Chicken free ranging questions?

[nao57]

So I freely admit I'd made a few mistakes and learned a lot in the last 6 months, learning to care for ducks, and a couple chickens. I confess also that I like ducks more than chickens.

But lately I'm appreciating the chickens more.

The chickens started laying eggs for me before my ducks, even though I'd gotten the ducklings 2 weeks before the chicks.

This has made me want to be more aware of them.

Here's something else I wondered about...

When I go to let the chickens out of their coop in the morning, they tend to have more unfinished food still in their coup from the night before compared to the ducks.

This observation has made me want to ask; is it possible to raise chickens, 100% on free ranging? (If it weren't for the predators that is?)(Nutrient and diet perspective is what I'm looking at here.)

I hadn't taken this question seriously until observing that sometimes they don't finish their food, when it wasn't that much anyway, and they'd been ranging the whole back yard this whole time also.

Can those guys on Youtube with chicken tractors fill all the dietary requirements of the chickens just by the grass?

And if they can't, is it possible to have them still produce eggs, and be supported by say less than 20 or 30% grain, and almost entirely grass if not fully so?

What do you think about this?

Especially the talk of food shortages has me wondering this.

And many people also don't know that you know our entire canned goods section in the grocery store is dependent on China made tin and metal cans? And that there is supply problems with this industry right now, which makes you wonder what next year will be like?

I also want to state that I'm not trying to scare anyone and not being political. I just think when i see news that we can compensate by being more skill and self sufficiency oriented. America was built on self sufficiency and the believe that we can build things on our own. Not only about freedoms, but using liberty righteously in good ways.

 

[RojoMarz]

In my location, it is NOT possible for chickens to survive on free range only. We don't have 'good' grass nor enough bugs.

 

[whiteboy]

In Utah we could do it seasonally but not year round. Winter wouldn't work.

 

[3KillerBs]

If you were content with chickens like the original jungle fowl, which laid only small numbers of eggs seasonally, and which are small and lean then you *might* be able to do it *if* you lived in a favorable climate and had exceptionally good nutrient resources available, which includes much better pasture than lawn grass.

The modern chicken is livestock not a wild animal -- FAR removed from that jungle fowl in biology and nutritional needs. They are much larger and lay 150-200 eggs per year rather than 15-20.

There are some places that have wild chickens. If you live in one of those places you'd be more likely to succeed than if you don't. But you wouldn't be able to expect those near-daily eggs for most of the year.