The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[stonykill]

I feed my flock so they are a bit hungry. I want them bursting out the door to go look for food. I want them to kill and eat the mice. Over fed chickens are not healthy. They need to be kept busy. It is hard for me to give advise and opinions since so many cage there chickens. The nutrician needs are so different. My birds hunt their food. Even my baby's are hungry and hunt. I like the FF foods now because the baby's are stronger. Feather out faster. They seem so much smarter for some reason. They need less food to be happy and hunt. I have tiny little things out hunting and not huddling by a heater. No cocci. I have huge birds. It would be easy to let them get fat and let them sit at a food dish. I do not let that happen. The adults are made to look for food all day long. They come home with a full crop. I have tons of areas with bugs galore for them, they just need to go get them. There are still mice in my coop, so, they are not hungry enough. I will never go back to dry feeding. I will always have high meat based protein for my birds. Low grain protein.

Don't let it frighten you. Just feed once a day. it turns into a froze lump..that just means you fed to much. My baby's I do use a heated dog bowl.
yummy..I am butchering tomorrow..My mouth is watering thinking about it..we are smoking chicken this time..I love love smoked chicken.

I miss you Mumsy!

great post. We raise our birds similar. Cept for the FF.

 

[RedRidge]

Quote:
About the same here...
My layers who free range all day eat very little this time of year.
To make "myself" feel better I keep dry in their coop - they much prefer the FF to dry, so I know if they are getting enough during the day if the dry doesn't disappear for days or weeks.
So I am only feeding FF to the chicks right now.
Keep in mind... free ranging in the suburbs on half an acre with mostly concrete will not yield full crops at night the way free ranging on 50 acres of pastures and woods will. We can't always compare by making blanket statements... location, amount of land, and weather are all very specific to each of our situations.
I have forage and bugs for MANY more months out of the year than a lot of folks... I don't think I could make a living farming if I wasn't blessed to live where we have a very long growing season and plenty of rain (a hot commodity here in the US over the last few years).

 

[Leahs Mom]

Stony and Delisha -

How many acres are your birds running to get most of what they eat...and ratio of birds to acreage.

(I believe stony has 30 acres...that's a lot!)


What the real question is - for a flock of say 10 birds, how much space would they need to be able to get enough food from it to be at peak?

 

[aoxa]

this time of years it is all i go through. I open the doors at around 7 am and close them at 8:20 pm right now. They eat what I give them in the morning and forage the rest of the daylight hours.I do not feed before bed and they all go to roost with full crops. I fail to see the point of free ranging and offering never ending food bowls. So I don't. My birds do great.

I agree with you here! I find they forage so much better if you don't feed them (freely at least). I feed before bed because I want them to start foraging as soon as I open the doors. I don't feed them much at all. Maybe 3 cups for 13 birds a day.

I still need to get a few things to make feeding it to the chicks possible. The ferment made the silkie chicks look terrible. All crusty and gross. That is my one complaint.

 

[stonykill]

Stony and Delisha -

How many acres are your birds running to get most of what they eat...and ratio of birds to acreage.

(I believe stony has 30 acres...that's a lot!)


What the real question is - for a flock of say 10 birds, how much space would they need to be able to get enough food from it to be at peak?

yeah I have 30 acres but the chickens seem to roam on 3 acres maybe. Maybe 4? They go wherever they want. There are plenty of good spots with leaves etc to dig into get bugs, slugs, mice, frogs, snakes etc in a small area.

It has been so long since I only had 10 birds

 

[RedRidge]

... I will never go back to dry feeding. I will always have high meat based protein for my birds. Low grain protein.

I am spending too much time on Facebook these days... I wanted to hit the "LIKE" button for this comment.

 

[Ashdoes]

Double post

 

[Ashdoes]

Ok, I must be butchering wrong or something, because the last two Roos were SO stiff we couldn't eat them. What am I doing wrong? Why aren't they loosening up after one to two days?

 

[stonykill]

Ok, I must be butchering wrong or something, because the last two Roos were SO stiff we couldn't eat them. What am I doing wrong? Why aren't they loosening up after one to two days?

3 days rest.

But what kind of roo are we talking? And did it run all over the place it's whole life? My Sumatra's are best in the crock pot. Otherwise the legs are so tough you can't rip the meat from the bone with your teeth. BUT if you cut it with a knife you can eat it. But we have found crock works best for us on the game type birds

 

[RedRidge]

This may give some idea to those raising chicks...
This is a moving target since I am increasing it every few days, but... today...
For the chicks...I am currently feeding 3 lbs of FF a day (I feed by weight) to...

24 - 10 day olds
3 - 4 week olds
9 - 5 week olds
2 - 6 week olds
---------------------------------
38 chicks who are 6 weeks or younger.

3 of the 24 are with their mom (so she is eating too).
the oldest group of 14 finish off whatever the young batch of 21 don't