bad or half-baked chicken advice you've received?

[The Yakima Kid]

Quote:
Actually, this can be true if you have enough forage available on your land to provide most of the chickens' nutritional needs. The birds would also need to free range pretty much all the time as well. I know an old farmer who runs his chickens this way, and we were actually discussing all feed vs. free range with only supplementary feed a bit earlier in the thread.

This something of interest to me as an animal nutritionist. When birds are at low abundance and quality of natural forages is high, I am unable to come up with any formulation that is commercial or custom that can match the natural forages. As the number of birds increases relative to available resources, either the birds must range farther or some nutrients (protein, energy, vitamins, or some minerals) become limiting before other nutrients. During winter, energy becomes limiting first and can be supplied by increased amounts of scratch or sunflower seeds. During early spring when first flush of green growth figures highly in forages available, then protein seems to be limiting since insects have not had a chance to emerge in any numbers and the plant parts consumed seem high only in water and carbohydrates. During summer and fall months, pattern not so clear but some feeds / feedstuffs can compliment natural forages as well as any complete diet, at least for short periods of time. Problem I have noticed is that nutrients of shortest supplier varies considerably over time but the variations may follow annual cycles.

Yes! The problem is knowing exactly when to switch the supplemental feeds to balance the ration. The reality I find is that most "free range" chickens are confined to fairly small pastures, with dubious range. Robert Plamondon is a very successful pastured poultry raiser, and he feeds a complete ration with higher protein, supplementary grains, and calcium year around - and notes that production in his birds although profitable is lower than in confined birds.

Another problem is micronutrient shortages; in the Pacific NW and some portions of the Great Basin, grains are low in selenium.

I know people who are "free ranging" chickens on manicured backyards. Or barren lots. Or feed homemade rations that contain large quantities of high sodium foods such as cottage cheese and zucchini. (As vegetables go, zucchini is high in sodium, as are some Chinese greens.)

My grandparents had yard birds that would squabble over the occasional bot found in horse manure; and tear living mice apart as they went for the good parts. A mouse and yard birds gives a whole new dimension to food running. Chickens were considered part of rodent control as well as keeping insects down.

Old poultry books went into detail on managing poultry ranges; thousand headed kale was a favorite of Professor Dryden.

My background is in human foods and nutrition; but there are definite cross overs.

 

[triplepurpose]

Fred's Hens :

The demographics of the typical BYCer, however, may have to be taken into account. If the majority of the pet chickens kept by people here, (if a cursory glance at the little coops, with small runs, in little backyards often depicted in people's posts is any indication), simply have little to no access to a rich environment broadly and loosely described as free ranging.

I understand this, absolutely. But this doesn't mean that a base diet of feed mix can't be supplemented by table scraps, expired bread and other things from a grocery store, a few insects, or whatever else might be available in each unique situation. Also, a lot of these same people may have backyard gardens or fruit trees, or have neighbors with fruit rotting on the ground, and it can be a simple, wholesome, and economical matter to feed a little of the offgrade or extra produce or overripe fruit with the chickens. And it saddens me to hear other people ominously warning otherwise particularly to newcomers who might not know any better. There's no harm in this for a backyard flock. A varied diet is never a bad thing for an omnivorous animal. It pays to know something about chicken nutrition, in the most basic sense, but beyond that there's a lot of wiggle room for the backyard chicken keeper.

I have several acres, but because of location, and the way my gardens are laid out and worked, true free ranging is not possible for me. But my chickens have a very varied diet of vegetables and greens, diverse fruits, table and kitchen scraps, BSF larvae that I culture for them, Azolla that i grow in containers and feed fresh, and pest insects and centipedes that we find in the garden, etc. After years of doing this, I have a pretty good feel for what they eat and what they need to eat. And the quality of the eggs surpasses that of chickens fed only layer ration in confinement--the yokes are firmer and darker, and I feel the taste is superior, although I am partial.

I'm just saying that there is a middle ground, even for those tiny backyard set-ups. Read a little about chicken nutrition, and take it with a grain of salt (not litterally). And then learn from observation. Some days I feed a lot of feed mix, other days when they get to eat a lot of good scraps with, say, some fish trimmings and some leftover rice in it, they might get only half as much feed. The main thing I watch out for is that they get enough protein to support growth, or egg laying, and enough calories for energy--and enough diversity to provide all the trace elements they need. If you are concerned too much about feeding them the right thing, and don't understand or don't care to understand anything about nutrition, then the ten percent rule for "treats" is a fine thing to lean on. But I always want to encourage people to see the possibilities, and be excited by the options and the flexibility, rather than fearful of doing "something wrong."​

 

[Chinchilla2]

Just a thought, and I am sure someone else has probably already mentioned it or at least does it and didn't post it, but if chickens that are free-ranged can get everything they need for a balanced diet from that free ranging, it certainly does not hurt to put out some "commercially-made store-bought balanced-diet pellet/crumble" ( I used the quotes since there seems to be a variety of different ways of saying mass produced feed). That way one can insure that their birds are at least coming close to the balanced-diet that is suggested by commercial/veterinarian/years-of-experience people. If you do not free-range, tossing a few handfuls of assorted stuff that the birds would have eaten as free-rangers may provide that extra little bit of natural vitamins and minerals they may miss from the so-called balanced mass produced stuff.

Considering what some chickens will do to trap and eat a mouse, frog, snake, etc., I really do not think the chicken is that worried about where their balanced diet comes from so long as it's readily available, doesn't get away, and doesn't get stolen by another chicken in a hit and run. As a result, perhaps the best avenue on feed is to allow birds to free range as much as possible while still providing a protein, mineral, and vitamin rich commercial feed at all times and allow the chicken to figure out which they want to eat.

BTW, I was told today that if I grate a lemon rind into a gallon of water once a week, the egg yolks would be a brighter yellow and the eggs would stay fresher longer. Oh, and that eating milk weed would cause the eggs to spoil in the shell.

 

[triplepurpose]

Quote:
Well said, Chincilla. I think this as a very sensible approach to recommend...

 

[The Yakima Kid]

Quote:
Well said, Chincilla. I think this as a very sensible approach to recommend...

I raise greens for my girls; my concern is less what may be missing in the commercial feed and more that even chickens deserve to have some fun. When they get loose, they will take a blueberry, nibble some blueberry leaves, nip at the squash leaves, and make a beeline for the chard. But I do limit how much vegetation they eat. No one says they need to be solely on a commercial diet - but you need to make sure they are getting the nutrients they need. Chickens are like people; they really prefer the chicken versions of ice cream and cake to good for you foods.

 

[triplepurpose]

Quote:
I agree with this, but I thought it would be worth adding to the discussion by also pointing out that "productivity" in real life means different things in different circumstances and to different people. For me commercial feed is very expensive. So any by-products of my farm, community, or household that I can give the birds, or anything I can culture for them for free (bugs or waterweeds) with a minimum of fuss, or better yet free range in a wooded area (I wish!), is a huge boon and means cheaper production. I'm sure many others find this to be true as well, including farmers throughout history and many modern small farmers in the developing world to whom any costly inputs are a big burden to be avoided (read about the development of the Giriraja chicken in India, for example). There's also the issue of quality over quantity--I personally would choose the firm, bright yellow yolks and great taste of a pastured/free range type egg over the dull, generic stuff from a diet of commercial feed any day. So I would even take 150 of the former a year over 200+ a year of the latter--to me (and most of my customers) that would be a GAIN, not a loss, in "production."

Many of the people on this forum are raising chickens not for maximum production profit per se, but because eggs from beloved, healthy home-flocks on a varied or free-range diet TASTE better. They don't want to produce something that is identical in mediocrity to what they could buy more cheaply at Costco. We would do well to encourage this trend, I think, because it means better food for people and better and more humane living conditions for livestock.

 

[Pony Trotsky]

Quote:
Oh, my gosh - how beautifully said.

I think there's something incredibly resonant and satisfying about animal husbandry, no matter the size and scale of the project. "Farming" - even if it's a few pet hens in a suburban coop - requires a kind of attention and ingenuity that's gotten awfully rare in modern life, where "quick" and "convenient" seem to outweigh every other consideration.

I don't think commercial feeds, for any kind of livestock, are evil or anything silly like that, but I do feel that a complete reliance on them, and on the corporations that produce them, are a wasted opportunity to experience something much richer and more complete.

(Just my 2 cents.

)

 

[kcwazzu]

Safe to say you don't have curtains over your nest boxes so your chickens will lay then...

Don't need curtains, as the way I built my community nest box there is a "very private" area where 4 out of 5 lay their eggs. The 5th chicken does't get it and see lays hers in the far end of the coop.​

 

[Zonoma]

"Get chickens." (j/k)
"You have to put a heat lamp in there or they will DIE!" (fully feathered, cold hardy adults)
"Just soak a clove of garlic in their water to take care of worms."
"Just put the new chickens right in with your others. They'll work it out." (thank goodness I researched quarantines and integration first!)

 

[southerndesert]

Just read all 23 pages..... WOW, cool, interesting , factual, helpful and