Free choice feeding vs. Scheduled feeding; opinions??

[KIMEng]

I like to provide enough food in the early morning to keep them fed till about noon. The balance of the day they forage on their own. I try to keep tabs on how far they go and the level of crop fill immediately after they go to roost. Ideally they do not range too far and have nearly full crop at bedtime. If either ranging to far or crop less that nearly full then I increase allotment the following morning. If feed still present at end of work day I reduce allotment.

I'm a new member and basically a new chicken mamma, can you explain to me "crop fill" do you have pictures of an empty crop vs a full crop? Thank you

 

[centrarchid]

Give me till tonight.

 

[centrarchid]

And I agree with your post about forages, just that adjustments are difficult, especially for people with 'backyards', not managed forage plots or pastures, or extensive experience.
Mary

A big chunk of my ground about 20 birds forage is mowed lawn that would not pass a neighborhood Association inspection. It does provide some eats. The managed part is at best 1.5 acres and that gets the most attention by foraging birds. In photo graphs a lot will like managed less than mowed lawn.

 

[centrarchid]

I have effectively 3 flocks with non-overlapping home ranges. The flock most revalent to this thread is centered on the house with area a little more than three mowed acres. The area is multipurpose to provide play area for kids, a relatively tick-free perimeter and a place for my special purpose chickens. Most looks like this.

About three quarters of the perimeter is bordered by either cool season grass or early successional trees which are both very productive for insect forages, but barely penetrated by chickens (seldom more than 20 feet).

The birds forage the area in a manner that indicates they have preferences. Part of the day they forage the open areas, especially in the early morning as they are presumably gleaning night flying insects that have yet to seek cover for the day. Once dew is gone they move into shady areas. By this time they have crop fill from a combination of forages and feed, the birds then settle into the heavier patches of cover to preen and otherwise loaf. After a couple hours their crops are largely depleted and they resume foraging in the shaded areas. The feeding station is in one of those areas but they seem to prefer forages over the feed most of the time. From noon till about 5 PM they settle down in shaded areas again to avoid heat. Then they come out to forage in earnest. They can cover entire area, but they again invest most time around edges and another area that is something that others may find of interest. Relative to the area involved, they spend proportionally far more time in the strips of vegetation in orchard that has not been mowed for a couple months and is now about 16" tall. See strips below that represent about 0.25 acres including mowed areas in between.

Several juveniles foraging the deeper patches. They cross the more tightly mowed areas, but spend far more time foraging the deeper stuff.

The concentrate most of their activity on the denser growth that is younger as well when compared to perimeter vegetation.


@KIMEng Assessing crop fill. Several images to show a couple cockerels from different
angles with distended crops. The distended crop appears as a lump offset slightly to right below where neck inserts into the breast region. Birds with depleted crop are flat in the same region and from front appear more symmetrical.

When you touch is you can often feel particulates the bird has consumed. If they are eating a lot of vegetative greens or a small particulate feed, the contents are much like peanut butter. My birds are OK with me feeling them up although I can usually tell at a glance if their crop is distended.

I acknowledge the birds shown represent a breed that is not used by most. I also have about 30 American Dominiques, mostly hens, that can be assessed in the same manner. I like to have roost oriented so I can see the crop on about have the hens in a given pen as closing door for the night. The are not assessed every night. I can also get a good handle on what is going based on how far afeild the birds are foraging as I do work around house. When intake is really coming up short for the flock around house, they start crossing the road. Crossing the road is a problem for some and I can manage against it relatively easily.

 

[KIMEng]

Wow THANK YOU! GREAT TUTORIAL OF CROP FILL!!! I really appreciate this. I love the pics of your land and hens, visual cues are nice! As I have recently noticed some "pecking order" going on with my girls; I have 3. I have some assessing to do of my girls crop fill, I have noticed a bit of pecking order going on lately, my Barred Rock is being very territorial over the feeder lately running off my lead laying pullet, Buff Orpington, even my biggest girl, a Silver Laced Wyandotte, is being nudge away, She has never been like this before the BR and SLW lay an egg about every 2 -3 days, the BO literally every morning, like clock work. They started laying around 16 wks which I hear is a bit early, maybe the BR wants more food, idk. I'm thinking about putting down a second feeder so the other girls have their own and miss bossy BR can be territorial over her own and the other girls can eat in peace, what do you think? I would love to free range them more, they love the clover, but we had 1 of our girls taken by a raccoon, and I don't FR unless I'm out there with them. I'm in FL so trying to out smart a lot of predators!

 

[centrarchid]

Wow THANK YOU! GREAT TUTORIAL OF CROP FILL!!! I really appreciate this. I love the pics of your land and hens, visual cues are nice! As I have recently noticed some "pecking order" going on with my girls; I have 3. I have some assessing to do of my girls crop fill, I have noticed a bit of pecking order going on lately, my Barred Rock is being very territorial over the feeder lately running off my lead laying pullet, Buff Orpington, even my biggest girl, a Silver Laced Wyandotte, is being nudge away, She has never been like this before the BR and SLW lay an egg about every 2 -3 days, the BO literally every morning, like clock work. They started laying around 16 wks which I hear is a bit early, maybe the BR wants more food, idk. I'm thinking about putting down a second feeder so the other girls have their own and miss bossy BR can be territorial over her own and the other girls can eat in peace, what do you think? I would love to free range them more, they love the clover, but we had 1 of our girls taken by a raccoon, and I don't FR unless I'm out there with them. I'm in FL so trying to out smart a lot of predators!

Multiple feeders can reduce pecking order issues. I like to place the feeders where they have cover. When doing the free-range bit, predator issues are almost always a concern and are definitely an import part of what OP of this thread should be considering. I have to devote a lot resources towards keeping losses to predators low. I wrote low, not zero. If you have a very small flock, then striving for zero more important and also easier to do. I could keep a 12 bird flock with an extremely low loss rate, but with a hundred plus sometimes running around you are trying to protect chickens over a much larger area if trying to have forages making a significant dent in your feed bill.

 

[Maugwa]

I started out with feeders kept full for full time food available. But after trying several feeders, even making some of my own that were supposed to be waste free, I found some work better than others, but nothing is waste free. I've had better luck figuring how much of certain feeds for each bird per day, dividing it in half, and spreading it by hand twice a day when I'm home. This is for chickens that free range most of the time. They have a run, but I don't toss their feed there, I find cleaner open areas without too much vegetation, along paths, etc., so they see most, and I see too if they left some. It seems with a feeder there is always a ring of feed around it that they are not interested in cleaning up, especially if more feed keeps coming out, but if I scatter feed on the ground and check in an hour, it's hard to find any. I scatter it enough that they all get some and the bossy ones can't hog too much, even though they still try to. I still have and use feeders in their run if I'm working out of town, or if it's muddy, or snow, but I prefer broadcast spreading on the ground, new spots away from the run as much as I can. You can kind of guide them, for a while, to areas you want foraged more like this -- while they hunt for the last scraps of a feeding, they begin foraging where you fed and tend to hang around there at least till they're sure the feed is gone. I may even reserve the last couple of handfuls to toss into a weedy area to get the chickens to knock it down some, depending on the size and texture of the weeds, and the probability that the chickens will find most of the feed.

 

[Attila the Hen]

I have feed available inside the coop and outside under cover from rain. They don’t eat much of it as they free range and get too many treats. (I know!).
I am always concerned about mold in the food so I don’t fill the feeder and I clean up any left outside bowl regularly. I still end up tossing too much feed. Have about 50 chickens and it takes months to go through a bag. Keep it stored in metal can to prevent mold.

 

[centrarchid]

I have feed available inside the coop and outside under cover from rain. They don’t eat much of it as they free range and get too many treats. (I know!).
I am always concerned about mold in the food so I don’t fill the feeder and I clean up any left outside bowl regularly. I still end up tossing too much feed. Have about 50 chickens and it takes months to go through a bag. Keep it stored in metal can to prevent mold.

If they are consuming a good balance of rapidly growing greens and insects, I do not consider them to be eating treats in the slightest. The best feed you can is not as good a properly balanced forage unless you are back to the high producers that simply cannot consume enough forage to meet their needs. A major drawback of the forages is their high moisture content and the effort required to consume them.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Forage is better than commercial feed?