Successful 100% forage diet experiment (long post)

[raingarden]

.... but it was a "Successful 100% forage diet" while they lasted. The OP may have become discouraged because she/he was last seen seventeen months ago..

 

[McChooky]

.... but it was a "Successful 100% forage diet" while they lasted. The OP may have become discouraged because she/he was last seen seventeen months ago..

One of my neighbors has some game chickens he's never fed.They'll occasionally go to my cousins house when they're hungry. The rooster jumps on the window sill and crows.

 

[saysfaa]

.... but it was a "Successful 100% forage diet" while they lasted. The OP may have become discouraged because she/he was last seen seventeen months ago..

To be fair, there are LOTS of reasons for people to stop coming.

There are also lots of reasons for such an experiment to do well for a relatively short time but not over a long time. Reasons ranging from micronutrient deficiency to excess micronutrients. One common thing is for feral animals to settle into similar middle-of-the-road form and function regardless of how they started out. It might be easiest to see in dogs - pariah dog breeds look (size, shape, color) and act much the same whatever continent they developed on. In chickens, it is kinda scrawny and not particularly many eggs.

There probably are places that really do support chickens pretty well. I noticed the OP had high calcium soil among other such things many of us do not have.

RolLol. It would look a lot more successful if the neighbors are feeding them.

 

[AGeese]

Two points. First, my 100% free range flock prefers nest boxes scattered around the farmyard. They instinctively know the nest boxes are safer places to nest. I estimate I get up to 75% of the eggs laid around the farm, with hidden nests becoming the norm only when nest boxes fill up with broody hens. They don’t pick their nesting spots based on food availability near the nest. Instead they base their spots on security.

I think this might be my issue presently, I noticed a drop in production around the same time my geese were starting to hang out in the chicken area where they have nests. And the girls do not like company at all. Even though the days are getting shorter they have typically all laid earlier in the day.

 

[txolillo]

Hola from Spain!

I am new in the chickens world, I have 20 chickens from different races since last June, and this thread is the thing that I wanted to do since I started and everybody around told me that it was crazy.

I have a mobile chicken coop that we move around our tree rows every week, and they have a electrified chicken fence that might be the provisional chicken run every seven days. The chickens lay eggs in the coop, but they also like to escape, eventhough the fence is electrified (ameraucanas are very tricky) .

I am all the time thinking that if I just let the coop be somewhere fixed, and let the chickens run free, they would be wise enough to go there in the evenings, or not. But it would be easier for me in certain aspects, specially if I want to look for the better suited race for my area.

The last week, although I still have the chicken fence, I have been more flexible with their escaping, just to see what happens. First, I am losing track of the eggs, I think I should place some laying nests around. Second, they found the kitchen garden, and they made a total mess. I am not super worried as I was harvesting the last things and thinking in totally change location. But the new location, I guess it will have to be fenced. And third, they scratch a lot. In most of the area, I dont care. But in some spots or with new bushes or trees, this might be problematic.

I think that I am going to split the flock, let half wild and free and the others let them in the mobile coop. And see what is cooler

So… this worked okay till last night

I had Plymouths and Ameraucanas. Then added Sussex and Chulillas. And three months ago, Leghorn, many Andalusians, Pekin and Faverolles. Also I had “Americanas” and Marans hatched in the incubator. So, yesterday I had a total of 45 birds. But Fox came. In the free range area, only four survivors. And four else in the closed coop, wich makes sense. I had also three range ducks, those were free since day 1. The ducks missing is what is driving me nuts, but maybe they escaped flying, as there are no bodies and they are in a totally different part of the farm, very close to were the dog (spanish mastiff, 7 months) sleeps.
The senior hens were getting very rough, no sickness and just eating whatever they found. With the others, we had some weeks of adaptation issues , but things were going smooth.
They all had a fenced area, 2500 square meters. There was an open chicken coop where some slept, and others slept in different spots.
But last night, total disaster. I found many dead bodies all around the area, so it looks like the fox made a good razzia and covered the whole place.
Many bodies I dont find them, like half of the americanas, all the Marans, one Chulillo rooster and one silkie. So, 14 were eaten or carried, and the rest, killed and left there to come back later (tonight I guess).

The survivors:
One Silver Andalusian that was 100% okay. I had high hopes with Andalusians and in fact I am very dissapointed that they didnt make it

One Black Ameraucana. This one has always been the smartest, very good escaping, free ranging and very agile. She had some damage .

One Chulillo Rooster. This rooster was always highly bullied by the others, so maybe he was used to run away. But this one is seriously damaged, maybe he cant make it

One Silkie. This was a high surprise, cause silkies were always the weakest

The selection of the breeds was a mix of free rangers, layers and broodies.

Finding this disaster has been devastating. I knew that we could have some predators visiting, but I hoped that as they were sleeping on different spots probably it was difficult for a predator to take them all.

Couple of nights ago, around 2am the dog barked a lot, very nervous and excited. As foxes use to hide and plan, maybe that was the first attempt. But yesterday we had night rain and the dog stayed under her little house. I guess that the fox took advantage on the rain.

So now I want to start again, but I have to think well on how to do it properly.

 

[McChooky]

I'm sorry for your loss! I waited until my chickens were much older before free ranging them (2 years)

 

[Perris]

the ones missing might be in hiding, and come back over the next few days.
But it's still devastating, and you have my sincere commiserations; .

 

[BigBlueHen53]

so sorry to hear!

 

[McChooky]

My advice is put an electric fence up around everything.This will be challenging if you're inexperienced like myself. I'm learning as I go...Wishing you the best!

 

[Secretgarden]

Every so often someone posts a question asking if chickens can survive solely on free-range/forage. The overwhelming response is generally a resounding "no", followed by a laundry list of reasons why it shouldn't be attempted (from not enough forage to increased exposure to predation, etc), which is probably true in most situations.

I am always interested in the threads talking about this because it just seems to me that 100% free-ranging is a species-appropriate life for a chicken, and in my mind, is the gold standard that I should strive for. Adding to that, I geek out on nutrition topics (humans AND animals), so the idea of truly unadulterated meat and eggs makes me swoon.

I just can't believe that this practice is nothing more than a relic of days gone by, only existing in stories of how our grandparents did it. I've been toying with the idea of trying it out for years. I don't feed my goats or my steer, so...why am I feeding the chickens?

I decided to go for it.

So, back somewhere around May I gathered up 48 eggs from my flock and dusted off the Janoel. I had never attempted a dry hatch/incubation, so I decided to try it out. 38 of the 48 hatched right on time with a 3 day spread from first pip to last out of the shell.

I fed the chicks fermented organic, soy-free, non-gmo layer mash direct from the mill while they were in the brooder phase. (Yes, layer mash. 17% to be exact.) I did not vaccinate them, add anything to the water, or supplement with 'treats'). Not a single chick had pasty butt, by the way. (That's because of the fermented feed).

I moved the chicks to an outdoor, open-air brooder when the first adult feathers started showing up. Yes, this is earlier than 'general wisdom' says to do so. I kept them on the fermented feed and started pulling up large clumps of grass and weeds and random vegetation from the creek bank, (roots and dirt and rocks included) to put inside the brooder every day. Once over the initial fear of the new 'thing' in the brooder, the chicks would attack the clumps of vegetation with gusto. I also did not clean out the outdoor brooder. I left all the grass and dirt refuse in it.

The brooder is a two-story prefab coop marketed for 4-6 adult birds, (but isn't big enough for one bird to live it's life in if you ask me). I built a hardware cloth floor for the brooder and put it on wagon tires. It sits outside in the grass and is surrounded by electric poultry netting. My intent was to move the brooder and fence every week or so and keep the youngsters confined within the electric poultry netting.

I started letting the chicks out of the brooder house when they were about 1/2 fuzz and 1/2 feathers. They would stay out all day and return to the coop for the night. What I didn't realize at first is that some were going right through the poultry netting and out into the wild unknown all day long. When I figured this out, all bets were off and I just started opening the gate in the mornings and closing it at night. The experiment was officially beginning whether I liked it or not.

I put some fermented feed in the brooder each evening for about a week, mostly for my own peace of mind that it would get the birds to return home.
It did.
However, the birds all had full crops upon returning to the brooder each evening, so I decided it was time to stop offering food completely.

And that is how it has remained to this day. I never moved the brooder from it's original location and I don't even close it. I do close the electric fence. Gotta say that I'm happy to NOT have to pull up and reset a ridiculous amount of electric poultry fencing every week...

Have there been losses? Yes. I lost 3 birds to sour crop early on, which I believe was due to eating overly fibrous grasses.
Do they still return to the brooder? Most do, others just return to the general area. They don't all choose to roost inside the brooder house. Some roost on top of it. Others roost high up in nearby Oak trees. Two hens and a roo seem to prefer roosting on my lawnmower.

All but one hen and 4 roosters have figured out that flying over the fence every morning is preferable to waiting on me to go open the gate for them. Half the flock hauls butt into the forest and the other half head off to the creek first thing every day, even before daylight (I only know this because I can hear the roosters). I rarely see them at all until dusk rolls around and they start heading back to the brooder house.

An armadillo and a possum have decided to make homes inside the poultry fencing. The possum routinely steals the nest box bedding, which is fine because the hens won't use the nest boxes. A few will lay eggs inside the brooder house. Two lay eggs on my front deck. One lays an egg in the doghouse that my elderly cat stays in during the winter. The rest of them lay eggs in the woods. None of the birds seem to mind the armadillo and possum hanging around.

Are the birds skinny? Malnourished? Bony? No, No, and No. They are all of comparable size to my other flock that free ranges during the day and is given 16% layer pellets every evening after returning to the barn.

Do I give them any food at all? Sure. I throw their eggshells outside after breakfast. If any birds are still around the house they will immediately come and eat them. I also throw out the meat and bones leftover from making chicken bone broth. They eat every scrap of it. I occasionally throw out wilty fruit/vegetables or stale bread ends (homemade). I do this mostly because I'm lazy and it's easier to throw this stuff off the back deck than it is to have it stinking up the kitchen trash can. If the chickens don't eat it, possums and raccoons will. Either is fine with me. Point being that I throw stuff to them on occasion, but in insignificant amounts.

The eggs are smaller than those from my older barn flock, but they are the same in regards to having thick shells and membranes. Unless you hit a rock, the eggs bounce when you throw them on the ground! The yolks are the darkest orange-red I've ever seen. I honestly thought something was very wrong when I saw the first one. The older barn birds eggs also have nice orange yolks, but not anywhere near as dark the others. I don't know why there is a color difference between the flocks.

As for predation, I haven't lost any birds from this flock to predators. I do lose birds from the barn flock to predators on a regular basis...about one a month. I see hawks overhead every day and I often see a fox slinking around near the barn. Raccoons are plentiful. I don't know why this flock has managed to survive predation so far. Is it because they've lived 'wild' basically their whole lives and are more world-wise and able to avoid predators? I truly don't know.

They have a decent amount of forest to roam...land that has never been developed or used for anything. It has decades upon decades of forest floor leaf litter, decaying branches, mosses, mushrooms, and who-knows-what-all out there. I'm certain it's a bug smorgasbord. I no longer fill up waterers either. I stopped that awhile back, too. There's a mile of creek here, so I figure they're good with that.

So, there you go. Chickens can not only survive, they can thrive, on a 100% free-range/forage diet.

I know that not everyone lives in a similar type of place and I wouldn't think of trying this in a suburban yard situation, or even a semi-suburban with a couple of acres situation. I'm not advocating for everyone to stop feeding their chickens. Some of you out there may have the right kind of place for this and a mind to try it, and I'm just here saying it can be done. And at the risk of patting myself on the back too hard...I feel like I may have raised a better/hardier/smarter flock of birds than any of the others I've had before.

Or maybe they've just been lucky.


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Very cool.. we live on one acre of 150 yr old garden, overgrown, secret, pecan trees, flowers galore, fruit trees, etc. Our heritage adobe home and land is surrounded by other farms, crops, orchards. Since we live on a ditch road, nothing more can be built. God is the Gardener, we are the stewards. We accomplish very little pruning, or other care...mostly watering the old place. In the winter, before the old trees drop their pecans, we mow it all down and leave all the rich compost where it lays. My free- range chickens do the rest: pooping, scratching, eating bugs and plant matter. We do feed and water them and they come back to cages to roost. We've had a bit more development around but our house is still quiet and safe. This year we only lost one chicken to a loose dog. My neighbors say they are the healthiest chickens around! Just had to boast a little.