Debate on food, free range and egg quality...

[Shadrach]

You are arguing a straw man, and are incorrect on the fcsts as well.

DEFINITIONALLY, Essential (or Critical) Amino Acids are ones which the body can't produce. Its a Scientific FACT. The only source is the diet. As I said.

We, Apes, Bears, Badgers, Cats, Dogs, Chickens, and every other vertebrate share that fact in common.

If they don't get it in the diet, they can't make a complete protein. Simple as that.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK557845/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4935284/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3287585/

etc.

I said nothing about the need for commercial feed (in this post), only pointed out that two of the essentials are considered important enough to appear on our feed labels (though not elsewhere) and the others were generally ignored (with an offering as to why they are generally ignored).

Now it may be that certain flocks, under certain conditions, with certain forage can meet their nutritional needs solely from the environment - but they aren't making those essential AAs on their own, they are eating them. If they don't get enough, they will suffer for it. Simple fact - they lack the ability to create them biologically.

If we are to discuss chicken nutrition, and their needs for optimum production, I think it best to dispel ignorance and magical thinking, focus our efforts on the most critical needs. Or accept that by revelling in personal ignorance and the hope that they will do fine on their own, we cast their lot upon the vagaries of fate - most likely resulting in smaller, less productive, less robust birds. The difference between living, and thriving.

I have never suggested anything different.
With some reluctance I'm going to put you on ignore.
Yes, you've read a great deal on nutrition and some of what you write is relevant information. Unfortunately you don't know much about chickens it seems and while nutrition science is important one always needs to apply context and this is what I find lacking in your posts.

 

[Shadrach]

Not an idiot -- but a newbie who has no real knowledge and a lot of romantic ideas about "grandma's chickens on the farm".

OR a person who has read about free-ranging in superficial, feel-good articles and has no idea of the limitations of the concept or about the fact that only certain chicken breeds are capable of thriving under those conditions, that certain environments can't support them at certain times of year, or even that there are such fundamental differences between chicken breeds.

"Homesteading" books, websites, YouTube channels, etc. are often long on romanticism and short on realistic limitations and tradeoffs. One book we have actually said that the way they took a rest-day break from all the hard work of living off their land (plus their book royalties and article payments), and producing/processing all their food from scratch was "we just don't eat that day," -- not a solution that most people would find practical.

Ignorance =/= idiocy.

Yes fair enough.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Would you expect that the jungle fowl got their Methionine / Lysine from eating small animals? Perhaps a key to successful foraging would be an abundance of small animals and birds able to get them. (still problematic for most people/locations)

Yes, I expect that ancient (and to lesser extent, modern) jungle fowl had much lesser nutritional needs than modern (hatchery or similar) birds, and thus more readily met those needs thru complete (likely insect, primarily) protein sources in the environment. Which likely accounts in part for their reduced traditional ranges compared to the spread of modern poultry under man's care. That acceptable levels of "survival" (that is, what was seen as normal) was informed by a lack of comparitive example (that is, we didn't know any better).

Subsequent increases in bird size, frequency of lay, size of egg all came about as man learned what could be done, with selective breeding and improved diet both. But at the cost of higher nutritional needs.

Evidence of that can be found as recently as the last 50 years, comparing the studies of nutritional needs of production hens from the 60s and 70s with today. While there is broad agreement, the trend has been towards increasing needs almost across the board. Which is exactly what you would expect in any physical system - to get more out, you need to put more in. There is no "free lunch" in physics.

Again, I'm not opposed to free ranging. I do it myself with my own birds.
I am opposed to the romantic nonsense of those who assume that if they turn their birds loose in any old field, they will somehow magically get what they need to thrive. Because "history" or something. Maybe they do. Likely they won't - and the more modern the bird, the more likely they won't.

That's ok too - its part of intelligent risk management. If you understand that to be a risk you are willing to take, and you choose to do so - its a knowing trade-off, and one whose odds you can impact with intelligent plantings. If you don't understand the nutrition, and simply assume... Well, that's the ignorant magical thinking I'm so often on a soap box about.

 

[Shadrach]

Nice list. I am chewing on a list myself.
So I am thinking of making two extra runs, each about 18 x 18.

Logs and other decaying matter might be just as crucial as the growing things?
Planning to till up the ground well and saturated with organic matter before I begin planting. I am sure a natural old wooded forest floor would be ideal, but not always available. That was the OP idea. A well mowed lawn may not give the same "free range" or "pastured" nutrients as those that free range in a woods or prairie... but then they won't have the same dangers, either, but that has nothing to do with their nutrition...
So in order to create a "slice" of a natural environment, I thought I would create a couple extra runs, and restricts access until everything has had a chance to grow, then allow them access a few hours each day to forage and enjoy. If one of these aux runs becomes to damaged, I can go in correct and give it time to regrow before allowing access again.
I would think that an well engineered (nutritive dense) space would be better than an empty lawn.

I found that decaying trees produced an abundance of bugs but not as many as I would have thought appealed to chiickens. There was a beetle we called slaters that the chickens would eat if they could get them before the Muscovy ducks.
Some of the bugs the chickens ate were tiny and I only managed to identify two or three with any certainity.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

Yes, I expect that ancient (and to lesser extent, modern) jungle fowl had much lesser nutritional needs than modern (hatchery or similar) birds, and thus more readily met those needs thru complete (likely insect, primarily) protein sources in the environment. Which likely accounts in part for their reduced traditional ranges compared to the spread of modern poultry under man's care. That acceptable levels of "survival" (that is, what was seen as normal) was informed by a lack of comparitive example (that is, we didn't know any better).

Subsequent increases in bird size, frequency of lay, size of egg all came about as man learned what could be done, with selective breeding and improved diet both. But at the cost of higher nutritional needs.

Evidence of that can be found as recently as the last 50 years, comparing the studies of nutritional needs of production hens from the 60s and 70s with today. While there is broad agreement, the trend has been towards increasing needs almost across the board. Which is exactly what you would expect in any physical system - to get more out, you need to put more in. There is no "free lunch" in physics.

Again, I'm not opposed to free ranging. I do it myself with my own birds.
I am opposed to the romantic nonsense of those who assume that if they turn their birds loose in any old field, they will somehow magically get what they need to thrive. Because "history" or something. Maybe they do. Likely they won't - and the more modern the bird, the more likely they won't.

That's ok too - its part of intelligent risk management. If you understand that to be a risk you are willing to take, and you choose to do so - its a knowing trade-off, and one whose odds you can impact with intelligent plantings. If you don't understand the nutrition, and simply assume... Well, that's the ignorant magical thinking I'm so often on a soap box about.

Its not magical thinking. Its the norm of how many in the third world still raise their chickens and was the norm in much of the US with how they raised their gamefowl. Do you think it is a myth that bankivoid gamefowl and derivative mixes mostly or entirely take care of themselves in free range settings?

 

[Badchickenpun]

I found that decaying trees produced an abundance of bugs but not as many as I would have thought appealed to chiickens. There was a beetle we called slaters that the chickens would eat if they could get them before the Muscovy ducks.
Some of the bugs the chickens ate were tiny and I only managed to identify two or three with any certainity.

I would think that logs with bark will add different things than no bark...
I have a pile of bark from chopping wood, would that be good to throw into the coop? Mostly ash I think.
Maybe turning and moving logs around periodically in a run might be good to reveal some bugs and such for the chickens.
I am sure that they have their favorites. As the garden matures, they will be getting more scraps from the tomatoes and such...
When I find grubs, I try to bring them to the chicks... They love it when I bring mulberries.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Its not magical thinking. Its the norm of how many in the third world still raise their chickens and was the norm in much of the US with how they raised their gamefowl. Do you think it is a myth that bankivoid gamefowl and derivative mixes mostly or entirely take care of themselves in free range settings?

I said THRIVE. Not live. There is a very significant difference. I actually read a lot of the thirds (and developing world) research on poultry nutrition to see what other ingredients are out there, to get ideas for things to try out.

But since you bring up the third world, I'll offer an illustration which may help you distinguish betyween my use of live and thrive.

The people of North Korea and South Korea are genetically, essentially one people. They've only been divided politically in the modern era. Obviously, man has lived there for thousands of years. LIVED. To the people of the still third world North Korea, men there look normal, natural, more or less as they have for thousands, or perhaps tens of thousands of years - living a lifestyle not much changed from their ancient forebearers.

When a North Korean male crosses the border and is compared with his South Korean counterpart, benefiting from greatly improvced diet, its obvious that the South Korean man is, comparatively, THRIVE-ing. He's pounds heavier, inches taller, has a generally more robust immune system - even before accounting for improvements in modern medicine.

Now that comparison becomes increasingly less fair as the South Korean populace increasingly intermingles with more diverse genetic populations - but the studies and observations first noting the significant visual differences in size, weight, and general health trace back to the 70s and 80s.

Same with our birds. Its perfectly reasonable to expect some birds to live, in some conditions, much like their ancient forebearers, produce like their ancient forebearers, under circumstances much like their ancient forebearers. But compared to a modern breed under more modern conditions, those birds can't be said to thrive. Heck, even taking those more ancient game fowl and providing them no change other than a more modern diet will result in birds which measurably and consistently outperform their "natural" counterparts in essentially every way.

 

[Shadrach]

Its not magical thinking. Its the norm of how many in the third world still raise their chickens and was the norm in much of the US with how they raised their gamefowl. Do you think it is a myth that bankivoid gamefowl and derivative mixes mostly or entirely take care of themselves in free range settings?

Where I live in Catalonia very few of the chickens people kept got fed commercial feed. Most seemed to live to ripe old age. What most did get was household scraps in addition to what they foraged. But, these were not the standard hatchery breeds I mainly see on these forums. Many were carefully selected crosses which improved egg laying performance but not to the extent that the foraging and free range keeping abilities were hindered.
One favourite crosses around the village I lived near was the Black Minorcan with an unknown bantam breed. They had been going for a couple of centuries at least I was told.
I've come accross a breed in Senegal that has apparently also been going for centuries and is now considered a land race breed. They laid about 80 eggs a year and by USA standards wouldn't be considere large enough to make a decent meal. Their main source of protein was peanuts which grew there.
I think part of the problem on threads such as this is the majority of people don't know the breeds kept in free range conditions in other countries and the bulk of their information is aquired from either the main production breeds or the more popular so called heritage breeds. There are hundreds of breeds in the world and knowing which breeds fare best in a set of given conditions and then being able to aquire such breeds could be a lifetimes study.

 

[Krugerrand]

I have to say, I find these conversations fascinating. There's no way my 1/2 acre lot in SW PA could support birds without my feeding them. The kids would be extremely sad if we lost one to a predator. So, they only get out of their secure run occasion.ally throughout the week.

One thing I don't understand on the full-forage approach is how does one harvest? The point of having chickens is typicall eggs and or meat. Toss in some personal enjoyment in there. But, what keeps the chickens around to get the eggs/meat if they don't come back for food? Is it the coop? I would think that would only be so much of a draw.

 

[3KillerBs]

The historical chickenkeeping book in this thread: https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/poultry-for-the-farm-and-home.1443907/ Poultry for the Farm and Home, was written in 1921 with the goal of teaching farmers how to get a then-profitable 100 eggs per hen per year -- from LEGHORNS.

The Brahma I sold last night to an ornamental lawn flock home was the worst layer in my flock and she did better than that.

I don't think that most people today would find the low productivity of a century ago acceptable -- especially since the eggs produced would be small-to-medium when all modern recipes assume a Large egg (2oz or 60g).

The game chicken thing is all well and good for situations where it applies. Assuming you have the space to house them, the land to range them on, the climate and ecology to provide for them (my own area is described as an "impoverished" ecosystem based on poor soils and resulting lack of species diversity), and the willingness to hunt nests when they decide not to accept the housing provided.

Likewise the third world landraces, where *some* supplemental protein in people's diets at minimal or no cost beats *no* supplemental protein at all.

Even the heritage-type Dual Purpose breeds were developed because many people wanted more out of their chickens than that.

It's not wrong, but it's got limited applicability, at least in the modern west and, most particularly, where the land available ranges from an urban backyard to a small hobby farm/homestead of a few acres to a few tens of acres.