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Absolutely. Energy is what the birds' instincts are demanding they store up on for winter. Sunflower seeds are a fantastic way to help fatten up the birds for winter. A decent wild bird suet packed with nuts and fruit or the cayenne nuggets- important to put out once every other week or so during evening feeding -at the onset of cooler temperatures and at the onset of warmer weather in spring. During the coldest weather don't skimp find a high quality - optimally nutritious ameliorated suet- BabyCakes and other nut dough logs will prove very important- and this is for birds confined during the coldest months as well as those able to forage free run in warmer climates. If you are working with valuable stock that you want to survive for many years you've got to meet all their nutritional requirements in a fat soluble supplement during winter months. Babycakes are my first choice naturally as they are formulated exclusively for landfowl that require specific nutrients found in invertebrates and oil rich seeds, fatty acid packed roots, nuts and drupes. It's important to really think about everything the birds dig up in a day and try and replicate that, especially in the winter months where there is no access to these optimal foods they forage for in their free range environments.
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I think the best survivors of my flocks over the years are those breeds where males form prides - the fairly monogamous races.
For example, the Mapuche Huastec pride of three males (never four for some reason) only associate with four to five hens though will tolerate a few more.
The males are never more than a few feet or yards from one another and the hens. Perhaps some of the more commercial breeds and strains have lost a great deal of their instincts and common sense? Game Fowl tend to be non-flocking in the truest sense of the word. Each hen and rooster is capable of defending themselves against most predators due to their size and pugilistic qualities. One consequence of the scarcity of food in the scorched and deforested human environments one experiences in the subtropics, is that domestic fowl scatter far and wide to find adequate food.
Even these archaic races will rush in and gang up on any potential predator, especially snakes, monitor lizards and those day hunting jungle owls and the ever dreaded hawk-eagles.
But its important ro remember that all the heavy breeds have a great deal of Malay genetics in them- even if its via Black Java.
Unpaired males with no territories of their own tend to wander further afield and this actually serves the core social units as these bachelor parties tend to run into trouble before their parents do.
This doesn't mean there are never mortalities and near misses. One of the old Huastec hens in this photo was hit by a goshawk and nearly taken but all three roosters flew into action, deterring the raptor, which we rescued from serious harm as the pride assaulted her obsessively, eventually attracting the peafowl. Peafowl kill birds of prey. We love birds of prey even though they do seem to take quite a few young of the year and even some of our favorite adults including roosters every year. That said, the arable parts of the farm is spread out over 8o acres and the birds live in five different regions within that footprint.
They truly live outdoors.
Iowa Blues are reportedly the very best hen protectors of all and their hens are great layers.
