Successful 100% forage diet experiment (long post)

[Jspartans26]

It might be, maybe plant some kind of winter cover crop would work. Although it might not if it’s buried in snow

 

[JacinLarkwell]

One of my flocks is somewhat similar, but probably closer to your barn flock. It's a group of around a dozen pheonixes and a Cemani pair that intermingle (~10 females and 2 males). They're fed once a day at night and sleep in the barn, but the barn is open structured and they are never locked up anywherw. Technically they could leave to wander 24/7/365. They seem to be my happiest birds compared to the daily released birds and the birds that stay penned 24/7/365.

In Montana, winter lasts around 4-6 months and most of the vegetation is jist cheatgrass, plus no running or standing water on the property, so I can't have an independent flock.

 

[Red-Stars-in-RI]

I’d expect in northern climates, you’d need to supplement in winter...either with some combination of fodder, grown grains (corn, wheat, etc), finely cut hay, long-storage veggies like pumpkin and squash, compost piles, food waste, or chicken feed.

 

[ackie]

-Central Texas
-This is the first winter and they are doing fine so far. There is shelter available to them should they want to use it.
-I'm getting a small percentage of the eggs. I *could* get more if I wanted to hike the hills every day, but I don't. I know the general area that some of the hens frequent and I'm pretty sure that I could find eggs if I looked around some.

youd be surprised how hard it is to find their hidden nests, even if you do some general poking around haha.

how many accidental clutches of chicks have you had?

 

[ackie]

My birds free range during the day - not the entire day because I'm not an early riser but good enough. I close the coop at night for those who roost in there because if a predator gets in, the walls and roof will prevent the birds from escaping as they would in a true wild setting.

My older birds - and anyone prone to following the older ones - free range all the time because they sleep in trees. I have a lot of wooded property but that's not where the birds are haha. They're right next to the house and driveway, and wander bushes and a few rows of trees that block us from the neighbor, but not proper woods.

I've been locking my girls up more lately because I'd actually like to get eggs so I'm teaching them to lay in the coop for me. My "free range all the time" wont, I'm sure, but sometimes they lay where I can find, and accidental clutches of chicks are a lot of fun when I cant. My ladies seem to know safe places to nest - I've seen them under cars that dont work/never move and in the horse pasture a lot. I assume the horses deter some predators, but dont bother the chickens any. Some of my broodies will come back to the feed area to eat and drink, but some I just dont see for 21 days, so either I just missed them or they were fending for themselves just fine.

If I completely stopped feeding my birds - which I cant really do because I need the peacocks to range into the neighbors yards as little as possible - theyd still be getting commerical horse feed as they literally hang out around the feet of the horses while they eat and grab up what is dropped.

They definitely forage a ton, but we go through a lot of feed as well. I meant to start keeping track of that and may soon. Theyll drink out of the waterers I provide - or at least someone is because I have to refill them - but also out of puddles and theyve found the exit end of the gutter and drink from that as well.

 

[AccidentalFarm]

youd be surprised how hard it is to find their hidden nests, even if you do some general poking around haha.

how many accidental clutches of chicks have you had?

No accidental clutches yet, but I hope to see some in the spring.

 

[TooCheep]

I’d expect in northern climates, you’d need to supplement in winter...either with some combination of fodder, grown grains (corn, wheat, etc), finely cut hay, long-storage veggies like pumpkin and squash, compost piles, food waste, or chicken feed.

And a source of running water and possibly assistance with shelter...
I'm not sure this is practical, but may be possible in real need. You would provide a lot of the same inputs, you get far less from them and they still are very dependent on you.

 

[ChocolateMouse]

I think this works because A) You're sacrificing lots of egg production. B) You're in a place where it's warm year round. C) You're in a place with lots of forage. D) You've got 50 acres. E) Somehow you have no predators that have found your birds.

I don't think anyone would say modern chickens couldn't survive in ideal free-ranging situations. But they wouldn't lay as many eggs or be as healthy and there's too many things that could go wrong for most people.

My chickens would be dead unfed right now with 1' of snow. I would lose a lot of egg production. Most people don't have 50 acres (backyard chickens) for their flock... Even if they could roam the neighborhood they'd all be dead by the end of the month from predator pressures - haws, rats, cats, coons, foxes, coyotes, dogs.... You're in an ideal situation and sacrificing a lot of eggs to make this happen. Most people aren't in that kind of scenario.

It's an interesting experiment... But lets be real, my neighbors Yorkie mix that hunts mice could probably live in the wild if she had 50 acres with a water source and warm temps year round. Heck I could too. XD

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

I do feed my Cracker birds, but only about 1/4 of what their normal feed intake would be. And much of what I do feed them isn’t chicken feed, it’s cracked corn and sweet feed (much cheaper than standard layer crumbles). I feed even less in the spring and summer. I think they’d get by fine without feed but it would make them range further around the farm. I like keeping them within a few hundred yards of the house.

I’ve found that scattering wood nest boxes around the farmyard about belly-high goes a long way towards discouraging them from hiding their nests.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

E) Somehow you have no predators that have found your birds

My chickens beat predators. As well as any wild prey animals in the woods do it. That’s where the American hatchery system has went a long way in weakening chickens. It is NOT inevitable that a flock chicken will fall to predators. It might be inevitable for fat hatchery chickens that haven’t been exposed to predator pressures in generations, but chickens with the right wild instincts will learn to avoid predators just fine.