This was posted on the APPPA yahoo group forum in response to a question regarding the nutritional benefits of pasture. He cites to some numbers regarding egg production on traditional farms which some of you might find interesting, I know I did. It was posted by Mr. Robert Plamandon.
The economics of egg production have been measured in great detail for over 100 years. During most of that period, modern hybrids didn't exist. When I reviewed the literature of the 20th century, the following conclusions seemed universal:
* Pasture alone can feed only a very small number of hens. The only source that I saw venture a stocking density for fully unfed hens was by Brown, around 1900, where he estimated that 1-2 hens per acre could be sustained this way (in England). Such hens will be underfed much of the year and will lay only in spring.
* Traditional farms involve, among other things, cattle and horses spilling a lot of grain. This, along with other waste products, can support a small flock of chickens year-round. In 1900, this was the standard way of keeping hens, and the average hen produced only 83 eggs.
* In the same period, hens from high-producing strains would produce between 125 and 150 eggs per year, when fed all they wanted, including grain and a protein supplement (typically steamed beef scrap), given outdoor range, and fed green feed every day.
* "You can't starve profit into a cow." Profitability has always been highly correlated to the availability of wholesome and well-balanced feed. Pasture is very high in protein, high in vitamins, and okay in minerals, but it's way short on calories -- and it's only digestible when it's green.
* Careful estimates I've seen on the nutritional benefits of pasture for hens range from none to about 30%. The latter value was for summertime only. 10% is often quoted. I'm convinced that, during much of the year, my own flock eats MORE feed than a confined flock would, because foraging in damp Oregon winters forces much of the food energy to be used just to keep warm.
* Back when people kept all kinds of poultry on pasture, no one ever claimed that hybrid layers foraged less than standard breeds. If anything, people claimed the opposite, noting the vigor of the hybrids. I see this myself. My hybrid Leghorns and Black Sex-Links are driving us crazy at the moment, since a fence-savvy cadre of veteran escapees is always in the garden. Meanwhile, the Barred Rocks stay home.
* Chickens are destructive to pasture and typically don't range far. Hence, portable houses. You just move the chickens away from the problem -- end of problem.With hens, you can do this just a few times a year, so it's no big deal if the fence is reasonably easy to move, and the house isn't too big for your tractor. With fixed houses and two or more yards, the yards have to be plowed and reseeded, or, within a couple of years, the manure buildup will make it hard to establish grass there. Also, pathogens don't build up as much if you plow them under. (So if you use yards, they should be tractor-friendly.)
For us, the key to profitability has always been in selling the eggs at high prices, not in saving on feed costs. Our pasture management uses lots of acreage to allow looser management, less labor, and the ability to abandon a bare patch of ground for a season or two, move the hens, and have the option of letting the bare patch take as long as it likes to recover, because there's plenty more pasture where that came from. Fencing the hens in too tightly is like a straitjacket on the farmer.
(Karen just had an interesting experience of the power of selling -- she went to one of the stores that sells our eggs and offered hard-boiled egg samples to shoppers for two hours. On one of the slowest shopping days of the week, the store sold more of our $4.99 eggs in two hours than they had in the previous week! And we can hope that at least some of these customers will stick with us long-term. Another store has chosen to price our eggs well above the others, and we're selling better there -- "on sale" at $5.99 per dozen -- than at the other store. Prices are way more important to the farmer than the consumer.)
