Successful 100% forage diet experiment (long post)

[PioneerChicks]

If anyone is interested in yolk color, these are some of yesterday's eggs from the forage flock. The photo is unedited except to tag and crop.
View attachment 2469918

Those are beautiful!!!

 

[Krazikatlady64]

My grandmother lived on a farm in rural north central Florida with her immediate and extended family. The farm was 100 acres of mostly woods. This region of Florida is sub-tropical. It gets frosts a dozen or more times in a winter but rarely has hard freezes. The woods were a mix of pine flat woods and hardwood hammock and wooded ponds. The nearest neighbor was probably over a mile away by horseback. For the most part this was frontier wilderness. High predator population.

The family chickens were an unknown kind of junglefowl-like gamefowl. The gamefowl numbered in the several hundred across the 100 acres. They were not given supplemental feed or human care. They lived very much like wild turkeys. My grandmother would shoot 30 or so of the gamefowl a month to feed the family and that didn't put a dent in their population as they reproduced on their own so prolifically. Because the family didn't have to feed them, they functioned as free meat.

Keeping chickens totally free range, without supplemental food and little human intervention, is absolutely realistic and was the norm for much of the country in the 1800s and early to mid 1900s. We've made chickens weak through failing to select them for survival traits and instead only focusing on selection for high yield meat and egg production and by removing predator pressures via the hatchery system.

The right chickens in the right habitat can absolutely live with little human intervention beyond the humans' mere presence itself. Human presence alone is a predator deterrent so long as the humans occasionally hunt the predators and keep free range dogs around.

I'm so glad you found this thread! As I was reading it, I thought it would be interesting to you.

 

[AccidentalFarm]

Those are beautiful!!!

Thanks!

 

[AccidentalFarm]

So it rained all day long yesterday and the forage flock really didn't venture far from home. It was rather cold out and they all looked pretty ragged from the rain. Quite a few looked like they hadn't eaten as much as usual. I felt a bit sorry for them but didn't figure that one day of meager forage would hurt. Then today, someone on a neighboring property decided to target practice from sun up to sun down (literally), with what sounded like a cannon. The birds were terrified. They stayed grouped up under my deck, only venturing out when the shooter paused for a lunch break.
Two days of meager forage probably wouldn't hurt them either, but I broke down and gave them some (probably too much) organic layer and BOSS this evening. They were grateful for the meal and I feel better knowing they aren't going to bed hungry again.

As far as the experiment goes, I feel like this was an extenuating circumstance where I needed to intervene. If it turns out that I have to repeatedly supplement with feed through the winter months, I'll have to admit that my experiment is at least a partial failure. That said, our winter is at most 3 months long, so if it works 9 months out of the year and only partially works for 3 months, that's really not so bad and I'll be okay with that.

I do think that they would have been out and about as usual today if it hadn't been for the non-stop cannon blasts.

 

[Winter Creek Coop]

I think the experiment is still good. You are not doing a wild/feral bird expereiment but a forage experiment. Maybe that’s a good rule to operate under. If they have interrupted forage for more than one day then you supplement a survival ration. We have not terribly uncommon ice storms here. If everything is coated in ice for a few days that would be rough on the birds. Just my two cents.

 

[AccidentalFarm]

I think the experiment is still good. You are not doing a wild/feral bird expereiment but a forage experiment. Maybe that’s a good rule to operate under. If they have interrupted forage for more than one day then you supplement a survival ration. We have not terribly uncommon ice storms here. If everything is coated in ice for a few days that would be rough on the birds. Just my two cents.

I think you're right about the survival ration. They've handled themselves perfectly well until yesterday and today and I suspect they'll continue to do so, but this is a good reminder for me to not get overly comfortable with the idea that they can just survive completely on their own.

 

[fawnda]

My grandmother lived on a farm in rural north central Florida with her immediate and extended family. The farm was 100 acres of mostly woods. This region of Florida is sub-tropical. It gets frosts a dozen or more times in a winter but rarely has hard freezes. The woods were a mix of pine flat woods and hardwood hammock and wooded ponds. The nearest neighbor was probably over a mile away by horseback. For the most part this was frontier wilderness. High predator population.

The family chickens were an unknown kind of junglefowl-like gamefowl. The gamefowl numbered in the several hundred across the 100 acres. They were not given supplemental feed or human care. They lived very much like wild turkeys. My grandmother would shoot 30 or so of the gamefowl a month to feed the family and that didn't put a dent in their population as they reproduced on their own so prolifically. Because the family didn't have to feed them, they functioned as free meat.

Keeping chickens totally free range, without supplemental food and little human intervention, is absolutely realistic and was the norm for much of the country in the 1800s and early to mid 1900s. We've made chickens weak through failing to select them for survival traits and instead only focusing on selection for high yield meat and egg production and by removing predator pressures via the hatchery system.

The right chickens in the right habitat can absolutely live with little human intervention beyond the humans' mere presence itself. Human presence alone is a predator deterrent so long as the humans occasionally hunt the predators and keep free range dogs around.

Half of the country gets a pretty decent winter that last 5-6 months of the year, so 100% free-ranging, no additional food or care will absolutely not work for about half the country for about half the year. I live in southern Iowa with maybe 8" of snow on the ground right now and a thick layer of ice over part of that. There's no way a chicken could even reach the frozen ground scratching even if it wanted to. If it reached the ground, all the insects have been snatched up long ago. The vegetation is dead or dormant. The best I could do would be to harvest grasses/hay or dry some vegetaion for them to eat during the winter months. Most of my chickens despise even walking on snow.......yes, if I live in FL or TX or someplace that's similar to where Red Junglefowl (modern chicken ancestor) evolved, a habitat that they're ideally suited to, then it makes sense they would do well there without a lot of help from humans. Most chicken owners will have to compromise with 100% free-ranging due to climate, desire to actually find all the eggs that are laid (easily), predation, etc. It's something to strive for, but not very easy or possible for most. Even if I could do this, I wouldn't, but it's interesting to hear about the OP experiment.

 

[Allthefloofs]

This is so cool! I love the idea that chickens can go out and be wild birds and sustain themselves. They look happy and healthy. We don't live in an area that we could attempt something like this, and I would have to have two flocks, one that roams free and one that loves to sit on my lap and have cuddles, because that's how I roll with my girls .

 

[Nigel27]

This is awesome. I bet the chicks from those eggs would be so healthy. (Next experiment)

 

[Winter Creek Coop]

This is awesome. I bet the chicks from those eggs would be so healthy. (Next experiment)

I think the healthy side is probably true but there can be exceptions. We caught our chickens devouring nearly an entire giant piece of styrofoam that someone had lost on the road and it had blown into our pasture. Our eggs may be a little extra fluffy for a few days .