how were they fed 500, 1000, 3000 years ago

[wildswanfarm]

What do you folks know about smallholder feeding of livestock? Johanna and I were discussing are chicken's inattentiveness to the laying mash or pellets we buy them as long as they can get out on the grass.
Their eggs are as plentiful as during the winter when we rely on corporate grains (organic). Even then, they will eat only certain parts of the laying mash. Our thinking is that they much prefer scratching the earth to our feed inputs, especially in Spring.
How did people feed their chickens 500, 1000, 3000 years ago?

 

[centrarchid]

Free-range forages dominated. Probably very little grain provided unless gamefowl (high value) or the producers where high end Roman Empire or Egyptian where production may have been relatively intensive. The free-range approach in temperate zones was almost certainly coupled with other types of animal husbandry or the density of birds was kept very low. Birds could scavenge manger areas for some grain. During winter was likely tough with grains provided primarily to keep birds alive making so egg production was more seasonal than today.

 

[Folly's place]

Birds also produced MANY fewer eggs! There's a huge difference between an original wild chicken, or birds up to the 20th century, and our birds now. There's also a big difference in the forages available to 'free range' birds here. sixty eggs per year max, in the spring and summer, not 180 to 300 eggs as many hens now produce. Mary

 

[centrarchid]

We need to look into Roman Empire records. Production levels then likely exceeded those realized until much more recently. Their hatchery system was outright industrial scale. Same with Egyptians although they had a more conducive climate for more continous egg production. Even with my games I can get 80 to 100 eggs per year with pullets if broodiness is well controlled.

 

[glib]

Free-range forages dominated. Probably very little grain provided unless gamefowl (high value) or the producers where high end Roman Empire or Egyptian where production may have been relatively intensive. The free-range approach in temperate zones was almost certainly coupled with other types of animal husbandry or the density of birds was kept very low. Birds could scavenge manger areas for some grain. During winter was likely tough with grains provided primarily to keep birds alive making so egg production was more seasonal than today.

Correct. They were free range even when my mother was born, although they were getting some corn already in the 1930s. When my grandmother was born, it was strictly free range (corn was grown, but eaten only by people). Traditionally, eggs have been a spring food because that is when eggs were available.