Cornish EXPERIMENT: Free range only vs 50/50

[bnentrup]

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[cassie]

I am not sure you can free range any modern chickens without supplemental feed. Especially little chicks.

 

[bnentrup]

if that be the case, I will need to change the parameters to 'starting' the chickens the SAME method-- I do not think MANY people here would ever object to starting chickens in the most fair/humane way.

Additional Control to add:
Therefore, lets say that starting is weeks 0-2 - After this,then move to the outdoors and the experiment begins from there.

 

[SteveH]

Not wanting to be cruel or insulting , but have you had any experience at all raising chickens ?
We had a small flock of mixed bantams back when I was a child that lived on no supplemental feed other than some table scraps and scratch tossed once and a while to keep them semi-domestic ; but they free ranged both a feedlot and horse pasture where they had access to partially digested grain and bugs in the manure of the horses and cattle , leaves off the alfalfa and clover hay in the winter , even access to the grain in the feed bunks . That flock evolved into something that closey resembled bantam gamefowl in just a few generations . Meaties confined to a tractor pen with nothing other than grass and the very occassional bug ......................

 

[mike67909]

I don't really understand why you are doing this but the free ranging group should be "free ranged" by putting them in a tractor you are limiting what the chicken can eat which won't be enough even when free ranged and the result will be starvation maybe even canabalism which would not be very humane and my guess is they will die.

 

[LeghornJosh]

At the rate my Cornish X boys eat there is no way they would be able to live off of a tractor grass only diet. These birds are not meant to be forragers either, so lazy lol.