Combining free range feeding with crop production? Anyone here doing it?

[Cattle dog Mom]

I'm looking at production quantities, for meat birds or eggs. Hundreds of birds, possibly. Though would start on a much smaller scale.

I free range roughly 40-50 layers year round on my 3 acres and have access to 40+ acres of fallow field that gets brush hogged every year. I fence them out of our 1/3 acre garden. I have read some studies where people have grazed chickens in rotation with cattle, sheep, goats and other such critters, but I was more interested in raising poultry on crop land. Hay seems to make the most sense. It gets cut several times a year, chickens would eat it and the bugs that eat it and fertilize the soil at the same time. I know that where the chickens seem to gather in my lawn the grass grows faster than they can keep it mowed down. Actually making it so prolific that I need to mow those areas more often than the areas that they tend to avoid. I have turned them out in my sweet corn patch after the corn grows to be about twice their height, and they seem to keep some of the weeds down, but feed consumption is on par with hens in confined pasture. I purposely plant raspberries in my open top confined pasture, to help with protection from flying chicken eaters. The berries do very well, and yield about 50% more than the berries that are outside of the pasture. The hens don't really seem to go after them until they are completely ripe. By then I rotate them to a different pasture in order to harvest. But again feed consumption seems on par with pastured hens, maybe even higher. I assume due to the lack of grass under the shading berry bushes.

I believe that some crops would benefit from having the chickens patrolling constantly. Most hay crops would benefit from the nitrogen in the manure and the pest control offered from the roaming flock. Would the benefit outweigh the damage done by the birds feeding and roaming around trampling down the crop? How about crops like wheat, barley or oats. Could a flock possibly benefit a crop enough, in terms of pest/weed control and fertilization, as well as offset cost of commercial chemical usage for the same purpose to make it worthwhile doing?

IMO, anyone growing hay really would prefer that it not be full of chicken crap. I know that is how I prefer it. As far as wheat. barley and oats, the damage they would do SO wouldn't be worth any possible small benefit.

 

[Red-Stars-in-RI]

And you mentioned hops and grapes...I think that'd be similar to an "orchard" situation and likely would work!

 

[Kirkwooder]

IMO, anyone growing hay really would prefer that it not be full of chicken crap. I know that is how I prefer it. As far as wheat. barley and oats, the damage they would do SO wouldn't be worth any possible small benefit.

Dairy farms spread vast amounts of manure on their hay ground, truly blackening the entire field at times. Why would the minute amount that a chicken leaves behind when free ranging be objectionable?

 

[Cattle dog Mom]

Dairy farms spread vast amounts of manure on their hay ground, truly blackening the entire field at times. Why would the minute amount that a chicken leaves behind when free ranging be objectionable?

Dairy farms (at least here) also have a LOT of water going on behind the crap water. I was thinking the op was talking more along the lines of dry land hay. I mean who is going to put chickens out under a circle (irrigation) on a hay field?

 

[Red-Stars-in-RI]

Dairy farms (at least here) also have a LOT of water going on behind the crap water. I was thinking the op was talking more along the lines of dry land hay. I mean who is going to put chickens out under a circle (irrigation) on a hay field?

Someone who's clearly never heard the expression "madder than a wet hen"!

 

[Kirkwooder]

Dairy farms (at least here) also have a LOT of water going on behind the crap water. I was thinking the op was talking more along the lines of dry land hay. I mean who is going to put chickens out under a circle (irrigation) on a hay field?

Here in Western New York, I've never noticed any farms irrigating hay. I believe we have enough rainfall most years to make it unnecessary. Same concept though.the rainfall would wash the chicken manure into the soil the same as the cow manure. The chickens would need to be rotated out in sufficient time before harvest to insure clean hay.

 

[Cattle dog Mom]

Here in Western New York, I've never noticed any farms irrigating hay. I believe we have enough rainfall most years to make it unnecessary. Same concept though.the rainfall would wash the chicken manure into the soil the same as the cow manure. The chickens would need to be rotated out in sufficient time before harvest to insure clean hay.

I'm in central WA in a MAJOR hay growing area. (Much if it is for export.) We might get 6 or 7 inches or rain in a YEAR. So most grow hay under irrigation. And with as hot as it gets here in the summer, it takes a LOOOT of water And depending on the year get sometimes 4 or 5 cuttings a year. We have dry land alfalfa and only get 1 cutting.

 

[Kirkwooder]

Here most big dairies start cutting hay, mostly clover and alfalfa, the first week of may and cut every 2-3 weeks until it dries off in August. 4-5 cuttings. 51" of rain in the average year.