Pellet vs Free Range/Foraging

[Florida Bullfrog]

I have yet to see a backyard confined to coop and run chicken keeping model that makes a profit assuming an honest cost analysis.
This doesn't mean there isn't such a thing but I would love anyone to produce such an analysis.

I think it can theoretically be done if cost of time isn’t factored in. I could keep my coop chickens on what my farm produced but it would require full time farming on my part and sacrificing vegetables and fruits that could go directly to my family as being diverted to the chickens. I don’t think that would be practical or desirable.

Now actually I have turned a major profit on my coop birds while using mostly commercial feed to sustain them. But that was by selling my hatching eggs at high prices. There were months I was making 5 times the cost of food on egg sales.

 

[Alagirl]

That's possible. Which eggs would you prefer me to compare to?

I think comparing the low-end eggs to your homegrown isn't on par. I just came back from the high-end grocery store, looking at a carton of eggs for almost $8 a dozen. Their store brand was not a lot cheaper! By that calculation, I'd break even at about 125 dozen eggs, which is really not that much.
Going to the local big chain box store, the pale eggs don't cost $2, but they are exactly what I am trying to get away from. So figuring the bill for the lowest of low end eggs (and I did look at the XL and Jumbo medium is another story) does not do the end product justice. Or does it?

 

[saysfaa]

I'm currently trying to boost my flock's health after a bout of problems.

.. So I've been reading a lot about diet. I'm seeing some conflicting info. Of course balanced commercial feed is good, but what about free ranging/foraging? Is that overall detrimental to their health since it isn't balanced commercial feed?...
It seems counterintuitive to think that free ranging could be bad for them...

Thoughts?

It isn't overall detrimental to their health since it isn't balanced commercial feed. Emphasis on the "since" - meaning that isn't the reason it is overall detrimental.

If it is overall detrimental.

There is always a limiting factor. The commercial diets have eliminated the obvious/overt dietary limiting factors of production in chickens kept indoors. So, the limiting factor for hens kept indoors and fed only commercial feed is usually something else. Daylength, sometimes. Genetics, sometimes. Lack of exercise, sometimes.

I think there are beneficial things in fresh food that are not well understood. Along the lines of quercetin enabling zinc to be used by the immune system or vitamin D enabling calcium to be used by the body - only LOTS of such relationships between the nutrients in food, and fresh air, and sunshine.

Any/all of those could counter the limiting factor of the commercial feed system. But it won't matter if they do if they bring a more restrictive limiting factor to the overall picture.

I was so disappointed, yesterday, to learn that most insects are deficient in methionine. Methionine is a likely limiting factor; if your pasture doesn't provide birds or mammals or fish to your chickens, it likely won't take much free ranging to be overall detrimental to their health compared to commercial feed. Some pastures do provide birds or mammals. Mine would. Mine land is severely deficient in some minerals though. Chickens would survive, most of them probably long enough to reproduce. The wild birds do. I'm sure they would not do as well (be as healthy) as they would be on commercial feed with some fresh food. Someday, I may make enough progress on treating the land or compensating for the problems for feeding from my land to be better than commercial feed.

I don't know the strengths and weaknesses of your land.

 

[3KillerBs]

You tell an everyday coop-chicken-keeper that bankivoid gamefowl can live wild in the woods and they stare at you like a calf looking at a new gate.

In a favorable climate and a favorable ecology with sufficient acreage available.

I stand by my previous statements that if the land in question has not been able to support a year-round population of feral chickens it can't support a year-round population of ranged-only domestic chickens.

I live in a favorable climate from a weather standpoint, with January perhaps being problematic, but the nutrient-deficient soils of the Sandhills region support only what is referred to as an "impoverished" ecology -- lacking in species diversity and relatively low in biological productivity.

It was minimally-settled before it became horse and golf country for the very good reason that it's absolutely lousy agricultural land.

 

[Shadrach]

You tell an everyday coop-chicken-keeper that bankivoid gamefowl can live wild in the woods and they stare at you like a calf looking at a new gate.

Please don't tell them. The fewer breeds that are popular and hatchery produced the better imo.

 

[Aunt Angus]

It isn't overall detrimental to their health since it isn't balanced commercial feed. Emphasis on the "since" - meaning that isn't the reason it is overall detrimental.

If it is overall detrimental.

There is always a limiting factor. The commercial diets have eliminated the obvious/overt dietary limiting factors of production in chickens kept indoors. So, the limiting factor for hens kept indoors and fed only commercial feed is usually something else. Daylength, sometimes. Genetics, sometimes. Lack of exercise, sometimes.

I think there are beneficial things in fresh food that are not well understood. Along the lines of quercetin enabling zinc to be used by the immune system or vitamin D enabling calcium to be used by the body - only LOTS of such relationships between the nutrients in food, and fresh air, and sunshine.

Any/all of those could counter the limiting factor of the commercial feed system. But it won't matter if they do if they bring a more restrictive limiting factor to the overall picture.

I was so disappointed, yesterday, to learn that most insects are deficient in methionine. Methionine is a likely limiting factor; if your pasture doesn't provide birds or mammals or fish to your chickens, it likely won't take much free ranging to be overall detrimental to their health compared to commercial feed. Some pastures do provide birds or mammals. Mine would. Mine land is severely deficient in some minerals though. Chickens would survive, most of them probably long enough to reproduce. The wild birds do. I'm sure they would not do as well (be as healthy) as they would be on commercial feed with some fresh food. Someday, I may make enough progress on treating the land or compensating for the problems for feeding from my land to be better than commercial feed.

I don't know the strengths and weaknesses of your land.

My land is quite good for this, minus the predation. It could easily support a feral flock. If I let them free range 100% of the time, I wouldn't have a flock within a week (maybe even less time). But I just get confused when some folks say that we shouldn't feed anything besides commercial feed and others who say that free ranging is better for them.

 

[Shadrach]

In a favorable climate and a favorable ecology with sufficient acreage available.

I stand by my previous statements that if the land in question has not been able to support a year-round population of feral chickens it can't support a year-round population of ranged-only domestic chickens.

I live in a favorable climate from a weather standpoint, with January perhaps being problematic, but the nutrient-deficient soils of the Sandhills region support only what is referred to as an "impoverished" ecology -- lacking in species diversity and relatively low in biological productivity.

It was minimally-settled before it became horse and golf country for the very good reason that it's absolutely lousy agricultural land.

That seems fair enough. But, in other countries with impoverished ecology (areas of Africa and Asia) chickens do survive. A couple of those reasons are the chicken keeping model they use and of course the breeds they keep.

 

[3KillerBs]

That seems fair enough. But, in other countries with impoverished ecology (areas of Africa and Asia) chickens do survive. A couple of those reasons are the chicken keeping model they use and of course the breeds they keep.

I have said several times in these threads that chickens kept on diversified small farms, especially where other livestock are also kept, may well be able to survive and even produce on a limited level, because while they are not directly fed they are fed indirectly -- being given access to food waste, spilled feed from other livestock, bugs and undigested grain in livestock manure, the spillage from crops being harvested, etc.

Regardless, we still have to talk acreage rather than suburban backyard.

 

[Shadrach]

I have said several times in these threads that chickens kept on diversified small farms, especially where other livestock are also kept, may well be able to survive and even produce on a limited level, because while they are not directly fed they are fed indirectly -- being given access to food waste, spilled feed from other livestock, bugs and undigested grain in livestock manure, the spillage from crops being harvested, etc.

Regardless, we still have to talk acreage rather than suburban backyard.

True, you have. Just checking.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

That seems fair enough. But, in other countries with impoverished ecology (areas of Africa and Asia) chickens do survive. A couple of those reasons are the chicken keeping model they use and of course the breeds they keep.

This.

I have said several times in these threads that chickens kept on diversified small farms, especially where other livestock are also kept, may well be able to survive and even produce on a limited level, because while they are not directly fed they are fed indirectly -- being given access to food waste, spilled feed from other livestock, bugs and undigested grain in livestock manure, the spillage from crops being harvested, etc.

Regardless, we still have to talk acreage rather than suburban backyard.

Between the bankivoid and the oriental gamefowl groups, gamefowl have been freeranged with minimal human care in nearly all of Europe, most or all of the eastern and midwestern United States, much of Asia, the south Pacific islands, and much or all of the tropical third world. And then there’s also niche landraces that thrive in specific but harsh climates such as the fayoumi of north Africa or the Icelandics of far northern Europe.

Now yes, these various rustic breeds are usually living along side man and enjoying the benefits of farm life. But for most of their histories they were not living with commercial grain feeds for themselves or as a byproduct of other livestock. No such commercial foods existed. Often larger livestock was sustained off of natural pasture grass in the warm months and the farmer’s stored hay in the winter months. No doubt the chickens found great benefit in scratching through dung heaps and hay piles. But that’s still a self-sustaining and natural existence, not dependent on commercial grain foods or any other food that comes from a source other than the farm itself. A chicken that finds sustenance digging through cow dung to eat byproduct of grazing costs the chicken owner nothing. My gamefowl love to trail behind my cows like egrets and not only sort through cow patties but also pick flies off of the cows. My Liege especially love to do this.

.