Pastoral Poultry, Traditional Farming For A Modern Era

[silkiemomma42]

I love to use FF, I have been doing since my second month of chicken keeping. We have it down to a wonderful system. Our chicks do very well on FF and free range. I make sure they have extra grit in their coop, and they get meal worm treats at night but that's it. They go crazy for it and now are barely interested in dry feed or scratch. About to graduate the FF to a large container. I use an unmedicated natural starter/grower crumble as the foundation to ours. It's made relatively local, about 2 hours away. Then add cut oats, cracked corn, quinoa, flax, BOSS, wheat bran, sesame, oregano and hulled barley, dry active yeast and ACV with mother. I made our ACV from a bottle of braggs and a large container of whole foods brand organic gala apple juice. It has been "cooking" for months and works great!
I've heard of other people using LAB in FF its apparently a natural Korean farming technique. In going to look more into it. I've been all about fermenting things lately....
Just trying some casual conversation to keep the thread going!

 

[microburst]

I'm raising cx on ff and free range. I mix organic scratch with crumble about 1 to 4 ratio, add either Braggs, whey or yeast. I find the cx are sensitive to heat and wind and don't forage much after I fed them. They like to lay around under the shade for awhile after they eat, then as the day moves on they'll move out until early evening when they're all over the hillside. Spme are better then others at foraging though, while others prefer to forage next to the shop door where I move them at night.
I've been thinking about finishing them on grains and dairy much like the French Bresse method.

 

[bayocum]

Hi All,
I appreciate everyone's concern about the thread and your efforts to keep it going. I would just say that we are in it for the long haul. So we may not post everyday, but we wont let it die, no need to worry. We have got into fermented feed, but we see a lot of our friends doing it. I guess its just one more thing to monitor and not sure if we have the capacity to monitor one more thing...

We have been working with our Bresse and really enjoying the journey. I will be posting some updates soon on our website. It is starting to heat up and they are loving living under the trees (our walnut orchard). We have moved to using 5 gal buckets with the cup/drippers and it has been a revolution. Water stays cool, completely fresh, and clean...not to mention that it lasts a long time. We are moving all our chickens to this method. While I anticipated our Bresse spending their entire lives in our tractor, they are now completely free range, only returning to the tractor at night. They have access to native pasture, organic pasture, and all the little delights you can find on a farm in Central California. They are absolutely awesome. Each morning I bring them their "curds and whey," which is usually organic whole milk (sometimes raw), mixed with an organic, soy-free finisher. We are really excited to keep them soy-free.

We also recently installed our Night Guards (thanks "alachickenman" (Paul)) from Amazon. We haven't had any coyote problems recently, but why wait. Very cool little device, and the solar power is genius. Another cool chicken tool.

This week we are receiving our third shipment of Bielefelders...another exciting breed. We are hoping to establish a sizable foundation flock on the west coast. We are also expecting to hatch some Black Bresse, some Buckeye's from Chris, and our own "creation" that we will talk about later... hmmmmm intrigue... ha ha

Good to hear from all of you. Keep it going.
-Brice

 

[kristen2678]

To bad there is not something like the Nite Guard to repel snakes. Saturday our beloved German Shorthair received his fifth bite in as many years. Bitten by a Copperhead on his neck. He encountered the snake while walking with my son. He is recovering quickly.

On the subject of meat chickens. Our Good Shepard Barred Rocks may lack a little in egg production but are fantastic foragers and very meaty.

Ron

Ron, Do you only have BR's from Good Shepard? We're considering their New Hampshires. Any experince with them? Thanks.

 

[microburst]

We have moved to using 5 gal buckets with the cup/drippers and it has been a revolution. Water stays cool, completely fresh, and clean...not to mention that it lasts a long time. We are moving all our chickens to this method.

Did you order your cup/drippers from somewhere or make them yourself? We bought several poultry nipples and inserted them into bottle caps on water bottles, then hanging them for the chicks. They figured it out fast and seems like they have fun pecking at the metal nipples. The only problem I'm having is that they clog from time to time and I can't figure out why....
I much prefer this method too as it's so much cleaner and the water last longer in this heat.

 

[alisar]

.. and our own "creation" that we will talk about later... hmmmmm intrigue... ha ha

-Brice

Hmmmm.....

 

[FOGELLY]

Ron, Do you only have BR's from Good Shepard? We're considering their New Hampshires. Any experince with them? Thanks.

We only have the BR and have no experience with their NH.

Brice,
I don't see any ill effect on the quality of meat from free ranging. I was raised on "free range" chicken meat. Although around here we never called it free range. We just "turned them out" in the morning.
The meat has the texture and flavor that it should, not the spongy texture of a cage raised hybrid.

I have an acquaintance that raises range feed chickens for the market. It is his primary income. He and his wife raise mostly Freedom Rangers on 40 acres that used to be part of an old family dairy farm.
He uses a series of hoop style tractors to house them. He moves them daily. He allows 20 acres each year to be fallow and rotates each year. They cut hay on the fallow side several times the year the chickens are not ranged on it.
I don't think he feeds much if any supplemental feed.
I know he gets a premium price and sells out weekly at our local farmers markets.

Ron

 

[Mrs. K]

Freeze extra eggs in the summer - they are perfectly fine for baking or scrambled.

 

[Mrs. K]

ha - I did not understand how this works, I was reading the posts, several pages ago, about baking in the winter, when egg supply is low.

 

[bayocum]

I think it might be a good idea to ask a specific question and get some information collected here for future use:

So for those of you breeding and raising dual-purpose birds, can you provide some direction for people just getting started?

1. How many birds to you hold back each year? A trio, quad or?
2. How do you decide which birds to keep as breeders?
3. Does it matter if your selection for production or show? If so, how?
4. Do you flock breed or use specific breeding pens?
5. How do you set up your pens?
6. How long do you keep your breeding pens going?
7. What do you do with your birds once you break down your pens?
8. Do you feed anything different during breeding?

Ok, so now lets see if we can get some insight from this group on these questions and any others that might be pertinent to the first-time breeder.
Thanks everyone!
-Brice