California - Northern

[caychris]

I want to get hands-on experience raising chickens before I even make a decision to do this in my backyard. I may actually have to sell a home and buy a new one to get the land to do this properly, so it is a huge decision.

I am going to research exactly as you describe above, but only *after* I get hands-on experience first. I don't want to make a major time and life commitment to something and then discover at the end I hate it.

My real first preference would be to find a chicken farmer who is willing to experiment and try to feed a grain-free diet. So far I have not had luck with that.

I dont think chickens going completely "grain free" is really an option. Now a number of people will use a combo of sprouted grains as fodder, grow meal worms and other worms. Plant chicken forage etc to give them more of a natural diet. The real issue is scale. You can feed a small flock on free range kitchen scraps with some supplemented fodder etc some mix their own feed but that is usually expensive unless you buy in large qty. Feeding the flock is really a matter of scale. Most free range flocks are supplemented during winter months when forage is light. If you want hands on experience start with just a couple of pullets in a small coop, it can be done cheaply, to get your feet wet. If you find you dont enjoy them it wont be hard to rehome and your infrastructure cost wont be much (find a large used dog crate to serve as the night box. The rest of the run and enclosure will depend on your predator situation but for most suburban back yards the dog crate will suffice. As far as feeding you can get an idea from two how things might scale up.

 

[westes]

What do yo mean? Just let the chickens free range?

Without getting into a huge subthread that really belongs in the "feeding" section of this site, I want to feed the chickens live insects raised on organic vegetable matter, veggies and fruits, and grains that do not contain polyunsaturated fats. Corn, wheat, and rice all contain large amounts of omega-6 polyunsaturated fats. Animals that use those for feed end up with lots of omega-6 fats in their body tissues. One reason for me to consider home-raised chickens is to alter their diet sufficiently to produce a much higher quality of food than what I can buy in any supermarket.

I started a thread in the Feeding section on using tapioca as a substitute for grain, and that is just an example of what I mean. Tapioca may or may not be a good candidate, but tapioca is certainly low on the fats I want to avoid.

 

[westes]

I dont think chickens going completely "grain free" is really an option. Now a number of people will use a combo of sprouted grains as fodder, grow meal worms and other worms. Plant chicken forage etc to give them more of a natural diet. The real issue is scale. You can feed a small flock on free range kitchen scraps with some supplemented fodder etc some mix their own feed but that is usually expensive unless you buy in large qty. Feeding the flock is really a matter of scale. Most free range flocks are supplemented during winter months when forage is light. If you want hands on experience start with just a couple of pullets in a small coop, it can be done cheaply, to get your feet wet. If you find you dont enjoy them it wont be hard to rehome and your infrastructure cost wont be much (find a large used dog crate to serve as the night box. The rest of the run and enclosure will depend on your predator situation but for most suburban back yards the dog crate will suffice. As far as feeding you can get an idea from two how things might scale up.

It's interesting to observe that wild chickens do just fine with zero wheat, zero corn, and zero rice. So they can certainly live without grains. Look at the diets of junglefowl in New Guinea for example, and all modern chickens descend from those. Now will they achieve the optimum rate of egg-laying without grains? I don't know. I get your point about getting them through the Winter, particularly in areas where it is snowing and lower temperatures.

Assuming you need grains, then the question becomes what kinds of alternate grains can chicken thrive on. I want to avoid the kind that are used in commercial chicken feeds, so that opens the doors for an experiment to see if I can find alternative products that chickens will do well on, that avoid the nutritional things like omega-6 fats that I am trying to avoid in commercial feeds.

 

[caychris]

It's interesting to observe that wild chickens do just fine with zero wheat, zero corn, and zero rice. So they can certainly live without grains. Look at the diets of junglefowl in New Guinea for example, and all modern chickens descend from those. Now will they achieve the optimum rate of egg-laying without grains? I don't know. I get your point about getting them through the Winter, particularly in areas where it is snowing and lower temperatures.

Assuming you need grains, then the question becomes what kinds of alternate grains can chicken thrive on. I want to avoid the kind that are used in commercial chicken feeds, so that opens the doors for an experiment to see if I can find alternative products that chickens will do well on, that avoid the nutritional things like omega-6 fats that I am trying to avoid in commercial feeds.

I know people do a lot of barley and oat fodder and grains

 

[h2oratt]

We feed an organic soy free, non gmo layer pellet. They free range also plus get all our kitchen scraps. I grow squash and pumpkin for them in the summer.
We just ate our first 4 month old roosters that I hatched myself. They were very good. It does make me feel good to know that I could grow my own food if I need to. I did like knowing what went into that meat and that they had a good life.

 

[caychris]

It's interesting to observe that wild chickens do just fine with zero wheat, zero corn, and zero rice. So they can certainly live without grains. Look at the diets of junglefowl in New Guinea for example, and all modern chickens descend from those. Now will they achieve the optimum rate of egg-laying without grains? I don't know. I get your point about getting them through the Winter, particularly in areas where it is snowing and lower temperatures.

Assuming you need grains, then the question becomes what kinds of alternate grains can chicken thrive on. I want to avoid the kind that are used in commercial chicken feeds, so that opens the doors for an experiment to see if I can find alternative products that chickens will do well on, that avoid the nutritional things like omega-6 fats that I am trying to avoid in commercial feeds.

I do butcher some of the chickens I raise. So thats another question you need address with hands on raising them. Chickens that are raised for meat are quite a bit different than back yard layers. It depends a lot on what kind of growth rate you want feed:weght ratios etc. Back yard birds raised for meat are quite expensive to do compared to even the most healthily raised production birds. I raise a breed that provides a 3+lb dressed cockerel at 22-24 weeks. There are other breeds that reach the weight in 14-18 and production meat birds will hit the weight in 8-10 raised in a back yard. You just need to be clear about your goals. When I say no grains isnt really an option I was meaning that you wouldnt use grain fodder (the most efficient way to produce the nutritional needs) I can understand avoiding grains like wheat rice and corn but of those wheat fodder isnt too bad and easy to grow year round. (especially here) Ive read where some birds are raised completely on compost (which has a continual source of new vegetable scrap and manure ) and there a ways to give them great nutrition without commercial feed. But you would be hard pressed to create the volume of food without some grain based fodder system in a back yard setting.

 

[westes]

I do butcher some of the chickens I raise. So thats another question you need address with hands on raising them. Chickens that are raised for meat are quite a bit different than back yard layers. It depends a lot on what kind of growth rate you want feed:weght ratios etc. Back yard birds raised for meat are quite expensive to do compared to even the most healthily raised production birds. I raise a breed that provides a 3+lb dressed cockerel at 22-24 weeks. There are other breeds that reach the weight in 14-18 and production meat birds will hit the weight in 8-10 raised in a back yard. You just need to be clear about your goals. When I say no grains isnt really an option I was meaning that you wouldnt use grain fodder (the most efficient way to produce the nutritional needs) I can understand avoiding grains like wheat rice and corn but of those wheat fodder isnt too bad and easy to grow year round. (especially here) Ive read where some birds are raised completely on compost (which has a continual source of new vegetable scrap and manure ) and there a ways to give them great nutrition without commercial feed. But you would be hard pressed to create the volume of food without some grain based fodder system in a back yard setting.

I'm totally open to grain, as long as the nutritional profile of the grain does not contain polyunsaturated fats. Wheat, oats, corn, barley, and rice are all high in polyunsaturates. Something like tapioca might work, although I guess you have to process that to get off some foul tasting toxins when you feed it.

Just for kicks, I priced on the world market one ton of tapioca / cassava flour around $100 to $300/ton. Typical pricing for wheat flour was similar per ton. So it might be possible to buy the kind of grain I want in bulk.

But I do realize once I step outside of commercial feeds I am conducting a science experiment. It might end well and it might not.

P.S., I want to raise chickens for eggs. I need about 30 eggs per week.

 

[bethwood01]

Question for anyone in Redding, if there is anyone raising birds for meat also, how do you get your birds butchered?

 

[caychris]

I'm totally open to grain, as long as the nutritional profile of the grain does not contain polyunsaturated fats. Wheat, oats, corn, barley, and rice are all high in polyunsaturates. Something like tapioca might work, although I guess you have to process that to get off some foul tasting toxins when you feed it.

Just for kicks, I priced on the world market one ton of tapioca / cassava flour around $100 to $300/ton. Typical pricing for wheat flour was similar per ton. So it might be possible to buy the kind of grain I want in bulk.

But I do realize once I step outside of commercial feeds I am conducting a science experiment. It might end well and it might not.

P.S., I want to raise chickens for eggs. I need about 30 eggs per week.

To average 30 per week you would need probably 6 (of a breed that usually lays 5 a week) some/most heritage breeds will do that in their prime. Some lay longer through the year than others
Id go with 8-10 to be sure to get a consistently good (30+) eggs a week.

You may want to consider mixed flock vs single breed.

 

[caychris]

I'm totally open to grain, as long as the nutritional profile of the grain does not contain polyunsaturated fats. Wheat, oats, corn, barley, and rice are all high in polyunsaturates. Something like tapioca might work, although I guess you have to process that to get off some foul tasting toxins when you feed it.

Just for kicks, I priced on the world market one ton of tapioca / cassava flour around $100 to $300/ton. Typical pricing for wheat flour was similar per ton. So it might be possible to buy the kind of grain I want in bulk.

But I do realize once I step outside of commercial feeds I am conducting a science experiment. It might end well and it might not.

P.S., I want to raise chickens for eggs. I need about 30 eggs per week.

Look into Flax and Chia . One thing about the grains is that as fodder the profile changes more in favor of omega 3 vs omega 6.