I think its a bit of all of the above. Some of them likely could have done it (thrived with zero food from me) from day 1. Yet the years of natural selection has enhanced the trait.
The ability to forage for 100% of their food is dependent on other traits. The most dangerous place on the farm is the swamp. I’ve held flocks down there before but I usually gather them up after they’ve been there several weeks, or they leave on their own once the goss hawk starts on them. I consider the goss hawk and the bobcats that slip through there to be top-tier predators. The chickens have to be elite survivors to avoid catastrophic losses in the swamp. This past year I’d say my flock entered the elite tier of predator avoidance. They’ve never ranged so deep and suffered so few losses. In fact my bulldog puppies have been their biggest danger, where the chickens have historically been relaxed around my dogs. The chickens that are left are the ones the bulldogs can’t catch, and that’s saying a lot. One of my bulldogs in particular is as fast and nimble as a cottontail. The best of the best are what’s left.
They’re also much more disease resistant than in years past. The issues my flock have struggled with have been parasite and gut related, even to the extent that their battle with Marek’s usually manifested by the birds quickly starving as their digestive systems shut down once the Marek's kicked into high gear. Now most of that has been eliminated on a genetic level and they seem to get more nutrition from what they find.
My only complaint of the state of my flock is I cannot well control their genetics for superficial traits that I want. On their own they either want to look like my original Crackers (like red junglefowl), including their small body size, or like black American games with pea combs. My attempts to steer their appearances via control of the brood cock has mostly failed. The brood cocks I choose for appearance or conformity are rarely the most vigorous roosters. The one with the best color or the best build to my eye won’t be the best forager or the most alert, or produce the most vigorous chicks. My practice is usually to snatch such a bird that catches my eye off of free-range when its a young stag and baby it in a coop until its mature. Then I kill all his competition in the free-range flock and let that one be the only rooster. And it often doesn’t work. Only rarely has my eye for a good looking rooster corresponded to him naturally being the most fit free-ranger.
The more my hands are off, the stronger the flock becomes. I simply am stuck with whatever natural selection produces. I hope that as time goes on and the flock reaches higher and higher levels of thriving on their own, a rooster will arise that conforms to what I have envisioned in my mind while also growing up in the gauntlet with no protection whatsoever from myself and that one will become the breeder that turns the flock into his image.
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For example, this guy is a throwaway from my American game bantam project. He’s 3/4 Cracker, 1/4 Old English game. His extra sickles go against my standards for my Crackers and his body size is more akin to their original size and not the larger size I’ve bred them to last few years. He’s too RJF-like for my AGBs and too game-bantam like for my Crackers. He escaped his coop a year or more ago and has been running around ever since. Not one I’d want to be my breeder. Yet he’s become the dominant rooster on free range. And he’s the one that leads the flock deep into the swamp with no losses. He’s all around a good rooster. Just not what I want. In years past I would have shot him. But now I’m going to let him run for as long as he can until he gets caught or overthrown by a rival. In terms of his ability to keep the flock alive and well, I can’t ask for a better rooster.
Now consider this stag:
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He can’t be older than a year. I’m not sure because he was just a random yard mix I paid no mine too. I can only tell that his father was likely Black Eyed Pea, who was this rooster (pic is from when he was a stag like the subject):
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Black Eyed Pea was again a throw away that ended up becoming the strongest free-range rooster. Yet I culled him this year along with about a dozen stags. I knew Black Eyed Pea was the most vigorous rooster. He was very tough and resourceful even ad a sub-adult. I just didn’t want a flock of clones of him so I removed him when he was about 18 months.
And here I am with one of his likely sons rising to the top as he did. For now this one runs from the Cracker cross. But when his spurs come in they’ll battle for top spot.
Neither are my choice for keeper. Yet both are the ones that have out-foxed even me to survive and thrive. So I’m letting them be and I’ll let them sort things out when that time comes.
Here’s another one. Some random chick from the summer. Not totally sure where he came from. I just noticed him one day.
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He’s looking like a Cracker and is exhibiting the larger body size that I want them to have. Yet he’s got this hybrid straight/pea comb thing happening where his comb looks more or less straight but with no points. If they fill in with points, he’d be a fine bird for my Cracker improvement project. If his comb remains like that, he’d be culled in years past.
Yet he’s thriving on free-range. He’s known nothing else. So this time, I’m letting him go. I’ll neither cull him or offer him special coddling. He’ll either make it or he won’t and I’ll either like how he looks or I won’t. If he makes it to maturity, he will have proven his mettle. Then if he ends up looking like I want, I may consider forcing him over the gene pool by culling the competition. But the best thing for straight vigor is to let whatever rooster is naturally the strongest kill off his rivals and accept the consequences. I just may not get chickens that look like I want.
