Gotta ask...why?

[mhegge]

Yes, I am a newbie, but I have to know...if our chickens free range all day, why do we need to do feed, grit, calcium, etc? Won't the chickens naturally seek out what their bodies need? I just can't help but think if it was necessary then how did chickens survive before all of this food...not to mention heat lamp etc. Not trying to start anything just curious.i kept picturing Little House on the Prairie and wondering how they did it.

 

[Blooie]

Well, in the early days of chick raising (ala Little House) they had kerosene heaters and huge metal cone looking things to use as brooders. I grew up not far from DeSmet South Dakota and lots of old timers (my grandparents included) used those. I had actually forgotten about it until some else on the forum last summer mentioned it. In Egypt waaayy back when, they brooded chicks using beehive shaped thingys with fire and the sand held in the heat - when they brooded them at all. Most earlier chicken raisers, though, just figured that roos would breed hens, hens would lay eggs and eventually set some, and raise them naturally or there just wouldn't be any chicks. BTW, I don't brood chicks indoors using heat lamps, either. I brood them right outside in the run with a heating pad and a cave.

As far as feeding, yep, you are right - foraging chickens get a lot of the grit they need from their environment. As far as calcium goes, their bodies take calcium for egg production from their bones. But there normally isn't a ready supply of calcium in most chicken yards. So you get chickens who lay pretty good eggs - for awhile. Then as their bodies' calcium drops, they just sort of fade out of egg production for awhile, or fade away completely. So why not feed them good quality food with additional grit and oyster shells. Seems a small price to pay for what we're asking of those little bodies....

That calcium depletion is one of the reasons I don't provide them with supplemental light during the winter months to keep egg production going. I figure the good Lord designed their bodies to function best when they get a rest from egg production during those long, cold months of winter so I'm just going to let them have it. They'll pick back up in the spring and summer and I can wait. I got eggs from my girls all winter last year, but that's not unusual during their first laying year. This year I'm sure it will be different with the older girls, but I have new pullets who are laying now so I'll still get some eggs. But to lay or not to lay - that's up to them, not me. There are others who do supplement light and they are happy with that. I have no problem with them doing that either. I just choose not to. What's right for me isn't necessarily right for everyone else.

 

[MeepBeep]

I just can't help but think if it was necessary then how did chickens survive before all of this food...

The short answer is that 'ranges' of today are far from what they were 100+ years ago...

In most areas populated by humans we have been spraying pesticides and herbicides, and/or simply been destroying natural habitat at will for decades upon decades... The number of bugs and the variety of vegetation per acre is far different now...

Also habitat changes by area, not all areas provide a plentiful supply of everything that is needed...

Consider also that back in the day a majority of the people were not just raising chickens in the area, they were also raising other livestock and the manure from that livestock as well as people waste due to no garbage service or indoor toilets provided a natural source of food for the chickens or created a breeding ground for bugs and critters to feed the chickens...

Also, most people simply don't have the acreage that people had back then, nor were most neighbors back then all that concerned if a chicken crossed a property line to forage...

And last but no least, expected production levels were generally lower since they were most heritage breeds, not today's high production breeds and fast growing meaties...

 

[Blooie]

Yeah, what MP said up there ________________^

 

[mhegge]

Very good information, thank you. We're really more of the minimalist and old fashioned mind set and my husband, who grew up farming by the way, keeps reassuring me too that animals are stronger than we think and will seek what they need. Mind you, we live on 3 acres in the middle of nowhere on an old farm with a pond and a plethora or bugs, frogs, plants, and so on. We only have 5 hens and a rooster so I know the acreage is plenty and like I said, they free range all day. I fully expect egg production to slow in the winter as noted and agree, there is a reason for it all

 

[MeepBeep]

Very good information, thank you. We're really more of the minimalist and old fashioned mind set and my husband, who grew up farming by the way, keeps reassuring me too that animals are stronger than we think and will seek what they need. Mind you, we live on 3 acres in the middle of nowhere on an old farm with a pond and a plethora or bugs, frogs, plants, and so on. We only have 5 hens and a rooster so I know the acreage is plenty and like I said, they free range all day. I fully expect egg production to slow in the winter as noted and agree, there is a reason for it all

Even with all that, it's not overly costly or that troublesome to offer 24/7 access to a balancedl feed and a calcium supplement to fill in any potential nutritional gaps...

If they free range all day, a 50lb bag of feed and a 25 or 50lb bag of oyster shells will last a long time and you can be assured they are getting what they need at all times, something that will likely pay for itself exponentially in the end in the birds superior health and higher production levels...

 

[glib]

Your way of reasoning is sound and will certainly work for, say, rabbits, or even pigs. But chickens are different because they are tropical animals, and they lay eggs at a very unnatural rate and for very long times.
So

1) need extra proteins due to the much increased protein loss from laying
2) need relatively more extra calcium, same reason
3) chicks need warmth due to a combination of being a tropical animal and getting much of their warmth from the hen (pigs are animals from temperate areas, and rabbits from temperate and cold areas).

I note that piglets need warmth too, and like infrared lamps, although less than chicks. In fact, if you want to collect the piglets for castration/vaccination, the easiest way is to set up a box with a heat lamp, then close the box and take them away.

 

[MeepBeep]

Another thing I missed about the 'olden days' in regards to heat... The other animals manure not only provided a growing bed of food, it also was a natural radiant source of heat as it composed, add that to the body heat of other animals in the barn and even on cold days the barns of old even when not heated with artificial means they had natural heat...

Some interesting trivia, a single cow gives off about 4,400 btu's of heat per hour, that is about equivalent to about a 1300 Watt space heater, enough heat to heat a small room in a house...

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

MeepBeep and Blooie have fairly well covered it. I completely understand being minimalist in your approach. I provide basic shelter, food (a basic poultry ration and table scraps) and water. On the matter of grit and oyster shell specifically, you have to consider the way many of the home flocks are kept -- birds can, and will, seek out what they need - but for them to be able to find and take in that nutrient or item it must be present in their environment. Many flocks are kept in/on soil or areas where there is not a lot of natural grit materiel to be picked up and taken in and calcium is even less likely to be readily available in the natural environment in an amount sufficient to support the needs of laying hens. Grit is one item that many can get away with not supplementing - and those who feed layer ration with "built in" calcium content can generally get away without offering additional calcium in the form of oyster shell, but the cost of each is so minimal that they fall in my "better to have and not need than to need and not have" category of provisions I will make for my flock.
As for heat - in the "old days" chicks were commonly brooded by a mother hen, thus no need for supplemental heat. Further, supplemental heat is truly only needed for the very first few weeks - healthy, fully-feathered birds of most breeds have no need of any supplemental heat. Chicks raised here not by a broody hen are only given heat to the 4-5 week mark (as dictated by season in which they are being raised and how quickly they reach the feathered and able to self-regulate stage) -- I have no electricity so no lighting and no heat in my main coop.

 

[mhegge]

So specifically for grit, if they're put all day and we have plenty of gravel crushed shale, with a lot of crushed shale around the coop actually, do I provide grit? Right now we provide some crumble and table scraps twice a day and they free range for 10 hours or so. We're way out in the country, no neighbors, lot of great land for them to forage and boy do they.