How were flocks of poultry maintained hundreds of years ago?

[nuthatched]

Scraps, spilled grain, "fermented " grain from droppings of other animals.
Spilled middlings and "chop" (Beets, turnips, potatoes, cane etc)
Bugs, offal, spoiled and diseased meat from other animals.
Dairy was also a major player, whey and green bone meal was often used by people who gave a hoot about the chickens, especially as chicks.
Basically, if you couldn't eat/use it, it was given to pigs and chickens.
TB infected cow? Chicken feed!
Found your sheep a few days dead? Chicken feed!
Have some pelts that need scraped? Chicken feed!
Random dead chicken? Chicken feed!
I'm currently toying with an article about this, if anything to prove that no, chickens did not always live long, healthy productive lives in olden times.

 

[hanneke]

I’m curious how people fed flocks of poultry throughout the year hundreds of years ago before the convenience of processed poultry feeds. I know free ranging flocks was way more common as well as food scraps but how did people maintain them when food was more scarce like in the winter months.

Same as how birds and wildlife supports itself now in winter. We have quail and other ground foraging birds where I live. There’s snow on the ground in winter but they still support themselves.
Of course egg production will go down and weaker birds can die during tough months.

 

[rollkeeg877]

Really great thread guys. I plan to implement a lot of this into my flock as times are getting tough here in Canada and just a bag of layer costs $22 to $26 here. Scratch is the cheapest with corn at $15. Not sure what prices are like everywhere else but between fermenting my scratch, giving table scraps, and not throwing feed down until I come home after work to let the birds find bugs for the day will help to cheapen up the food bill. Winter will be different but I’m sure fermenting my scratch and corn will help to fill the birds up faster on less feed. Plus we don’t get snow like we use to in southern Ontario anymore so the ground stays thawed for a solid part of the winter here.

 

[rollkeeg877]

I also make my own mead/wine so I will be looking into what you guys were talking about there with adding whine to the water or feed I forget now.

 

[Nym]

A combination of factors.

1) Poultry ownership was often anciliary to other farming activities. So yes, the poultry got kitchen scraps and often corn or something resembling what we today call "scratch". But they also got to free range much larger areas than most of us enjoy today, and they got what the cow, pig, dogs, goats, etc missed. They also got the crops in the fields that fell off the vine, got missed by the combine, lost in the winnowing, too bruised, bug eaten, to be used in the kitchen, etc - lots of "other" sources of food.

2) Birds "back in the day" grew slower, were smaller, laid fewer eggs, and had lower hatch rates - all things that result in reduced metabolic needs compared to their modern equivalent.

Remember that "a chicken in every pot" was a political slogan until the second half of last century - and that was on Sundays, not every day. Its only the last few generations where significant animal protein essentially every dinner, and about 50% (or more) of the remaining meals has become the US norm.

3) Ever hear the phrase "spring chicken"? Its because the flock was culled heavily going into winter, so there were simply fewer poultry mouths to feed. Then the flock size would be grown up by hatching fresh birds in late winter/early spring as food began to become more available. Undesired birds (males) would be sold in spring when they were still young and tender.

That French classic, coq au vin, is what you did with your second year rooster after he produced the spring and summer birds. Add alcohol and simmer into submission what would otherwise be a tough, nearly inedible, bird. Acid in the wine helped to denature proteins (creating the illusion of tenderness, long cook times allowed the collagens to gelatinize, and the alcohol helped bring out some flavors, buffer others - as well as helping with sanitation).

4) People who were raising poultry seriously fed their birds. They fed them nutritionally well designed rations. @saysfaa has located some older books on feeding chickens - and while they didn't always know why a recipe worked (in fact, some admit that there is an "x" factor they couldn't measure, but are certain exists, which was critical to chicken's productivity) - thru trial and error they settled on a number of recipes that are roughly equivalent to a "modern" commercial ration. The "x" factor, btw, was Methionine. Measuring the sulphur containing amino acids individiually came about late last century, and is still relatively expensive.

Some of those recipes are collected here. You will note that many of them cointained animal proteins - either from "meat scraps" or from milk byproducts like whey.

Commercial feed, btw, is about 110 years old now. 1910-1920 range.

There are other factors, and of course exceptions to such broad strokes, but the above accounts for much of it. Hope that helps.

Yes, dad often mentioned how thrilling it was when nan killed a chook for Sunday tea.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Be aware that, at best, fermenting feed might stretch it 10% further nutritionally, often, much less than that. Were it otherwise, commercial producers would routinely ferment - as their margins are generally closer to 5% or less. It has greater impact when fermenting non commercial feeds which antinutritive properties which can be reduced thru fermentation, or feeds high in ingredients which are not readily bio-available to chickens.

Good luck in your efforts, I advise you to moderate expectations.

 

[Altairsky]

Commercial feed, btw, is about 110 years old now. 1910-1920 range.

IMHO, 110 years ago only the rich families who kept show birds could afford commercial feed. Back then feed was probably of much higher quality and much more expensive than it is today.
Now the quality of feed is lower. The goal now is to keep the price as affordable as possible, while also keeping production costs as low as possible in order to have the highest profit.
The wellness and health of birds is not high on the feed company priority list, considering that 99% of the chickens on this planet are not required to live longer than 2 years.
The quality of raw material is also lower, with GMO everywhere and very high gluten content on modern cereal cultivars.
Where I live, 25 kg of layer pellets of decent quality are 50 euros a bag and they only have 14-16% protein. Bad quality ones goes as low as 20 euros and have 8% protein. My birds got sick from eating this stuff, and I will never feed them commercial food again.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

8% protein isn't feed, its scratch.

and crude protein levels between the US and across the pond aren't directly comparable. The EU makes more use on synthetic AAs than we do, they rely on less corn, and they have, yes, seemingly lower expectations for their hobby flocks than some portion of the American market. (not to suggest our expectations are uniformly reasonable, rather that the EU's expectations - from the opinions of those who post here - seem more grounded in reality. But that may be a self-selection bias showing in the data.)

 

[NatJ]

I’m sure fermenting my scratch and corn will help to fill the birds up faster on less feed.

Getting it wet, whether you ferment it or not, will make it swell up and take up more space. But getting it wet will not add any more calories or protein or anything else.

Chickens usually eat until they have enough energy (calories). If you give them dry food, they will eat dry food and drink water. If you give them wet food, they will eat food and drink less water, but end up with about the same total amounts. If you add so much water or fiber that they are physically unable to eat more but do not have enough calories, they will get skinnier and skinnier and eventually die. This is especially a concern during cold winter weather, when they need extra calories for energy to keep themselves warm.

Trying to make the food bigger to "fill them up" with less food is not going to be useful, if you want healthy chickens.

Fermenting can increase the nutritional value of the food a bit. By that I mean the chickens will be able to use a bit more of the nutrients, leaving less to be pooped out the other end. But fermenting will not make a BIG change in how much food the chickens need to get enough calories, protein, etc. So it may cut your feed costs a little bit, but not a lot.

not throwing feed down until I come home after work to let the birds find bugs for the day

If there are enough bugs and other things, that can work. But if there are not enough bugs, that is a recipe for starving your flock. Chickens generally cannot be healthy long-term on just one big meal each day.

You will have to pay attention to how your birds are doing, and expect to adjust frequently. They may get lots of bugs one week, not enough the next week (because they ate them all last week), and more than enough another week because another kind of bug hatched or traveled into their area (cicadas, swarms of locusts, etc)

Providing a complete feed free-choice is usually the EASIEST way to meet the flock's needs. Doing anything else will take more effort and more knowledge-- which is not a reason to only use commercial feed, just a reason to research and plan and have backup plans.

...help to cheapen up the food bill.

Don't forget the most obvious way to save on feed: have fewer chickens. For example, feeding 6 good layers is cheaper than feeding 8-10 poor layers for the same number of eggs.

If you are having chickens for fun or for personal satisfaction you may not want to be very strict about having only "good" producers (eggs or meat), but when you need to save money, it is worth at least considering. Depending on the flock size, butchering one old hen may save as much money as fermenting food for the whole flock, considered over the course of one winter. Doing both will save a bit more money than either one alone.


(I don't know how much of this you already know, but even if you do know it, I thought it was worth pointing out for the sake of other people reading this thread. Everyone starts somewhere, and there is probably someone starting here.)

 

[rockethoe]

Chicken and egg until the turn of the century wet actually a rich persons food. It wasn’t prevalent food like it is today.

I can’t speak for hundreds of years ago, but I’ve read a few books from late 1800s and early 1900s when eggs and chicken became more abundant. They fed at that time just on straights, and yes scraps and waste streams from other industries. The feed even in the early 1900s was not anywhere neat as optimised as it is now. Nor was the breeding.

As a result, any bird over 200 eggs a year was considered to be incredibly productive! Now 320-356 is the industry standard, mostly as a result of breeding but also improved feed.