Grain-free chickens?

[Davaroo]

So far since I have let my 4 girls free range in my moderate sized backyard all day they eat very little of the feed I mix for them. I also give them treats (sunflowers) and other table scraps. For the most part they seem to prefer the garden greens (broccoli leaves, beat leaves, etc), tomatoes, and hamburger. We have to fence the garden until we are done with a crop just to keep them from devouring everything in their path like locusts. They are not laying yet but them seem healthy and happy, so we will have to see what their production is like when they do. We have a lot of weeds in the backyard so I am debating putting down some seeds and growing barley and/or wheat grass for them to munch on. Has to beat the weeds.

See hearts34's post above.

 

[Davaroo]

The Jungle Fowl don't eat grains, although to be sure they will eat various kinds of seeds and nuts and fruits and all kinds of things, when they can find them. ....There, I said it--sorry if that sounds harsh, but I've gotta call a spade a spade here...

No worries - you are right on all counts. I would consider wild grass seed as grains, though, when you consider wheat, oats, milo and the many others from which we have grown our own staples are nothing more than well... seeds. But I can accept your logic without splitting hairs.
So let us admit that human 'grain' is fed because it is available.

Chickens have very similar nutritional needs as humans, i.e carbohydrates, proteins, fats minerals, vitamins, micro nutrients**.... 16-20% protein, right? Some fats and minerals. Certain vitamins etc. - - AND carbohydrates to equal about 75% of their total intake.
SO, how do people propose to fuel their chickens without the carbohydrates provided by grains? This is the part that confounds me. As you note, chicken does not live by grass alone.

While were calling a shovel a scoop, this whole thing sounds like a foodists imposition upon chickens. Someone reads Rodale Press denouncing grains or we hate Monsanto, and so we want our chickens to follow suit.
Poor chickens.

** The micro nutrient factor is fascinating, by the way.

 

[Zootopia]

Well this thread explains a call I got the other day from a guy who was looking for egg from a "Free Range" flock. Our chickens are free ranged, their are fences on 2 sides of our property but they have access to about 7 acres. We have a couple horses, the pasture behind us has cows and they have ours and the neighbors (not close but they sometimes go there ) yards.
Anyway this guy wanted eggs from flocks not fed any supplemental feed. HaHa, we live in west Texas and it the cows in the pasture behind us nearly starved to death last year. No water, no grass, or anything else. I told him there was a local guy in the area with organic and he has some chickens. He said he'd already talked to him, his chickens are not free range (predator problems) and he feeds lots of organic grains, I can't imagine what it would cost to produce a dz eggs on all organic feed that has to be shipped in just for him. I know that non of the local feed stores and neither of the 2 local mills carry organic grains of any kind, I asked last year when I thought organic might be a good idea. I also had a guy who buys started pullets ask if I'd be interested in going in with him on several tons of organic layer. In the area we live there isn't much call for organic. Even if I sold every egg the girls laid every week, I'd barely cover the shipping.
Thought about sprouting some grains for the winter, but that would technically be grains too, right? We just went to soaked Alfalfa cubes. Personally I just thought the guy was nuts and had a hard time not laughing at the guy on the phone. I'd love not having to buy feed for the chickens. I know our feed bill goes way down in the spring but I don't see them being self sufficient any time soon.

 

[Davaroo]

   Well this thread explains a call I got the other day from a guy... Personally I just thought the guy was nuts and had a hard time not laughing at the guy on the phone. I'd love not having to buy feed for the chickens. I know our feed bill goes way down in the spring but I don't see them being self sufficient any time soon.

"It is the greatest folly of our age, that we willingly embrace any notion." -- Col. Jeff Cooper

All the many heritage bases, cultures and civilizations of man, since prehistoric times have focused on staple grains.... Lets think of them as energy-providing carbohydrates for this discussion.
Yet, suddenly, in "our" time all this is bad juju?
I'm wondering... where do such ideas start and take root? How is someone convinced they must seek out only a chicken that has seen no grain, nor been given anything to ensure its health and well being?

It baffles me.

 

[Zootopia]

"It is the greatest folly of our age, that we willingly embrace any notion." -- Col. Jeff Cooper
All the many heritage bases, cultures and civilizations of man, since prehistoric times have focused on staple grains.... Lets think of them as energy-providing carbohydrates for this discussion.
Yet, suddenly, in "our" time all this is bad juju?
I'm wondering... where do such ideas start and take root? How is someone convinced they must seek out only a chicken that has seen no grain, nor been given anything to ensure its health and well being?
It baffles me.

x2

 

[triplepurpose]

No worries - you are right on all counts. I would consider wild grass seed as grains, though, when you consider wheat, oats, milo and the many others from which we have grown our own staples are nothing more than well... seeds. But I can accept your logic without splitting hairs.
So let us admit that human 'grain' is fed because it is available.

Chickens have very similar nutritional needs as humans, i.e carbohydrates, proteins, fats minerals, vitamins, micro nutrients**.... 16-20% protein, right? Some fats and minerals. Certain vitamins etc. - - AND carbohydrates to equal about 75% of their total intake.
SO, how do people propose to fuel their chickens without the carbohydrates provided by grains? This is the part that confounds me. As you note, chicken does not live by grass alone.

While were calling a shovel a scoop, this whole thing sounds like a foodists imposition upon chickens. Someone reads Rodale Press denouncing grains or we hate Monsanto, and so we want our chickens to follow suit.
Poor chickens.

** The micro nutrient factor is fascinating, by the way.

I totally agree with your overall points. And foodist fads are really dumb. People need to become educated on farm ecology, because they have become way to disconnected from reality recently.

But I'm NOT so sure whether wild grass seeds count as "grains" in my book. Maybe it's just "splitting hairs," like you say, but I think the nutritional profile is very different. Most annual grains are very different from their wild, mostly perennial counterparts. It's kind of like saying that feedlot beef is essentially "the same" as wild bison, but hopefully we all know that's not true--very different profile and physiological effects on the consumer. But anyway I suppose too that the point is moot for all practical purposes, because domestic grain is what we generally have readily available to feed chickens, and they've adapted quite well to it of course, since ages ago.

Perhaps I should have offered a little disclaimer here: I buy some commercial feed (grain and soy based, organic) for my flock to supplement feeding, but my personal goal is reduce the amount of expensive, fuel reliant, imported feed I use in favor of things I grow on my farm and farm byproducts firstly, or failing that other things locally available that make sense (eg, expired bread from groceries or fish scraps). I've already save a ton of money this way to BTW. I live in Hawaii, where hardly any grain is grown, now or in the past. Grain is not the traditional carbohydrate staple here--the earlier settlers preferred root crops, taro, and breadfruit for their starches. I have given workshops on the subject of feeding chickens homemade feed and encouraged people to look outside the regionally inappropriate "grain box" of American convention for more locally available carbs to feed their birds. So "grain-free chicken" means something totally different to me than it might to someone living where grain was locally prominent and available, or who misguidedly doesn't understand that chickens do need some carbs of some kind.

I realize that the Polynesian situation of grain-less farming is somewhat unusual in the world at large, but I want to stress that it's not weird or unique, and it fed a dense and healthy population in Hawaii for well over a millennium, and going back even earlier in other parts of Oceania. These people weren't some kind of jungle savages or nomads, but a densely populated, complex society with elaborately fastidious land-use regulations and a well developed system of agriculture. And the Inca thrived and built an empire on potatoes. Potatoes have been a significant staple in "Western cultures" ever since they were introduced to Europe, especially for people with small amounts of land. Grains are not the only source of carbohydrates in the world. However, if I lived somewhere where grain was locally grown, or I grew grain on my farm, I would definitely be feeding more grain to my chickens. But root crops and other starches (eg. winter squashes) can make great food for chickens, just like people, and are particularly useful for chicken keepers with smaller acreage wanting to feed small flocks more homegrown feed--especially those living in places where humid, tropical climates and unpredictable, year-round rainfall makes growing grain nearly impossible.

I guess maybe I'm just looking at this from a whole different perspective... But that's how we can learn from each other I suppose...

 

[galanie]

"It is the greatest folly of our age, that we willingly embrace any notion." -- Col. Jeff Cooper
All the many heritage bases, cultures and civilizations of man, since prehistoric times have focused on staple grains.... Lets think of them as energy-providing carbohydrates for this discussion.
Yet, suddenly, in "our" time all this is bad juju?
I'm wondering... where do such ideas start and take root? How is someone convinced they must seek out only a chicken that has seen no grain, nor been given anything to ensure its health and well being?
It baffles me.

I am convinced that it comes from the same place that vegetarianism comes from. We have so many choices in food that we have the absolute luxury of choosing our food sources so we get these oddball ideas about them. Not that I think meat animals in our civilization are treated right. They are not. But going vegetarian isn't going to do one thing to solve that. Same with boycotting grains and eating meat. Just where do those grains you don't like go, hmmm?

 

[triplepurpose]

I am convinced that it comes from the same place that vegetarianism comes from. We have so many choices in food that we have the absolute luxury of choosing our food sources so we get these oddball ideas about them. Not that I think meat animals in our civilization are treated right. They are not. But going vegetarian isn't going to do one thing to solve that. Same with boycotting grains and eating meat. Just where do those grains you don't like go, hmmm?...

Very true...

BTW if people are wanting to raise "grassfed poultry" they should pasture GEESE instead of chickens! Geese, unlike chickens, actually ARE herbivores that can thrive on green grass shoots. Actually, given that, I'm kind of surprised more people DON'T raise geese. Do I sense a trendy new market here...?

 

[donrae]

You know, I don't think I knew geese are veggies! I'm totally seeing a market here.........nah, no room. Something to keep in mind, though.

 

[Davaroo]

You know, I don't think I knew geese are veggies! I'm totally seeing a market here.........nah, no room. Something to keep in mind, though.

Im pretty sure geese are not solely herbivorous. A quick search finds this from the U of MN:

"Geese are not vegetarians. Though their diet is primarily made up of grain* and greens, they will also eat slugs, snails, small frogs and worms. They are also known to eat small rodents, like mice and baby rats. In captivity, geese can forage in a pasture devoted to their feeding, they can be fed pellets, or they can thrive on a mixture of the two."

I recall as a kid we had both ducks and geese, and they would tear up some garden slugs and snails. That was what my mom had them for, in fact. They would rid her garden of these pests, but not shred her vegetables like chickens.

*Ah well, so much for geese - not suitable for a grain-free world.