Developing My Own Breed Of Large Gamefowl For Free Range Survival (Junglefowl x Liege)

[Florida Bullfrog]

Do you have any oaks? If so , are the liege or indo big enough to eat acorns? In our area , turkeys depend heavily on acorns for winter forage. My woods are predominantly oak ,and if I could get chickens that eat acorns, that'd be great!

What little bit of wind we got out of the storm
blew some water oak acorns down. They’ve been cleaned up immediately upon falling.

 

[Appalachian homestead]

View attachment 3275964

What little bit of wind we got out of the storm
blew some water oak acorns down. They’ve been cleaned up immediately upon falling.

this is what the ground looks like at my place
I think a few might be eating them,but not very many.

 

[Appalachian homestead]

Your brother's bird looks like a giant!

 

[Appalachian homestead]

We have bumper crop of acorns this year. If my chickens won't eat them ,my American guinea hogs will once they are bigger. I was doing some research on feeding acorns to pigs and came across a study where they analyzed the fecal egg counts in pigs with and without acorns in their diet . They discovered due to the high tannin content of the acorns, the pigs that ate acorns had significantly fewer internal parasites.
I suspect acorns might work as a natural dewormer for other livestock as well, including chickens.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

View attachment 3275983this is what the ground looks like at my place
I think a few might be eating them,but not very many.

I have a recommendation. Get a nut cracker or a hammer and a flat rock and crack several in front of your chickens and offer the insides to them. Do this on and off for several days. That may teach them that something good is inside. I have done that with my chickens simply for the fun of hand feeding them something they enjoy but I may have been inadvertently teaching them to eat acorns. Buried somewhere in one of my older chicken videos is a clip of me doing this. I’ll try to find it.

 

[Appalachian homestead]

I have a recommendation. Get a nut cracker or a hammer and a flat rock and crack several in front of your chickens and offer the insides to them. Do this on and off for several days. That may teach them that something good is inside. I have done that with my chickens simply for the fun of hand feeding them something they enjoy but I may have been inadvertently teaching them to eat acorns. Buried somewhere in one of my older chicken videos is a clip of me doing this. I’ll try to find it.

That's a good idea. I'll try that when I get time. Thanks!

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

2:10 minute mark shows me hand feeding them some cracked acorns.

It was also common for me to incidentally crack acorns when walking or driving across large matts of acorns and the chickens would follow behind and eat them.

Now the chickens seem to always eat the acorns whole as a deer or turkey often does.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

Report on Project 1; enlarging my Crackers’ body size and otherwise freshening up their genetics.

Lanky has been cooped with two pure Cracker hens for about a month. Both hens were molting when I placed them in. One hen is totally done and is sitting on 8 eggs as of two days ago. The second hen just started laying. I will let the first hen hatch the 8 but I will probably collect the second hen’s eggs. It will depend if the setting hen is good about returning to the right nest. I have seen hens in close quarters trade one nest for another half way through the sit and loose the first batch of eggs. Its often better not to let a second big batch of eggs collect near a setting hen for that reason.

This pen will produce 3/4 Cracker 1/4 American offspring. The 1/4 American genetics comes from the America. hen that has the iridescent blue face and lays blue eggs.

 

[Appalachian homestead]

Is lanky still with the big pullet? Is she laying yet?

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

Is lanky still with the big pullet? Is she laying yet?

She is not laying yet. I took her out after a day. Lanky and the two hens were being rough on her in spite of her larger size. She’s a bit too mentally young to be with two mature no-nonsense hens like them. She’s back with Hei Hei and the two American hens. They have run her around a bit too but there’s more room in that coop for her to get away.