Letting chickens forage ONLY?

[Lady of McCamley]

This is a comparison of Nutrients (Nährstoff) - Eggs fom chickens in a cage (Ei aus Käfighaltung) - Eggs from foraging chickens ("Wiesen"-Ei) - Showing the difference (Unterschied)



Extreme isn't it and shows how much better chickens do when they can select their food!

One question I would have with the results...how much of that is simply from the fact of being in sunlight?

Caged birds typically are in artificially lighted buildings, never seeing the light of day.

A lot of the health benefit in the egg comes from simply being in natural sunlight.

I would be interested in seeing a comparison between caged (artificially lighted) and fed solely commercial feed vs. open air (sunlight) and solely fed commercial feed vs. strictly open air and foraging with no commercial feed but only bugs and plants they can find. I suspicion the results would vary vastly with the quality of range, and many of us would be very challenged to provide the necessary range with no supplemental feeding.

Just curious.
LofMc

 

[welsummer27]

Old English Game [standard] are one of the best foraging breeds.They could basically live by themselves without humans.They lay about 150 eggs per year.If you were to leave them without human contact for long periods of time they can even become wild.They come in many colors that blend into the environment.But they are not the best in cold climate though they can withstand some cold.

 

[Shadow722]

Birds by nature are grain eaters. I don't think they could be completely grain free. But they could be organically raised and free ranging. They'll find seeds, bugs, and worms. Given the opportunity they will eat the tassels off the weeds or wheat grains out of hay or straw, they'll even eat young grass shoots.

 

[Bridebeliever]

LofMc, that was a lovely tour down your memory lane! I wish I could sit down with you over a cup of coffee and listen to more stories!

 

[Chris09]

This is a comparison of Nutrients (Nährstoff) - Eggs fom chickens in a cage (Ei aus Käfighaltung) - Eggs from foraging chickens ("Wiesen"-Ei) - Showing the difference (Unterschied)



Extreme isn't it and shows how much better chickens do when they can select their food!

Where both test animals feed the same feed, where the breeds the same in both tests, was the test held the same amount of time on all birds?

 

[Teila]

Where both test animals feed the same feed, where the breeds the same in both tests, was the test held the same amount of time on all birds?

Good questions, some of which I thought of when I read the post.

Besides feed, breed and amount of time, I also wondered same age? Same season? Same general locale/environmental conditions?

 

[DebbieB]

There are many people who make their own feed with dried legumes and other items because they don't like the poor quality of store bought feed. There are also ways to attract worms for the chickens and plant beneficial live plants for them.

 

[Paganrose]

We were free ranging 2 dozen dual purpose chickens, half dozen ducks and a pair of geese, on five acres of mixed pasture and wooded areas. They always got kitchen/garden scraps and were continually turning the compost pile.

In summer we didn't feed them 'feed' much. Just about a quart a day and always in the evening. Our hens averaged 4 eggs a week, but started to lay a few weeks later than average. We would get probly 8-10 eggs a day.

We would always hatch a batch of chicks in the spring. And we would give our 3 or 4 broodies we had eggs to raise also. In fall we would butcher extra roos, and a few cull hens- they would dress out at 5-6 lbs.

As the weather got colder we would up the feed based on how much they attacked the evening feed. When the ground froze we would split the feeding to morning and night. We usually went through 200lbs of feed a month in winter. We would get 2-3 eggs a day in the coldest months from the pullets while the old biddies molted.

I did the math once- a summer egg cost 10 cents, a butchered bird costs 4.50, and a winter egg was almost a dollar.

If you want top production this isn't a good way of doing it, but was economical for us. If we fed the birds more feed I am sure we could have had the same production with less birds. But as it was I had 4 year old birds still laying 3 times a week. Plus they were excellent at raising babies, even if they were more aloof.

I couldn't imagine not feeding them through the winter here. Even with the acreage we have they wouldn't find enough to survive.

As others have mentioned chickens eat grain even if we don't give it to them- grass and weed seeds are grains.

 

[bruceha2000]

One question I would have with the results...how much of that is simply from the fact of being in sunlight?

Caged birds typically are in artificially lighted buildings, never seeing the light of day.

A lot of the health benefit in the egg comes from simply being in natural sunlight.

I would be interested in seeing a comparison between caged (artificially lighted) and fed solely commercial feed vs. open air (sunlight) and solely fed commercial feed vs. strictly open air and foraging with no commercial feed but only bugs and plants they can find. I suspicion the results would vary vastly with the quality of range, and many of us would be very challenged to provide the necessary range with no supplemental feeding.

Just curious.
LofMc

I would add a fourth group - open air with commercial feed and as much range as they care for daily. Those would be my 16 chickens. They have a converted horse stall coop in an old barn. The other stalls and the barn alley are their indoor run. The PulletShut door on the coop opens and closes with the sun, I open the barn doors some time later depending on the season. I'm not up with the sun at 4:30 AM and when there is snow on the ground they choose to stay inside so no rush for me to go out in the cold. They have free run of the coop and barn alley all day and unless we have to go somewhere for hours, ~ 2 acres which includes the pond, house and barns that they choose to stay within about 100' of.

In the summer I go through about one 54 oz applesauce jar of commercial layer feed every 3 days (assuming I don't leave it out all day for the woodchucks to decimate). They forage bugs, plants and whatever else they want and eat the commercial feed. They get a bit of BOSS and kitchen scraps every morning and some scratch at roost time. In the winter the feed goes to about 1 jar per day given there is squat to eat outside in the snow. The concept of fully free ranging layers would be a joke in Vermont. Summer? Sure, Spring? Not until April/May, Fall? They would be hurting come November. Winter - HAH! Dead chickens. Free range summer broilers? Yep that would work and probably make for a healthier bird.

There is NO question that the yolks of my birds' eggs are much more yellow orange than battery cage eggs even in the winter. I have no idea about the nutrient content, the girls do not follow labeling laws.

 

[Lady of McCamley]

I would add a fourth group - open air with commercial feed and as much range as they care for daily. Those would be my 16 chickens. They have a converted horse stall coop in an old barn. The other stalls and the barn alley are their indoor run. The PulletShut door on the coop opens and closes with the sun, I open the barn doors some time later depending on the season. I'm not up with the sun at 4:30 AM and when there is snow on the ground they choose to stay inside so no rush for me to go out in the cold. They have free run of the coop and barn alley all day and unless we have to go somewhere for hours, ~ 2 acres which includes the pond, house and barns that they choose to stay within about 100' of.

In the summer I go through about one 54 oz applesauce jar of commercial layer feed every 3 days (assuming I don't leave it out all day for the woodchucks to decimate). They forage bugs, plants and whatever else they want and eat the commercial feed. They get a bit of BOSS and kitchen scraps every morning and some scratch at roost time. In the winter the feed goes to about 1 jar per day given there is squat to eat outside in the snow. The concept of fully free ranging layers would be a joke in Vermont. Summer? Sure, Spring? Not until April/May, Fall? They would be hurting come November. Winter - HAH! Dead chickens. Free range summer broilers? Yep that would work and probably make for a healthier bird.

There is NO question that the yolks of my birds' eggs are much more yellow orange than battery cage eggs even in the winter. I have no idea about the nutrient content, the girls do not follow labeling laws.

Yes, I agree, that would be a good fourth group.

My birds definitely have beautiful dark yolks and thick whites vs. the pale watery things you get from the store, and the main factor for me would have to be fresh air and sunlight (even in my rainy Oregon) with exercise all day long foraging what they can get on a moderate 1/3 acre with occasional table scraps and scratch thrown to them in the mornings. All my customers and friends blessed with my eggs remark how beautiful, colorful and tasty they are compared to store bought.

I use commercial layer feed (Nutrena) with a bit higher protein in winter as they have very few bugs then. If I can keep the rat factor out (which definitely skews results), I use noticeably less feed during the summer and more during the winter as the birds bug forage on what is predominately fresh bark chips/composted shavings/soil and lots of chicken manure....that becomes super rich loam which my garden friends drool over, coming every spring, buckets and shovels in hand, to gather cheerfully, turning over and cleaning my runs for me. (There's a bit of ol' Tom Sawyer in my soul, yup.)

Even my daughter drools over my chicken yard soil and would haul a load back to her Tennessee organic, sustainable vegetable farm, if she could....so I suspicion bugs are plentiful during the summer even on my limited property (although I admittedly have never crawled around digging in my soil to count them).

LofMc