What chicken breeds are closest to "your grandfather's chicken"?

[5Australorpasaures]

A lot of farms also had multiple animals. So chickens could usually find goodies in other pens and in gardens

When you have only chickens and not a barnyard full of other animals you supplement "chicken feed". Ours have full free range but they always have feed available in the coop. In the winter the feed bill goes up. Grandparents also gave them plant type scraps from the table. I do remember them buying 100 lb bags of layer mash from a local feed store that milled various livestock feeds. As with all good things the local mill has gone the way of the wind and we now get to buy feed in pretty decorated bags from Tactor Supply at 5 times the price. I love progress.

 

[Tired old Rooster]

I think the consensus here is, what sort of range you have, will determine how much you have to put in.

Where I live, the vegetation is lush and it is like the creepy crawly version of game park. I keep a constant supply of scratch in the feeder, they get various treats, which depend on what is on my menu and I put a bit of egg shell and layer out for them to be sure.

All of them appear in good condition and the laying rate is around four to five per week, which is probably not bad for middle of winter. The eggs are top quality inside with perfect shells that are really strong.

The females are all Barred Rock and the male (in avatar pic) is a mutt of some kind.

 

[Shadrach]

I hope this question makes sense. I'm newer to chickens and did not grow up in a family that had them. On BYC, and in real life, I have heard people say that their grandparents didn't feed their chickens any commercial feed, but simply threw the flock a small amount of grains/scratch such as corn, oats, barley, etc. every day and let them find the rest of their food by grazing. People have said you can't do that with today's chickens because they are bred to produce eggs so much that they have dietary needs only the commercial feed can meet. So my question is, is this really true, or are there still breeds that can survive this way? If so, which breeds?

This is all hypothetical, but I can't help but wonder how families raised eggs and meat for hundreds of years using these methods, and now suddenly we can't. I understand why my production RIR can't live on a handful of scratch every day, but I even hear people say the heritage breeds can't. Are we too far away breeding-wise from the breeds of old to do this? Or were chickens back then actually very short-lived and our standards are higher now so we feed this higher quality feed? Well, this has turned into more than one question so I'll stop here, but let me know what you guys think.

Edit: I also wanted to add that I do understand the chickens way back when produced fewer eggs and less meat. I am just asking about why chickens supposedly can't be raised at all using this method anymore.

There are still many breeds that were kept say 100 years ago. Some of these could well be the breeds our grandfathers kept. Many of these breeds survived very well without commercial feed and many could still.
The issue is quite complicated because a lot has happened to the chicken in the last 100 years. The breed one gets now probably isn't the same as a breed of the same name 100 years ago. It may look similar but the breed qualities have in many cases been lost through breeders seeking more eggs from that breed, or breeding for a particular strain that may well have died out if kept as the original breeder envisaged.
100 years ago most chickens weren't kept in the manner many are today. This to has had an impact on most breeds, including the so called heritage breeds.

A Light Sussex for example first bred in the 1800s and becoming popular in the 1850s would lay between 150 to 180 eggs a year. A modern Light Sussex may lay 200 to 220 eggs a year now, depending on it's provenance.

The provenance is often the detail wherein the devil lies. A Light Sussex from a good local breeder here in the UK may still lay close to the original capacity of the breed. A Light Sussex from say a hatchery in USA is likely to have been bred to lay nearer the maximum number of eggs.

Put in the simplest terms, the more eggs a chicken lays the shorter it's lifespan is likely to be.

There are many other factors involved but it is still possible to get the breeds that were kept one hundred years ago but whether they perform as that breed did one hundred years ago is going to depend on luck and/or carefull research into their provenance.

 

[HenriettaPizzaNolan]

I agree with most of what other people have said.
An old type farm, which produced all a families food, would have had so many more natural food sources then 'most' back yard chicken keepers.
For example, when ever they would have butchered a sheep, cow or pig, the chickens would have tidied it up. They would have had so many more insects, greens, and old fashioned cultivars of grains.
One of my chicken flocks just gets a hand full of grower feed each in the morning, and in the evening one small handful each of 50/50 scratch mix and lupins.
I have not seen any different in their health to the others that have grower feed available all the time, and scratch only as treats.
The first flock free ranges all day, the second is kept penned.
The first flock may lay a few less eggs, but its hard to tell because so many get lost after they lay them in odd corners where I don't find them.

I do wonder, in human food, dog food, cat food, horse food, there is increasing concerns about highly processed food, some saying they cause cancer.
No one seems to worry about this in chickens.....I think you need to make your own mind up about that.
As far as I am concerned, I know when ever I can avoid it I don't want my chickens only eating highly processed feed.

That's a really good point about the processed feed, especially since we are consuming the eggs the chickens lay, and often their meat. You would think people would care what goes into the animals they eat because it goes into them. I try to eat as little processed food as possible myself, so this is certainly something to think about.

 

[HenriettaPizzaNolan]

There are still many breeds that were kept say 100 years ago. Some of these could well be the breeds our grandfathers kept. Many of these breeds survived very well without commercial feed and many could still.
The issue is quite complicated because a lot has happened to the chicken in the last 100 years. The breed one gets now probably isn't the same as a breed of the same name 100 years ago. It may look similar but the breed qualities have in many cases been lost through breeders seeking more eggs from that breed, or breeding for a particular strain that may well have died out if kept as the original breeder envisaged.
100 years ago most chickens weren't kept in the manner many are today. This to has had an impact on most breeds, including the so called heritage breeds.

A Light Sussex for example first bred in the 1800s and becoming popular in the 1850s would lay between 150 to 180 eggs a year. A modern Light Sussex may lay 200 to 220 eggs a year now, depending on it's provenance.

The provenance is often the detail wherein the devil lies. A Light Sussex from a good local breeder here in the UK may still lay close to the original capacity of the breed. A Light Sussex from say a hatchery in USA is likely to have been bred to lay nearer the maximum number of eggs.

Put in the simplest terms, the more eggs a chicken lays the shorter it's lifespan is likely to be.

There are many other factors involved but it is still possible to get the breeds that were kept one hundred years ago but whether they perform as that breed did one hundred years ago is going to depend on luck and/or carefull research into their provenance.

Hmm, yeah this is kind of what I was wondering about. I really doubt a high-production layer's only effect of not eating commercial feed would be fewer eggs. I'm sure it would take a toll on their bodies as well because they would be trying to pull nutrients from it to make eggs daily. So, like you're saying, it seems the chickens themselves were very different and that factors into if they can survive on a more simple diet.

I wonder if it's more cost efficient to have fewer high-production layers who need commercial feed 24/7, or a slightly larger flock of heritage birds that can survive more on grazing and supplemental grains alone.

 

[TheFatBlueCat]

I wonder if it's more cost efficient to have fewer high-production layers who need commercial feed 24/7, or a slightly larger flock of heritage birds that can survive more on grazing and supplemental grains alalone.

Unfortunately it is absolutely more cost efficient to have high-production hens. They eat so efficiently that even the fact they really need to be eating good layer feed, they lay so much the cost per egg is still lower. A modern commercial hen will lay upwards of 300 eggs per year. My best layer laid 185 eggs this past 12 months. One of my hens laid 42 in the same time period.
I won't keep commercial hens because (controversy upcoming) they really should be culled at 2 years old. Much older than that and MOST (not all) of them succumb to horrible reproductive-system related deaths. I've done that twice and I won't do it again.
But if a person wants hens for lots of eggs at the cheapest price possible, commercial hens are the answer. If you want chickens for other reasons, there are plenty of other breeds to choose from!

 

[HenriettaPizzaNolan]

Unfortunately it is absolutely more cost efficient to have high-production hens. They eat so efficiently that even the fact they really need to be eating good layer feed, they lay so much the cost per egg is still lower. A modern commercial hen will lay upwards of 300 eggs per year. My best layer laid 185 eggs this past 12 months. One of my hens laid 42 in the same time period.
I won't keep commercial hens because (controversy upcoming) they really should be culled at 2 years old. Much older than that and MOST (not all) of them succumb to horrible reproductive-system related deaths. I've done that twice and I won't do it again.
But if a person wants hens for lots of eggs at the cheapest price possible, commercial hens are the answer. If you want chickens for other reasons, there are plenty of other breeds to choose from!

First of all, I don't think what you're saying about the culling should be controversial. I think it should be widely accepted for the welfare of the chickens. My first flock of four was all "rescue" birds from a farm animal sanctuary, and two of them were Golden Comets who were supposedly over 2 years old. Beautiful birds, but they had reproductive issues from the start, and I only had each of them a few months before they succumbed to what I think was salpingitis or some sort of cancer and I had to cull. I kind of wish I did it sooner before it got so bad, but I was a newbie and thought I could treat it. So anyway, I agree with the 2 year culling thing 100%.

Now back on topic...
I see what you're saying, but is it still more cost efficient if your feed bill is so low from feeding the flock a small amount of grains per day, rather than commercial feed?

Let me make up a hypothetical situation:

You have 10 production layers, laying 300 eggs per year and requiring commercial feed as their sole ration

VS.

20 heritage layers, laying 150 eggs per year but only requiring a small amount of grain once or twice a day, and foraging the rest (assuming they will still lay that many on this kind of diet)

Which would be more affordable? I'm assuming it would depend on the price of feed vs. grains, but I do wonder.

 

[TheFatBlueCat]

First of all, I don't think what you're saying about the culling should be controversial. I think it should be widely accepted for the welfare of the chickens. My first flock of four was all "rescue" birds from a farm animal sanctuary, and two of them were Golden Comets who were supposedly over 2 years old. Beautiful birds, but they had reproductive issues from the start, and I only had each of them a few months before they succumbed to what I think was salpingitis or some sort of cancer and I had to cull. I kind of wish I did it sooner before it got so bad, but I was a newbie and thought I could treat it. So anyway, I agree with the 2 year culling thing 100%.

Now back on topic...
I see what you're saying, but is it still more cost efficient if your feed bill is so low from feeding the flock a small amount of grains per day, rather than commercial feed?

Let me make up a hypothetical situation:

You have 10 production layers, laying 300 eggs per year and requiring commercial feed as their sole ration

VS.

20 heritage layers, laying 150 eggs per year but only requiring a small amount of grain once or twice a day, and foraging the rest (assuming they will still lay that many on this kind of diet)

Which would be more affordable? I'm assuming it would depend on the price of feed vs. grains, but I do wonder.

Interesting. Here the price of grain is essentially no different than the price of layer feed. I don't feed layer, I feed unmedicated chick starter mixed with whole grain, so that is more money. If I didn't feed what I consider to be an excellent diet to my flock, which is high in protein, they wouldn't even lay as much as they do. Honestly probably I would get 50 eggs from each hen. Now, I do not have the sort of birds that we have discussed here as being able to live on not much - in my opinion this would solely be the game bantams or a very genetically mixed barnyard hen, and they lay hardly any eggs to begin with. I have very large chickens, based around rocks as the roosters (Barred and Partridge) and the hens are an assortment of breeds. They eat like pigs. If they didn't have access to free range all day my feed bill would be even higher.

But in this situation you would be choosing different breeds from what I have chosen. I have 5 hens that are an absolute mishmash of breeds. They are very capable and spend some of their day escaped into the orchard behind my back fence. Nothing I can do will stop them. 2 of them are old hens who decided to live at my place from the neighbors, one of these is the mother of 3 of the 5. When the two older hens came to live with me they looked like crap. They were already ranging my yard and the orchard, but would go home at the end of each day, and weren't accepted by my rooster so didn't get to eat with my flock. Once they became accepted and decided to live for good on my side of the fence, a few months later they looked like different chickens. They started to lay eggs, had lovely feathers and were shiny and clear eyed like the rest of my hens. If they weren't eating what I was feeding, they would have stayed rangy and not laying. I take them as an example of what would happen if you didn't feed a balanced diet.

Now there is a member here who has a similar setup to what you might be thinking of, @Florida Bullfrog - he has gamey chickens and keeps them very much 'wild'. His thread about it is extremely interesting. But as always context is key, he lives in a lush environment where there are already feral flocks surviving, his flock self-selects to get better and better at living under these conditions with each generation.

 

[TenTimes]

You can feed them the way your grandpa did and they'll be just fine if you let them out to forage. People these days have been conditioned to think they need commercial feed so Big Chicken makes profits.

 

[3KillerBs]

You can feed them the way your grandpa did and they'll be just fine if you let them out to forage. People these days have been conditioned to think they need commercial feed so Big Chicken makes profits.

And you'll get the results your grandpa did -- 100 eggs per bird per year. From Leghorns.

For some people keeping a semi-feral flock year round is possible and the cost of doing it low enough that they don't mind the low productivity. But the average backyard is not a diversified small farm with mixed livestock or a subtropical woodland rampant with edibles.