Wow! I just found this thread... and at 77 pages in 4 days! Holy Smokes! I hope I can keep up.
I'm all for natural raising. However, my current situation does not allow for free ranging. There is nothing here for them to range. Sage brush in the summer, but I cut those off and toss them in their yards! They love them! I also get truckloads of horse manure mixed with oat straw delivered by a local rancher here and I put it in their yards for them to dig through.
I sprout grains, grow a little fodder, and ferment other grains. I quit buying lay pellets about a month or so ago so I'm working to keep them as healthy as I can. I want to try growing my own grains here come spring and put in a garden so I have left over veggies, get some mealworms going and perhaps even some dubia roaches (I've read that they cannot fly out of their enclosure) otherwise.... no way!
I use yogurt a LOT and I have to remember to refill the oyster shell dispensers more often. I need to put oyster shell in the ferment buckets too because I have some young boys that grow fast at a certain stage in their young lives and they need the calcium.
I'm planning to get some "mosquito fish" next spring and keep them in a big water tank. Hopefully I'll be able to keep them alive though next winter and also hopefully they will reproduce quickly so I can feed them out as a protein source. I'm hoping too, that the mosquitoes will be drawn to this water source and not my birds. I think they are attracted to light so I may figure out some way to hang a light over the water in the tank. I know they need blood in order to lay the eggs, so hopefully, they will suck on the wild life around here. There are plenty of birds around and horses and cows. I wish they would stay out of my barn!