How did the old timers keep chickens year round?

[michickenwrangler]

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didn't misunderstand, I can't have them at the new house. I could fight it because of the MRTF but it's not a big deal. I have been 100% chicken free since july. Sad, I know. I can keep rabbits, but no poultry of any sort unless I have more than 40 acres and register the land as a farm.

That stinks.

According to my old relatives, they took warm water out twice a day for the chickens in the wintertime. Chickens drank their fill then. That's how they watered the horses and cow too. My family raised sugar beets so other than a few plow horses, a dairy cow and chickens, they didn't have a lot of livestock.

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

Quote:
didn't misunderstand, I can't have them at the new house. I could fight it because of the MRTF but it's not a big deal. I have been 100% chicken free since july. Sad, I know. I can keep rabbits, but no poultry of any sort unless I have more than 40 acres and register the land as a farm.

Oh I'm so sad for you- well at least you can share your knowledge with us newer chicken folk.

 

[keepitlow]

Thanks for all the feedback!

 

[newfoundland]

Here in UK chickens were kept through the winter even in the middle ages. In fact up until the 1960s, hens were primarily kept for eggs and slaughtering one to eat was only reserved for very special occasions. There was no commercial poultry feed of course and they were kept on kitchen scraps, and what they could forage for themselves. They nested in barns, or even lived in the cottages alongside the family! After the wheat was harvested they roamed the fields to glean the fallen grains. I don't think any particular provision was made for watering other than the pond or the cattle troughs which would have the ice broken on them in the winter. They were valued highly as a good laying hen could help keep a family from the brink of starvation, certainly in the middle ages. All animals were considered an asset in those days, but especially a good laying hen!

 

[matthewschickens]

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Awesome post

Though mine are pets I appriciate what you're writing as truth.

 

[welsummerchicks]

Unfortunately with the way things are today, there aren't big areas for them to forage on, and most people don't have crop fields for them to glean.

That said, mine seem to do rather well getting into the woods and turning over leaves to look for bugs, and my cricket plague abruptly ended when I started letting the chicks out. They are in a coop at night, but we have lots of coyotes around here, and I'm told we can't shoot them. Not sure what the real rules are, though.

No, no heated water or ice water in summer....I designed the coop so they can get under it, and it's very cool and nice under there. Pretty much like a shaded place in the woods. The woods are also nice in the summer. They're on the edge of a wooded area, so the winter wind is also lessened. I'm sure if they were out more, they'd find those comfortable places themselves. They seem awfully self reliant.

I think 'pet chicken' is optional and that even chickens that were raised in a protected environment would very quickly learn to use their instincts and take care of themselves. Our rural house-farm environment is unnatural though as far as the past is considered with keeping chickens - very few grain fields, lots of houses close together (even though it's a farm area, the house lots are all long and narrow so everyone is very close), and lots of uncontrolled predators and stray dogs.

 

[michickenwrangler]

A lot of urban and small town people used to keep chickens too. They're still allowed in Bay City, Michigan. I used to work in Tecumseh, Michigan, a small town that has claim of being Michigan's oldest incorporated city. LOts of old houses still have carriage houses converted to garages and chicken coops converted to potting sheds. They still allow people to keep chickens in town.

Both towns are kind of neat in the fact that they take a lot of pride in their history. It's fun teaching in those towns--if I mention a coal furnace, half of the students have one!

 

[woodmort]

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Yeah, I remember my grandparents pretty much killing off most of their chickens before midwinter since they weren't laying. They'd keep a couple of roosters and a few younger hens for spring chicks and that was it. The chickens foraged for food wherever they could find it and roosted in the barn. They certainly weren't coddled but then none of the livestock was.

 

[Cindiloohoo]

http://www.foodmuseum.com/exchickenfarmingthenandnow.html Don't miss the Egyptian SUPER BATOR hatching ovens about midway through!! They harvested somewhere between 15 & 20 MILLION chicks PER season PER facility! Amazing! THAT my friends is how they built them pyramid thingies...lots of energy from chicken dinners

 

[Clay Valley Farmer]

Ahh. the fire place stories. for starters chickens were alot tougher back in the day before the good genes were selectivly removed in favor of looks, none of this silky frizzle frazzle stuff. Eggs kept for months on lard and salt in the celler not a 2-3 weeks in a fridge. And winters were real winter, -40, twice the snow we get now and the coup was 500 yards over a hill so it was uphill both ways in a pair of leather boots 2 sizes too small. Back then the whole chicken was eaten and every chicken was eaten not just the legs and breasts of 6-8 week old engineered meat birds. Sick ones and mean roos were the first to go, no sence having them eating up food that the others could have.


Tell ya some of the old timers would have a conniption fit seeing some of these show girls and silkeys dressed up in costumes and kept in the house in diapers. The thought of spending a couple weeks hard wages to have a vet give an old layer a hysterectomy would be cause to gaze to the hevens in disbelief.

Things sure have changed, depite the historic tales of hardship, I myself am not sure it is for the beter.