Newbie -- can chickens thrive on just backyard greens & bugs?

[noob_chick]

Hello! We haven't gotten chickens yet, but are interested in being more self-sufficient with our food (as I'm sure many are right now). Apologies if this is a dumb question. I'm totally overwhelmed by all the information out there and need some basic advice to set me in the right direction.

We live on an acre, semi-rural, and they would be housed in our backyard. The "lawn" back there is mostly clover, a little bit of grass, and wild violets; we have wooded areas in the back too. There are very few large animals around here except the occasional deer. We could happily throw down some seeds for other crops that may benefit chickens.

Our overall goal is to be able to feed them with pretty minimal effort, by letting them run in an enclosed space in the yard. Is this realistic? What would we do during winter?

Thank you in advance!

 

[Justso]

Hi Noob_chick, welcome!
I'm sure there will be other comments. The short answer from me is no, you can't feed on greens and grubs alone. Chickens are not wild animals, they are domesticated creatures that have very important dietary needs that must be met. That's the trade off for being domesticated.
The most efficient way is to get blended or processed chicken feed. You may be able to blend your own, there are websites that will list specific nutrient levels that must be met. Cutting corners will only hurt your fowl.

 

[Folly's place]

Welcome!
As mentioned above, the short answer is NO!
Wild jungle fowl living in the jungle in SE Asia, and the feral little game chickens in Hawaii and Florida, may lay 30 eggs per year, and range far in very diverse tropical landscapes. They likely die pretty young, too, because everyone loves to eat chicken!
Your back yard isn't the same at all, and if you actually want chickens who provide eggs and meat, these modern birds need the right nutrition. The free ranging gives them some extra goodies, and increases their chances of being killed by predators.
Making a balanced diet for them at home is much more expensive than buying a bag of fresh feed at the feed store!!!
Chickens are great to have, entertaining, fresh eggs and home grown meat is terrific, but they need safe housing and good food.
Mary

 

[Al Gerhart]

Many of the game chicken enthusiasts allow yard hatch birds to roam at will and rarely feed them. Like other posters have said, that keeps them foraging longer and further so you will lose more to predators. A lot of the game birds were farmed out to homes in the woods, I forget the name for doing it, farm walk or something like that, but they weren't fed at all, roosted in the trees and escaped predators or didn't. Only the smart and tough survived!

You won't get many eggs though. Not enough nutrition. If you have cattle with cow pies to rake through that helps.

 

[Don 27]

Hello! We haven't gotten chickens yet, but are interested in being more self-sufficient with our food (as I'm sure many are right now). Apologies if this is a dumb question. I'm totally overwhelmed by all the information out there and need some basic advice to set me in the right direction.

We live on an acre, semi-rural, and they would be housed in our backyard. The "lawn" back there is mostly clover, a little bit of grass, and wild violets; we have wooded areas in the back too. There are very few large animals around here except the occasional deer. We could happily throw down some seeds for other crops that may benefit chickens.

Our overall goal is to be able to feed them with pretty minimal effort, by letting them run in an enclosed space in the yard. Is this realistic? What would we do during winter?

Thank you in advance!

My yard at one point supplied 7birds with adequate food. They were games and the only thing I had to feed them was a had full of scratch grain per bird a day.

I was trying to mimic what old time homesteaders did. All's the farmers had to feed their birds were table scraps and grains off their fields. Recently I lost most of my birds to predators. I'm pretty sure I was doing something close to what is called a( walk) before conventional feed was available that was a way of keeping birds. As for as layers goes, I don't believe they would be able to find enough protein to supply the high demand of eggs their body is trying to produce. My games pretty much lay the amount of eggs a wild bird would. And they would hatch them to, unlike a layer that may or may not hatch the eggs they produce.

 

[Willow2253]

While free ranging in your yard can supplement feed and can reduce cost, like others said it’s best to give them a balanced feed to make sure they’re getting the proper nutrients. My birds free range on a little over an acre and they still eat a good amount of feed. Plus if the space they’re in is going to be enclosed and you don’t rotate the area they have access to, eventually they will eat all of the ground cover.

 

[Red-Stars-in-RI]

One thing you can do to increase the sustainability on one acre is to feed the chickens on compost.

I’ve been doing it with a large pile on their run...no reduction in production and the flock has never been happier.

Our pile is a mostly mix of leaves collected from our property and those of neighbors and food waste (collected from a local source).

I will caution, while our commercial feed is way down, it isn’t “easy”...it’s a lot of work! Building, turning, keeping the mix right. It’s good exercise, though!

 

[kiwi-chick]

I have 4 chickens currently. I feed fermented wheat/grain twice a day (morning and night) and they free range on the 1/2 acre that we have. I also have a compost pile in the chicken coop (I lock them in here in the mornings when they are laying) which the chickens love to scratch through.
Currently none of my chickens are laying so they are not getting any "layer feed" which I make myself. They do have access to oyster shells tho... I bought a 10 kilo bag and made a path with it in the coop.