What chicken breeds are closest to "your grandfather's chicken"?

[Florida Bullfrog]

I hope this question makes sense. I'm newer to chickens and did not grow up in a family that had them. On BYC, and in real life, I have heard people say that their grandparents didn't feed their chickens any commercial feed, but simply threw the flock a small amount of grains/scratch such as corn, oats, barley, etc. every day and let them find the rest of their food by grazing. People have said you can't do that with today's chickens because they are bred to produce eggs so much that they have dietary needs only the commercial feed can meet. So my question is, is this really true, or are there still breeds that can survive this way? If so, which breeds?

This is all hypothetical, but I can't help but wonder how families raised eggs and meat for hundreds of years using these methods, and now suddenly we can't. I understand why my production RIR can't live on a handful of scratch every day, but I even hear people say the heritage breeds can't. Are we too far away breeding-wise from the breeds of old to do this? Or were chickens back then actually very short-lived and our standards are higher now so we feed this higher quality feed? Well, this has turned into more than one question so I'll stop here, but let me know what you guys think.

Edit: I also wanted to add that I do understand the chickens way back when produced fewer eggs and less meat. I am just asking about why chickens supposedly can't be raised at all using this method anymore.

A brief history of the domestic chicken:

1. They were domesticated several thousand years ago in Asia from primarily the red junglefowl and to a lessor degree other species of junglefowl. The primary purpose of their domestication was for cockfighting, not food. Those first domestic chickens are called "gamefowl" today. Gamefowl were generally raised free-range around villages.

2. Cockfighting spread like wildfire across the ancient world, becoming what is likely the most universal sport across cultures until the modern era. Two main families of gamefowl developed. The first family retained the straight comb and general look of the red junglefowl. We sometimes call that family "bankivoid" today, from the mistaken belief that those first gamefowl were developed from the Javan subspecies of red junglefowl (Gallus gallus bankiva). The second family had longer legs, shorter wings, longer necks, and generally had more of a dinosaur appearance. We call those "oriental" or "Malaynoid" gamefowl and are represented by the Malay, shamo, aseel, and similar types today. For many centuries, the only known chickens in the world fit in one of those two categories.

3. The Greeks adopted cockfighting from the Persians. We don't know if those first Greek fowl were bankivoid or oriental, but they were one or both of those two gamefowl types. The Greeks began selectively breeding gamefowl and started to morph them into coop chickens more like we would recognize.

4. The Romans adopted Greek poultry raising practices and further modified chickens to create several coop breeds, although the gamefowl still continued to exist. Rome was a rich society and widespread poultry keeping was primarily a luxury of the rich country gentry. Slaves tended the chickens daily. Food was bought for them from markets or grown on the estate.

5. When Rome fell, their specialized coop chickens went extinct due to being unable to receive pampered care. The chickens that survived through the Middle Ages were gamefowl and those coop breeds that were able to revert to a more gamefowl-like form.

6. Chickens spent the next several centuries living free range around villages and farms, mostly taking care of themselves. Many of the gamefowl were kept pure to themselves, but most other chickens were free-range landraces. Within a region, the chickens may have shared similar traits, but with enough variety among them that we might not call them a true breed today, more of a type.

7. In the 1700s, people began to rediscover exactly how much animals can be changed through selective breeding. Most of our domestic animal breeds today have their origins from the 1700s through the early 1900s. Chickens are no exception. Western societies especially began to create what amounted to new versions of the Greco-Roman coop chickens but with a lot more variety.

8. Even with selective breeding, chickens were still mostly living free range through the late 1800s. That meant that natural selection was the first factor that determined if a chicken lived or died. The chickens that survived were the ones that could find their own food, avoid predators, and resist disease.

9. In the early 1900s, commercial chicken feeds were developed. Widespread chicken reproduction shifted to hatcheries. Natural selection was no longer the driving force behind deciding what chickens lived or died.


Now today, both families of gamefowl still exist. Gamefowl should be thought of as an intermediary or a missing link between wild junglefowl and domestic chickens. They have traits of both. It's generally the gamefowl that are going to be good at living free range and taking care of themselves. There have been many other landrace breeds from around the world, but the difficulty will be finding those that aren't far removed from living the free range lifestyle. Even gamefowl these days are rarely raised free range as they used to be.

You'll have to do some digging, but I believe most people in the US live within driving distance of one or several farms that keep a flock of self-sustaining chickens. It requires asking around. Usually these flocks are kept by old-timers who missed the memo that chickens can't be raised that way. You want those chickens to be your seed stock. Usually they'll be some variety of gamefowl.

I don't believe it takes living is a rare or specialized habitat to have a flock of chickens that take care of themselves. Most of the world raised chickens that way, whether it be in the tropics or temperate regions. But what it does take is a farm. Some patch of green earth with some variety of plants, insects, and habitat. I believe it takes about 2 acres to raise a flock on.

An urban flock is most certainly capable of taking care of itself. But it isn't going to stay confined to your yard. It's going to live on your city block and forage and scavenge across multiple yards.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

In terms of personal experience, I was raised by my grandparents. They were of the Depression and WWII generation. On my grandmother's farm, her father raised gamefowl. They lived feral in the woods. Each flock was one dominant cock with about 20 or so hens. The flocks lived spread out over 100 acres. Each flock was centered around a water source, which was generally a "pond" in the woods. In the context of Florida woods, a "pond" means a small swamp, usually under 100 yards across, with defined boundaries. The chickens reproduced at will and faster than predators could take them. My grandmother would hunt about 30 chickens a month to feed her children. Thus they had infinite fried chicken. Eggs were harvested from hidden nests. Will so many hens running around, finding fresh eggs wasn't a problem.

It wouldn't take 100 acres to raise a single flock. That much space is necessary simply to keep brood cocks apart and not killing each other. On a single farm, it wouldn't take much at all to have one dominate gamefowl cock and a harem of hens. You can get them to lay in nest boxes pretty easily. Taking care of themselves, they'll make enough eggs to feed a family and they'll grow out enough adults to harvest adults for eating occasionally.

 

[HenriettaPizzaNolan]

A brief history of the domestic chicken:

1. They were domesticated several thousand years ago in Asia from primarily the red junglefowl and to a lessor degree other species of junglefowl. The primary purpose of their domestication was for cockfighting, not food. Those first domestic chickens are called "gamefowl" today. Gamefowl were generally raised free-range around villages.

2. Cockfighting spread like wildfire across the ancient world, becoming what is likely the most universal sport across cultures until the modern era. Two main families of gamefowl developed. The first family retained the straight comb and general look of the red junglefowl. We sometimes call that family "bankivoid" today, from the mistaken belief that those first gamefowl were developed from the Javan subspecies of red junglefowl (Gallus gallus bankiva). The second family had longer legs, shorter wings, longer necks, and generally had more of a dinosaur appearance. We call those "oriental" or "Malaynoid" gamefowl and are represented by the Malay, shamo, aseel, and similar types today. For many centuries, the only known chickens in the world fit in one of those two categories.

3. The Greeks adopted cockfighting from the Persians. We don't know if those first Greek fowl were bankivoid or oriental, but they were one or both of those two gamefowl types. The Greeks began selectively breeding gamefowl and started to morph them into coop chickens more like we would recognize.

4. The Romans adopted Greek poultry raising practices and further modified chickens to create several coop breeds, although the gamefowl still continued to exist. Rome was a rich society and widespread poultry keeping was primarily a luxury of the rich country gentry. Slaves tended the chickens daily. Food was bought for them from markets or grown on the estate.

5. When Rome fell, their specialized coop chickens went extinct due to being unable to receive pampered care. The chickens that survived through the Middle Ages were gamefowl and those coop breeds that were able to revert to a more gamefowl-like form.

6. Chickens spent the next several centuries living free range around villages and farms, mostly taking care of themselves. Many of the gamefowl were kept pure to themselves, but most other chickens were free-range landraces. Within a region, the chickens may have shared similar traits, but with enough variety among them that we might not call them a true breed today, more of a type.

7. In the 1700s, people began to rediscover exactly how much animals can be changed through selective breeding. Most of our domestic animal breeds today have their origins from the 1700s through the early 1900s. Chickens are no exception. Western societies especially began to create what amounted to new versions of the Greco-Roman coop chickens but with a lot more variety.

8. Even with selective breeding, chickens were still mostly living free range through the late 1800s. That meant that natural selection was the first factor that determined if a chicken lived or died. The chickens that survived were the ones that could find their own food, avoid predators, and resist disease.

9. In the early 1900s, commercial chicken feeds were developed. Widespread chicken reproduction shifted to hatcheries. Natural selection was no longer the driving force behind deciding what chickens lived or died.


Now today, both families of gamefowl still exist. Gamefowl should be thought of as an intermediary or a missing link between wild junglefowl and domestic chickens. They have traits of both. It's generally the gamefowl that are going to be good at living free range and taking care of themselves. There have been many other landrace breeds from around the world, but the difficulty will be finding those that aren't far removed from living the free range lifestyle. Even gamefowl these days are rarely raised free range as they used to be.

You'll have to do some digging, but I believe most people in the US live within driving distance of one or several farms that keep a flock of self-sustaining chickens. It requires asking around. Usually these flocks are kept by old-timers who missed the memo that chickens can't be raised that way. You want those chickens to be your seed stock. Usually they'll be some variety of gamefowl.

I don't believe it takes living is a rare or specialized habitat to have a flock of chickens that take care of themselves. Most of the world raised chickens that way, whether it be in the tropics or temperate regions. But what it does take is a farm. Some patch of green earth with some variety of plants, insects, and habitat. I believe it takes about 2 acres to raise a flock on.

An urban flock is most certainly capable of taking care of itself. But it isn't going to stay confined to your yard. It's going to live on your city block and forage and scavenge across multiple yards.

In terms of personal experience, I was raised by my grandparents. They were of the Depression and WWII generation. On my grandmother's farm, her father raised gamefowl. They lived feral in the woods. Each flock was one dominant cock with about 20 or so hens. The flocks lived spread out over 100 acres. Each flock was centered around a water source, which was generally a "pond" in the woods. In the context of Florida woods, a "pond" means a small swamp, usually under 100 yards across, with defined boundaries. The chickens reproduced at will and faster than predators could take them. My grandmother would hunt about 30 chickens a month to feed her children. Thus they had infinite fried chicken. Eggs were harvested from hidden nests. Will so many hens running around, finding fresh eggs wasn't a problem.

It wouldn't take 100 acres to raise a single flock. That much space is necessary simply to keep brood cocks apart and not killing each other. On a single farm, it wouldn't take much at all to have one dominate gamefowl cock and a harem of hens. You can get them to lay in nest boxes pretty easily. Taking care of themselves, they'll make enough eggs to feed a family and they'll grow out enough adults to harvest adults for eating occasionally.

This is all so interesting. Thanks for taking the time to write all this! So it does seem that the breeding is the major factor at play here.

I do wonder if there is someone nearby with a flock of chickens like you described (the "missed the memo" people).

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

I do wonder if there is someone nearby with a flock of chickens like you described (the "missed the memo" people).

The only way to find out is to ask around. Sometimes local listings for gamefowl for sale can be a starting point.

Beware though, gamefowl people who aren’t active on general poultry sites can be very standoffish with people outside their circles. Especially with backyard chicken keepers who know little of gamefowl and suddenly call and start inquiring heavy. Some gamefowl breeders still cockfight. Others may not but still don’t want to be accused of the same and are suspicious of someone showing a sudden interest in their gamefowl. And some treat non-gamefowl people as the tourists coming to town who don’t know their rears from their elbows. I’ve referred many homesteaders to gamefowl breeders only for the gamefowl guys to be so rude that I now only recommend specific local breeders I know. I experienced this myself when I first obtained my current Cracker gamefowl flock. I asked the wrong questions and it put off the breeders, thus denying me the ability to discern the origins or bloodline of their flock. They were never hostile but they became very evasive when they thought I was the law (I sorta am).

Be patient. It took me a year and a half to find what I was looking for.

Also check with any feral chicken rescue groups that might be in your area.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

I’ve also found free range gamefowl flocks by just driving around rural farmland. I know where multiple flocks are in my tri-county area. I also know where true feral flocks are. Just by driving and looking. And I found one feral flock by word of mouth.

 

[She_Kel]

Hatch blood American gamefowl, I grew up around them and one of my earliest memories is picking up a chick only to be flogged by the mother. They scared me after that but I eventually became very fond of them. I find it funny when a friend sees one of my white Cornish crosses and says it looks like a generic chicken, to me the base or generic chicken is the American Game.

 

[SourRoses]

As far as the classic farmyard chicken, rather than feral chickens...
They were mixed blood from family flocks settlers brought over with them. Fed meat & milk & veg, not just scratch. They culled them by 2 years old, only keeping a few over winter, so it didn't matter if they got too much fat or developed health problems. Such birds could always be stew. They still didn't get many eggs.

But the true breed "Heritage fowl" are actually quite modern.
You have to go back farther than grandparents to find when everything changed, about 178 years ago...

_______________________________________________________________

The Forgotten History of ‘Hen Fever’​

The mid-19th century was bursting with economic bubbles. There was the speculative bubble in Latin America, followed by the land bubble, followed by the railroad bubble, followed by yet another railroad bubble. And as sure as each was to swell speculator’s pockets, they would all eventually burst, leaving thousands in fiscal ruin.

Often forgotten in the histories of these economic upheavals is the much smaller, although no less significant, chicken bubble. From roughly 1845 to 1855, the United States was infected with an insatiable and unprecedented “Hen Fever,” an obsession with owning and breeding the world’s finest chickens. “Never in the history of modern ‘bubbles,'” writes George P. Burnham, in his book, The History of the Hen Fever, A Humorous Record, “did any mania exceed in ridiculousness or ludicrousness, or in the number of its victims surpass this inexplicable humbug.”

The incubus of this pandemic was the aviary of Queen Victoria. The young monarch was incredibly fond of her royal menagerie, a collection of exotic birds and beast that was constantly being refilled by her brave British explorers returning from their adventures abroad. In 1842, her biological assemblage was blessed with a gift of seven exotic chickens from the Far East known as Cochin China Fowl.

The queen and her fellow countrymen had never seen anything like these birds before. With their slender legs, elongated necks, and vibrant auburn feathers, with the ending flourish of a green-black tail, these elegant Asian fowl made quite the contrast to the scruffy chickens native to the British Isles. The queen was immediately smitten. Victoria built these Cochin a new and extravagant aviary, which was soon filled with other exotic breeds like the Shanghai, and would spend hours luxuriating there over tea. Once they bred, she immediately sent her bird’s eggs to her royal relatives throughout Europe, who too quickly were abuzz over these exotic fowl.

The society papers got wind of the Queen’s new hobby and the English eagerly emulated their monarch’s passion. By 1845, Victorians of all stripes were breeding and exchanging exotic and exorbitantly priced chickens.
Americans were soon infected with this Hen Fever, too, culminating in the pomp and circumstance of the Boston Poultry Show of 1849. Over ten thousand spectators swarmed the Public Gardens to view a veritable Noah’s ark of chirping, screeching, and squawking birds. It was, as one contemporaneous commentator declared, “indeed a magnificent exhibition.”

And from the Public Garden of Boston, the pox of chicken fascination spread to doctors, to lawyers, to farmers, to merchants, and to tradesmen of every color.

The inaugural show hatched a second show in Boston the following year and then a national show in New York. Within the next half-decade, local and regional exhibitions were popping up throughout the country, all featuring an ever-growing number of new, exotic, and expensive chicken breeds.

If one wanted to pinpoint the beginning of the chicken industry in the United States, this was it. For the first time in the nation’s history, the chicken was important. Where before the bird was so lowly that landowners neglected to record it as property in their farm inventories, now poultry fanatics found themselves spending $1 on a single egg or up to $120 on a pair of fowls, the equivalent of $30 and $3,600 today.

Up until 1845, the chicken was also thought of as the mongrel of the farmyard, left to roam freely and spread its genetic material in whatever ways its birdbrain saw fit. But these shows created standards of judging and perfection, causing self-proclaimed hen men to develop what are now coveted as Heritage Breed chickens. The most notable variety to come out of the Hen Fever was the robust and fluffy Brahma, the “King of all Poultry,” a handful of which George P. Burnham himself sent to an excited and grateful Queen Victoria in 1852.

While the emphasis of the Hen Fever was on a bird’s external beauty, the outcome had an unintended impact on the American plate as well. With more chickens came more eggs, which meant that what was considered a great “thinking food” was now increasingly a democratic food as well. Cheap eggs, remarked one editorialist for the New York Times in 1854, “then, is the practical and excellent issue of the poultry fever.” And for this reason, and this reason alone, the country should “Let it rage,” proclaims the editorial.

But as quickly as the fascination with fowls spread, the chicken bubble burst. The 19th century version of the Beanie Babies craze was through. By 1855, the market was over-saturated with expensive chickens that suddenly no one seemed to have any interest in anymore. Where once these chickens were so valuable fanciers hired bodyguards to protect their chicken coops, the prices commanded by exotic fowls as the pandemic started to convalesce barely covered the freight costs of shipping them over from Asia.

“You can’t get rid of these birds!” wrote one disgruntled chicken owner in 1855, as recounted in Burnham’s book. “It is useless to try to sell them; you can’t give them away; nobody will take them. You can’t starve them, for they are fierce and dangerous when aggravated, and will kick down the strongest store-closet door; and you can’t kill them, for they are tough as rhinoceroses, and tenacious of life as cats.” While some struggled with their lingering birds, Burnham at least found a way to properly dispose of what was once a feathered fortune–a glorious Shanghai dinner, featuring soup a la Shanghai, broiled Shanghai chicks, fricasseed Shanghaes, stewed Shanghai chickens, curried Shanghai fowls, coddled Shanghai stags, and Shanghae chicken pie.

Today we may have much less exotic tastes, but the fever for eating chicken and eggs remains strong (See The Surprising Ways Chickens Changed the World.) But since about one-third of chicken breeds face extinction, thanks to our reliance on a few standard breeds, maybe it’s time to take another peek under those green tail feathers (see Counting on Uncommon Chickens.)

 

[Perris]

This thread might interest some here
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/how-many-eggs-were-laid-by-hens-150-years-ago.1593024/

 

[Dreamers Nook]

I hope this question makes sense. I'm newer to chickens and did not grow up in a family that had them. On BYC, and in real life, I have heard people say that their grandparents didn't feed their chickens any commercial feed, but simply threw the flock a small amount of grains/scratch such as corn, oats, barley, etc. every day and let them find the rest of their food by grazing. People have said you can't do that with today's chickens because they are bred to produce eggs so much that they have dietary needs only the commercial feed can meet. So my question is, is this really true, or are there still breeds that can survive this way? If so, which breeds?

This is all hypothetical, but I can't help but wonder how families raised eggs and meat for hundreds of years using these methods, and now suddenly we can't. I understand why my production RIR can't live on a handful of scratch every day, but I even hear people say the heritage breeds can't. Are we too far away breeding-wise from the breeds of old to do this? Or were chickens back then actually very short-lived and our standards are higher now so we feed this higher quality feed? Well, this has turned into more than one question so I'll stop here, but let me know what you guys think.

Edit: I also wanted to add that I do understand the chickens way back when produced fewer eggs and less meat. I am just asking about why chickens supposedly can't be raised at all using this method anymore.

My grandmother did buy commercial feed. My husband's father didn't as they were cattle ranchers and farmed their feed.

My grandmother was into exotic fowl, though chickens seemed mostly, white Leghorns, RIR and some kind of black breed.

My first husband and I took care of a "Mexican fighting" flock for a friend before he passed, they were supposed to be bred for showing, but I am not positive. Seemed like cool chickens.

 

[Amer]

I know it all has already been said but
chickens back then were a lot smaller and less productive because of diet.
Once, I lent a dozen d’Anvers eggs and an incubator to a friend. They raised the birds to adulthood and asked why the two hens weren’t laying.
Apparently they had been feeding them kitchen scraps. Not long after I got them back (they hatched mostly roosters and didn’t want them anymore) they started laying because they were being fed real chicken food. I still have one of those hens and she is permanently small and skinny and hasn’t layed in a long time (she’s pretty old.) d’Anvers are a centuries old breed and don’t even require much feed or protein (being bantams.)
Half of that family was vegan (unless they produced the milk or eggs themselves) so maybe the birds just weren’t getting enough protein?
But it goes to show that aside from maybe red jungle fowl and game fowl, birds probably weren’t thriving off of historical treatment.
And I know you probably mean great grandfather in my case since I am Gen Z and I know my grandfather raised the most helpless breed of all: Cornish Cross. No clue what my great grandfather raised.