

I think many of the farmers were producing their own hay and grain for their cattle and horses, and their own grain for the chickens, and their own maggots and worms for the chickens from the manure pile the horses and cattle made, and so on. So no, they probably were not hiking home with chicken food as a general thing.

But lack of cars does NOT prove that chickens were finding all of their own food with no help from the people.

The cars thing was sarcasm my friend.. just a thought tool, for our discussion.

Until recently people who owned chickens weren't farmers, they were just most people.

Same thing today if you watch video from a poor starving village.. There are chickens clucking right through the street.

But... The truth about what our forefathers (for some reason you despise that term) fed their chickens is probably pretty disgusting.

 

[NatJ]

Until recently people who owned chickens weren't farmers, they were just most people.

Maybe you mean people like my grandfather? He lived in a town, taught in the local school, and had chickens. He was providing food for them: food he grew in his garden, whatever was left over from his family's meals, and food he purchased. He did not consider himself a "farmer," but he grew a garden, and raised several kinds of animals. He did purchase much of the animal food because he did not have enough space to grow grains or certain other feed crops.

Same thing today if you watch video from a poor starving village.. There are chickens clucking right through the street.

That comes back to the climate question. That poor starving village does not have snow all winter, does it? Chickens that find all their own food ARE possible in some parts of the world.

Also, such videos do not show you whether the people provide some food for those chickens. All they show is that the chickens are not in pens in their owners' yards. (I expect the chickens get quite a bit of food from what the people throw out, whether it is deliberately fed to the chickens or not.)

The truth about what our forefathers (for some reason you despise that term) fed their chickens is probably pretty disgusting.

I don't despise the term forefathers. I do think it is so imprecise as to be almost useless in a conversation like this. My grandparents in one part of the US were feeding and tending their chickens differently than my friend's grandparents in another part of the US, and a few generations earlier the chickens in each place were being fed differently yet. If I trace back far enough, I find my own ancestors in quite a few different countries on different continents, each with their own patterns of feeding and tending chickens.

 

[Pickensandchigs]

Maybe you mean people like my grandfather? He lived in a town, taught in the local school, and had chickens. He was providing food for them: food he grew in his garden, whatever was left over from his family's meals, and food he purchased. He did not consider himself a "farmer," but he grew a garden, and raised several kinds of animals. He did purchase much of the animal food because he did not have enough space to grow grains or certain other feed crops.


That comes back to the climate question. That poor starving village does not have snow all winter, does it? Chickens that find all their own food ARE possible in some parts of the world.

Also, such videos do not show you whether the people provide some food for those chickens. All they show is that the chickens are not in pens in their owners' yards. (I expect the chickens get quite a bit of food from what the people throw out, whether it is deliberately fed to the chickens or not.)


I don't despise the term forefathers. I do think it is so imprecise as to be almost useless in a conversation like this. My grandparents in one part of the US were feeding and tending their chickens differently than my friend's grandparents in another part of the US, and a few generations earlier the chickens in each place were being fed differently yet. If I trace back far enough, I find my own ancestors in quite a few different countries on different continents, each with their own patterns of feeding and tending chickens.

When I say forefathers.. I should have been more exact, I mean people way before yo grand pappy.

 

[Pickensandchigs]

The feral chickens would only make it in a warm climate with plenty of rain. I agree. But the more sustainable chickens would fair easier on bugs grass and manure, such as games or asian breeds.

 

[NatJ]

When I say forefathers.. I should have been more exact, I mean people way before yo grand pappy.

Maybe you mean people like Laura Ingalls?

In her book On The Banks of Plum Creek, she talks about her ma going out to tend the animals during a blizzard: two horses, cow & calf, chickens. She checked the chickens water, and gave them some corn, and a turnip to peck. (Page 307 in my paperback copy. The other animals were getting turnips to go with their hay too.)

Same book, page 199, when grasshoppers ate all their crops, ma was trying to look on the bright side so she commented on the chickens eating grasshoppers: "we won't have to buy feed for the hens. There's no great loss without some gain." (That does not tell me whether buying chicken feed was a normal thing, or a thing they only did when nothing was growing outside and their own crops failed. But it does tell me that buying some kind of feed for chickens was a possibility.)

The feral chickens would only make it in a warm climate with plenty of rain. I agree. But the more sustainable chickens would fair easier on bugs grass and manure, such as games or asian breeds.

Yes, that is basically my point too. Raising sustainable chickens is only possible when sufficient food exists in one form or another. Since many people now live in places where things like bugs grass and manure are not actually available to their chickens (or not available in sufficient quantities), most people do need to buy food of some kind for their chickens.

 

[raingarden]

Free ranging, quasi-feral flocks are of no use to people if they cannot be relied upon stay around until harvest for eggs or meat. The way to persuade them to stay around is to feed them.

The more they are fed, the larger their population will become. They do not necessairly have to be fed a nutritionally complete ration.. Any increase in caloric intake above what they can scratch up out of the ground is a benefit.

Chicken feed has been available commercially for 112 years now. But, people have been feeding chickens for about 7,000 years.

 

[3KillerBs]

So, I take it that your calling me a liar. There's no use in arguing with stupidity. The Lord feeds the birds just as the Bible says...

*eyeroll*

Chickens don't fly south for the winter.

If the local ecology can't support feral chickens then the owner of the chickens is going to have to feed them *something* in some fashion or they're going to die.

I don't have the thread bookmarked, but there is a member here who maintained a completely self-sustaining flock for several years somewhere on the US gulf coast. They had access to dozens of acres of field, forest, and scrub in a highly-productive ecology.

Despite over 300 years of people keeping chickens here in central NC there are no feral flocks because the ecology can't support them through the winter even though we get very little snow.

A single male goose can help with this.. Not two. If there's only one he'll love the chickens and protect them.

You would do well to read this article on guard geese: https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...d-goose-and-why-you-should-not-get-one.77508/

How did our forefathers get the bags of organic chicken feed home from Tractor Supply without a truck?

Our heritage breeds come from places with snow on the ground.

Note that in my original post I mentioned chickens cleaning up spilled feed from other livestock and foraging in the manure piles.

If you live on a diversified farm where your chickens have access to the horse barn, the cattle barn (and not just one horse or one cow), your growing and harvested fields, etc. you ARE feeding them, just not putting it into a feeder of their own.

Additionally, our chickens today are not our great-grandparents' chickens. This book, Poultry For the Farm and Home, from 1921 was written to teach farmers how to achieve a profitable 100 eggs per hen per year -- from LEGHORNS.

The Brahma in my avatar did better than that and she's the worst layer in my flock.