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

[Badchickenpun]

you are confusing mealworms with earthworms.

One thing to add ... you folks doing breeding projects and maintaining your own 'barnyard mixes' do so much to further the cause of raising chickens. Granted, as this thread has made clear, there are so many different things people want to get out of their chicken experience. In some cases, chicks from Tractor Supply or a big-time hatchery fit the bill. But, it's the local mixes that, over time, can really become the perfect fit for a location or a desired 'chicken use.' It reminds me of getting great heirloom beans from a local gardener who has been carefully savings seeds year after year.

I wish I could contribute in that way, but alas that's not feasible for me. My hope is when i buy my next pullets, they will be from somebody making their own barnyard mix nearby. I've seen some options on Craigslist, but I'm not ready to pull the trigger yet. I guess that's a contribution in a small way.

I love the idea of shopping local, but I don't trust people on craigslist or through FB marketplace... I just don't... If I happen to find out that I work with someone (my employers is the second largest int he county) that is raising chicks and has some for sale, I would do that... but not with a complete stranger in a random location...

 

[Shadrach]

@

Weather is about to get bad here. If weather permits I’ll take pics of my setup this evening and show step by step how I lure them in and maintain them. Its easy, something I learned in childhood.

I would be interested in seeing your setup.
You can get a rough idea of what I had from my coop page.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

I would be interested in seeing your setup.
You can get a rough idea of what I had from my coop page.

I started a thread here:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/easy-cultivation-of-black-soldier-fly-larvae.1538504/

I don’t know that my brooder setup is as important as what I use for bait. The BSF love them some nasty chick-poop-feed sludge.

 

[saysfaa]

One thing to add ... you folks doing breeding projects and maintaining your own 'barnyard mixes' do so much to further the cause of raising chickens. Granted, as this thread has made clear, there are so many different things people want to get out of their chicken experience. In some cases, chicks from Tractor Supply or a big-time hatchery fit the bill. But, it's the local mixes that, over time, can really become the perfect fit for a location or a desired 'chicken use.' It reminds me of getting great heirloom beans from a local gardener who has been carefully savings seeds year after year.

I wish I could contribute in that way, but alas that's not feasible for me. My hope is when i buy my next pullets, they will be from somebody making their own barnyard mix nearby. I've seen some options on Craigslist, but I'm not ready to pull the trigger yet. I guess that's a contribution in a small way.

^^ I like this conceptually. In practice, the barnyard mixes I've seen seem to consist mostly of random mixes of breeds that people picked from hatcheries or feed stores. Often because they were the latest fad. Rarely, there is a stated goal - usually when there is, it boils down to making something different for the sake of being different (a new color in an established breed, for example.)

Even if someone were trying to develop a breed (edit: landrace, strain, line, whatever) best suited to sustainability In my area, I doubt that would help me. I would value structurally sound, immunilogically sound, tolerates stresses easily, production responsive to feed input, and such. Trying to not feed them doesn't make any sense to me. Feeding them differently (feeding them off the forest or pasture vs in a bowl) does but then I'd be feeding (managing) the forest or field. That isn't easier if you do it right.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

^^ I like this conceptually. In practice, the barnyard mixes I've seen seem to consist mostly of random mixes of breeds that people picked from hatcheries or feed stores. Often because they were the latest fad. Rarely, there is a stated goal - usually when there is, it boils down to making something different for the sake of being different (a new color in an established breed, for example.)

Even if someone were trying to develop a breed best suited to sustainability In my area, I doubt that would help me. I would value structurally sound, immunilogically sound, tolerates stresses easily, production responsive to feed input, and such. Trying to not feed them doesn't make any sense to me. Feeding them differently (feeding them off the forest or pasture vs in a bowl) does but then I'd be feeding (managing) the forest or field. That isn't easier if you do it right.

^^^ its a struggle. I've made a couple steps on that path over the last 18? months, but have a long way to go. at best, I'll eventually have something closr to a landrace than a breed.

 

[3KillerBs]

Rarely, there is a stated goal - usually when there is, it boils down to making something different for the sake of being different (a new color in an established breed, for example.)

*nods*

My nascent project is just that sort of thing. I think that Silver-Laced hens are the prettiest birds around. But there is no Silver-Laced breed that's well-suited to hot climates. So I've gotten some Silver-Laced Wyandottes to cross with my Australorps in order to, after a number of generations, get a Silver-Laced Australorp(ish) bird with that beautiful coloring but an Australorp's suitability for my climate and management style.

I don't NEED to develop a new breed, because Australorps have already been bred to be very nearly exactly what I want out of a chicken -- hardy, early-maturing, easily-sexed when young, productive layers of large eggs, tolerant of hot weather, low-drama in the flock, etc.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

One thing to add ... you folks doing breeding projects and maintaining your own 'barnyard mixes' do so much to further the cause of raising chickens. Granted, as this thread has made clear, there are so many different things people want to get out of their chicken experience. In some cases, chicks from Tractor Supply or a big-time hatchery fit the bill. But, it's the local mixes that, over time, can really become the perfect fit for a location or a desired 'chicken use.' It reminds me of getting great heirloom beans from a local gardener who has been carefully savings seeds year after year.

I wish I could contribute in that way, but alas that's not feasible for me. My hope is when i buy my next pullets, they will be from somebody making their own barnyard mix nearby. I've seen some options on Craigslist, but I'm not ready to pull the trigger yet. I guess that's a contribution in a small way.

The kind of breeding I value is very much like creating and maintaining an heirloom variety of plant. Diverse genetics and hardiness seem to go hand in hand.

I’m actually moving away from maintaining my pure Crackers as the various half-breeds I’m making seem superior both as survivors and for practical human use. My pure Crackers don’t need any help being predator resistant but last year they became very susceptible to coccidiosis. I think I inbred them too tight. I lost entire broods of chicks within days of them hitting green grass for the first time when brooded away from grass for the first few weeks of life. The half-breeds have no such issue.

 

[raingarden]

Many people breeding chickens (and other things) forget to do the first and most important setp. That is, create a vision and a goal of what the end product needs to be. If you do not know where you're going then you cannot get there.

Personally, I think there is way too much emphasis placed on color because color is easy to judge. If you want performance then you need to first figure out how to recognize and quantify peformance so the selection process can go forward.

My pandemic PTSD is making me more paranoid than ever about cooties I don't trust either the backyard/craigs list breeder or the big hatcheries. If I were to get birds from them they would be confined in quarantine for life and only the offspring would be moved around. The standard practice for new livestock introductions is to breed the founding stock and then kill them.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

Many people breeding chickens (and other things) forget to do the first and most important setp. That is, create a vision and a goal of what the end product needs to be. If you do not know where you're going then you cannot get there.

Personally, I think there is way too much emphasis placed on color because color is easy to judge. If you want performance then you need to first figure out how to recognize and quantify peformance so the selection process can go forward.

My pandemic PTSD is making me more paranoid than ever about cooties I don't trust either the backyard/craigs list breeder or the big hatcheries. If I were to get birds from them they would be confined in quarantine for life and only the offspring would be moved around. The standard practice for new livestock introductions is to breed the founding stock and then kill them.

In my case, nature is the primary selector. Either my free range birds live or they don’t.

I have come in behind natural selection and then selected for traits I’ve wanted. Sometimes with no ill effect and other times with major negative effect. I’ve culled many otherwise healthy and rugged roosters because they looked more like the gamefowl side of their ancestry and not the junglefowl side. What I found in generation 4 is that many of my birds were coming out with strong JF traits, including pullets having low pulsing tails when they’d walk and little to no combs. But was I also found is that the gen4s couldn’t handle common sickness, much as pure RJF cannot. The more I selected for superficial RJF traits through tight inbreeding the more I also brought to the surface very tangible traits that were not beneficial to my goal, either due to inbreeding depression or to actually activating negative RJF genes . I believe that by infusing American gamefowl in that has a strong JF look I can freshen up their genes and still select for a RJF appearance, albeit larger than my original hybrids. But I’m learning more that I’m better off keeping selecting for superficial traits at a minimum.

 

[Shadrach]

n my case, nature is the primary selector. Either my free range birds live or they don’t.

This is basically what I got taught on my uncles farm when I was young. He believed it made for a fitter breed. He was also a great believer in cross breeds rather than heritage breeds when it came to keeping free range chickens in the UK. I think he would have chosen local, or land race breeds should he have lived in another country.
It's funny how these early influences in life shape ones views later in life. I haven't been quite as hands off as he was, but with all the free range chickens I've known or worked with, when they leave their coop in the morning they are on their own to a great extent. I put more effort into saving a chicken after a predator attack, or an fight were they got injured if they reached adulthood.
Terrible though it may seem, I didn't spend much time looking for chicks and juveniles after the first couple of losses. About 50% of chicks hatched and reared at my uncles made it, about 60% where I worked in Hertfordshire and in Catalonia for the first couple of years about 30% survival. I've often wondered how these percentages compare to a fully feral group. It took at least two generation for the tribes in Catalonia to adapt better, largely because the seniors showed them the ropes. When I left the survival rate was past 60%.
Like yourself, I place a high value of seniors (hens in particular) and had 8, 9 and 10 year old senior tribe hens.