I grew up on the type of farm you are talking about. The climate was such that the chickens could get out almost every day all year long. The door to the chicken coop, called hen house, was never closed. We had about 25 to 30 hens and usually two roosters.
The chickens were pretty much expected to take care of themselves. They were truly free-range as they had access to the entire outdoors. We had pigs from mid-spring until we butchered them in late October-early November. The pigs got all table scraps. The way they were fed, the chickens could not get to any of it. From when the hogs were butchered until we got the new pigs in the spring, the table scraps were thrown out where the chickens could get to them.
We were in limestone country and never gave them any extra calcium. They got all the calcium they needed from the rocks they used as grit and fom the hard-shelled bugs they ate. We never had problems with shell quality.
In the winter, we would throw some hand-shelled corn to them. It wasn't a lot, but it was fed just before dark. We never fed them anything else specifically. We did feed the cattle hay outside on the ground, so they would get to pick over that for the grains, but most of their food came from their foraging. Even in winter, they were able to find quite a few small critters and they had a lot of weed and grass seed to choose from.
The chickens were expected to take care of themselves as much as possible. We were too busy to babysit them. They were livestock and treated as such. We supplemented their food when they needed it in the winter, we treated them for lice or mites when required, we made sure they had a dry place to roost if they wanted it though some roosted outside in trees year round. If needed, I broke the ice on the pond twice a day for the horses, cows, and chickens to drink. We all had our specific chores.
The only area that was bare was right in front of the coop, but that was in such heavy shade I doubt anything would have grown there anyway. They had a lot of ground to cover and they spread out fairly well.
We did not get an egg a day from every hen, even in the summer, but we got a lot of good quality eggs. Egg production dropped in winter, but we still got enough eggs to eat. I don't remember ever not having eggs for breakfast and there were five of us kids. They must not have suffered too much in the winter if we still got eggs.
We never even considered separating a broody from the flock. If we wanted her to hatch out some eggs, we'd just mark the eggs and I'd check her nest daily and remove any freshly laid eggs. If we did not want her to hatch out some eggs, I had a cage to put her in to break her. We would hatch out enough every year to replace the layers as they aged and eat chicken once or twice a week. We never considered separating a hen and chicks from the flock. They were raised as part of the flock so we did not have any issues integrating them with the flock. Sometimes a hen would hide a nest and surprise us with a bunch of new chicks. A couple of times, these nests were in the hay loft. The chicks got to the ground about 10 feet below with no intervention from us. I'm a strong believer in letting mama do it.
A couple of times, Dad brought home a dozen chicks from the coop to improve the bloodlines of the flock. Once it was New Hampshire Reds and the other was what he called Dominoes. I still haven't figured out if they were Dominiques or Barred Rocks. We raised them on newspaper in a box with a bare incandescent light bulb on 24 hours a day on the back porch. They ate mostly corn meal. When they were feathered out, we turned them loose. I don't recall any serious issues over the pecking order. They worked that out.
When I get my chicks in about 3 weeks, I will not raise them on newspaper. I will keep a balanced commercial feed and water available to them for the rest of their lives. I will use a red bulb in a heat lamp in the brooder. They will be locked in a secure coop every night. If I get a broody hen, she will be isolated while she hatches the eggs but not while she is raising her chicks. I'll probably try free-ranging some I'm raising for meat to see if I can trust my neighbor's dogs but am fully prepared to keep my laying flock confined in an adequately sized run. My conditions are different than when I was growing up on the farm and I'll change to suit my current conditions.
Sorry to be so long-winded but it's raining outside and I'm relaxing today.
