Pellet vs Free Range/Foraging

[Shewstock]

You might find it interesting to look at this century-old book which applied the then-latest poultry science to help farmers achieve a profitable 100 eggs per hen per year -- from LEGHORNS!!!!!

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/poultry-for-the-farm-and-home.1443907/

The worst layer in my flock last year -- a Light Brahma -- did better than that. By modern standards she's a lousy layer, giving me about eggs per week with a rather lengthy molt.

My good layers by modern standards, Blue Australorps, laid about 6 days out of 7.

My modern layer breed, a California White, laid 28 days out of 30 her first year and still lays 5 or 6 days out of 7 in her second year.

Today's chickens aren't great-grandfather's birds.

Agreed. How they feed today isn't grt grandfather's chicken feeding either. Today's birds are also dying from poisons/toxins falling from the sky. Bugs that did not exist in America in the late 1800s to early 1900s were not here. There were no fertilizers killing off many things. This is not a debate. This is one member asking questions. We, members replying, are not intending this blog question to turn into a 3 ring circus. We ALL do things OUR way. It may not coincide with others' thoughts feelings and opinions. There is enough hate in this world. Please don't bring it into BYC! I will not be made to feel as though I must JUSTIFY my comment(s). Some people don't like butter on their toast.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

What about the alternative you use yourself?
You provide some commercial feed, that is meant to be balanced enough to cover most needs of most chickens, and you also let them forage for some of their feed.

As far as I can tell, most of the people in this discussion are providing some commercial feed and some amount of foraging time for their chickens, even while they argue about 100% commercial feed vs. 0% commercial feed.

What I'm doing is what I would consider to be intelligent risk management, based on my individual needs and circumstances. I know what the science says about minimal and optimal feeding for commercial layers, and commercial broilers, under commercial conditons. I know I have (mostly) neither of those groupings of breeds. I know some about what other, mostly developing world countries, say about nutrition for local landraces. anbd of course I can get my hands up inside my birds every ten days/two weeks to judge how they are doing as I take for table (plus multi-daily egg collection).

With these inputs, I choose to do something less than "optimal", and invite a bit of the great unknown [which I continue to influence], in order to reduce my feed costs, in the certain knowledge that I have a shorter timespan than most not raising some variety of broiler in which nutritional deficits can appear in my birds before they end up on the table.

I do engage in risk management by ensuring that the commercial mix of feeds I do provide is relatively high in methionine (because its so hard to find in plants, and because my available insect opportunities and both highly seasonally variable and generally poor), good to great lysine to support muscle mass, and reasonably low in fat (because my birds - as seemingly most do - prefer seeds when they can get them). It happens to have a high crude protein as result. Due to the way I'm controlling costs by mixing a "layer" formulation with a much higher value feed nutritionally, it also has more calcium than I desire - so I feed my hatchlings differently because they are more vulnerable to excess calcium - and because of faster early body weight gain, providing larger young males for table [more akin to a broiler management method].

I don't pretend its perfect, I accept that there are always going to be unknowns beyond my knowledge or control, and I don't recommend it as a method to others. I am honest about it, and share my experiences so that others who choose to do so can consider the known risks, their own needs and management style, and the level of unknown they are willing to accept in determining if they want to engage in similar practices of their own, understanding that their experiences will likey vary. Because that's all it is, risk management with a cost consideration component, not a guarantee of optimal nutrition for the natural lifespan of the bird in question.

 

[3KillerBs]

Today's birds are also dying from poisons/toxins falling from the sky.

 

[Aunt Angus]

Thanks, y'all, but I'm out. I rather regret asking in the first place. I'll muddle along as I've always done and hope that this current spate of problems are more genetic in nature and not diet-related. Thanks to everyone for their input.

 

[Geena]

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

Again, those of you in the free range naysayer crowd keep moving the goalposts. Of course, in a climate with harsh winters, you’re probably going to have to figure out a way to feed your livestock. But you all know the original position you’re starting from is doubting that chickens can forage for what they need even the warm months. Otherwise you all would be arguing “yes, chickens can get what they need when its warm. We just contend they need supplemental food in the winter.” Which is not what most of you are really arguing.

Then what do YOU call it when people grow grains and other plants for themselves to eat? And they often grow those grains and other plants to sell to other people. I call that "farming" as well.


Do you think there is a fence around that area? If so, it was not the norm for most of human history. Fences take materials and labor to build.

So it would have been more normal for a person to spend their time herding the animals, or tether them, or just turn them loose to wander (depending on the time and the area.) The larger the human population in a given area, the more certain it was that the livestock were NOT wandering loose untended.

Also, a large number of large livestock used to be used for work: plowing fields, pulling carts, carrying packs, being ridden, and so forth. Those were certainly not being turned loose to find their own food during the workday. Also, their owners did not want them to wander away or get stolen. So they would typically be tethered, stabled, or fenced when not working (but often not a large enough fenced area to naturally produce the food they needed.)

Moreover, any area with cold snowy winters either had to do without livestock, or provide for their needs in winter. For example, there is a long tradition of barns, haymaking, storing grain and root vegetables, and similar activities in northern Europe. There is a similar tradition in the northern US and I think Canada, although of course that tradition was brought over by the Europeans. The people here before the Europeans had their own traditions, but livestock do not seem to have been a big part of them.



I'm glad it works on your land, in your climate, but that is not the pattern everywhere.
That style of raising livestock requires that people live in a climate with a warm enough winter, and you can't support very many cities with that farming model either.


Harsh?
There's a reason Europeans used words like "paradise" to describe the Americas when they discovered them. You've got workable temperatures, and enough rain that "succulent greenery" exists to be killed by your freezes.

Florida is in fact one of the harshest places to farm in the lower 48. The mild winters don’t make up for the terrible soil and the drought-flood cycles that define the climate. “There’s a reason” that Florida was a frontier wilderness until the 1960s or later. If you’re laughing at my statements about Florida, you’re doing so from a position of ignorance about the land.

Florida has lots of weeds and creepy crawlers. That’s why chickens do so well here. Its pretty simple.

Generally livestock was freeranged in Florida. The cows, horses, pigs, sheep and chickens were turned out into the woods to fend for themselves. This began with the Spaniards and continued through the English, French, and American periods. Natural selection created over the centuries Florida landraces of all of the mentioned livestock that can take care of themselves.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_Cracker_cattle

https://livestockconservancy.org/heritage-breeds/heritage-breeds-list/florida-cracker-sheep/

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_Cracker_Horse

Just to name a few. The feral hog as we know them were confined to the Florida peninsula and Gulf Coast until the late 1970s or 1980s, then for reasons unknown they exploded across the US.

If livestock in Florida can adapt to taking care of themselves in the harshness of Florida, they can do it anywhere. Read about Old English gamefowl as they were historically kept in England from pre-Roman times through the early 1900s. They can handle temperate climates fine just foraging around a generic farmyard.

The primary difference I think between myself and many of you is that people in the interior of Florida were living 19 century existences at the end of the 20th century and I witnessed first hand how poor people live off the land. The livestock has to take care of itself or else it can’t be kept. That was the norm in human history.

That food may have to be put up in winter for some livestock doesn’t diminish my point, because most of you in the naysayer camp are doubting that chickens can forage for themselves without major human intervention even in the rich, warm, months. And that’s where you are simply not aware of how people have done it in the real world out of necessity.

 

[3KillerBs]

Generally livestock was freeranged in Florida. The cows, horses, pigs, sheep and chickens were turned out into the woods to fend for themselves.

In either acres or yards, how much land is required to both ensure that the chickens can feed themselves and guarantee that they will not intrude onto a neighbor's property?

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

In either acres or yards, how much land is required to both ensure that the chickens can feed themselves and guarantee that they will not intrude onto a neighbor's property?

To have a robust flock of maybe 21 head of adult gamefowl with room to reproduce? 2-3 acres. Generally they stay within 200 yards of their primary roost 24/7 year round. For most of the year they stay within 100 yards of their roost. If you want to double the flock size to around 50 and ensure you have all the stragglers contained with a boundary they never cross, call it 5 acres.

If you’re talking about hatchery-bred chickens of commercial breeds, they’ll wander all the way across my 40 acres until they get caught by a predator. Except for the leghorns. They act very much like gamefowl in staying close to home and acting like they have sense.

Edited: the gamefowl never go 200 yards in one direction. It would be more accurate to say they stay within a 100 yard radius of their roost. I don’t think they ever go further than 150 yards in one direction. So actually they stay within a 200-300 yard diameter with their roost being center.

The layers will in fact go 250 yards in one direction.

 

[3KillerBs]

To have a robust flock of maybe 21 head of adult gamefowl with room to reproduce? 2-3 acres. Generally they stay within 200 yards of their primary roost 24/7 year round. For most of the year they stay within 100 yards of their roost. If you want to double the flock size to around 50 and ensure you have all the stragglers contained with a boundary they never cross, call it 5 acres.

If you’re talking about hatchery-bred chickens of commercial breeds, they’ll wander all the way across my 40 acres until they get caught by a predator. Except for the leghorns. They act very much like gamefowl in staying close to home and acting like they have sense.

That's useful information.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

That's useful information.

Please, no one here think I dislike anyone just because I’m debating you hard. People ought to be able to clash over ideas without personal hostility. That’s how ideas are tested. They have to stand up to hard challenge.

3killerBs check my edit. I clarified the yardage information. Later this evening I may post up an areal of my farm and show the gamefowl’s territory.