What chickens free ranging in a traditional management system eat I.E. how it was done before commercial feeds

[saysfaa]

https://scialert.net/fulltext/?doi=ajas.2016.182.188&org=11

"...Scavenging Feed Resource Base (SFRB) is defined as those feed resources available at farm level that consists of household refuse and all the materials available in the immediate environment that the scavenging birds can use as feed. It depends on the number of chickens per households, the types of food crops grown, methods of cultivation and food processing and the climatic conditions that determine the rate of decomposition of the food products....

...30 households keeping indigenous chickens were randomly selected from three Kebeles [the smallest administrative unit in Ethiopia - so the equivalent of a township here in the US Midwest] (ten from each). Arrangements were made with the total of 30 selected participating households for the purchase of the experimental chickens. The total of 60 chicken (30 pullets and 30 cockerels with mean weight of 1.12 and 1.4 kg, respectively) at an age of 3-5 months were purchased on the basis of their physical appearance and informations provided by the participating households. The chickens were collected directly from the households. The chickens were slaughtered and eviscerated. The crop content of each bird was weighed, visually examined, categorically sorted out and quantified. ...

...This study was conducted in November,... the season of ripening and harvesting of almost all food crops in general and cereal grains in particular in Ethiopia. The results of this study is in agreement with that of Momoh et al. (2010), who observed ... the crop content of scavenging chickens in the late dry season (January-March) within Makurdi Benue community of North Central Nigeria.

Cereal grains comprised the highest proportion (38%) of the crop content of the experimental chickens, without showing significant difference (df = 1, p>0.05) between the male and female experimental chickens. ...Insects, worms, ants and small snails were found to be collectively accountable for about 27.5% of the crop content of the experimental chickens (Table 1), followed by (28%) and (17%) insects/worms and green forages respectively and Kitchen waste constitutes the remaining 15% of the crop content. ...

The results of the laboratory chemical analysis of the crop content of the experimental chickens are shown in Table 2. ...

...The results of this study revealed that the nutrient content of the scavenging feed resource base of Seka Chekorsa district is below the requirements of the scavenging local chickens..."

From the introduction... "These are kept under traditional management system, which is characterized by small flock sizes, low input and output and periodic devastation of the flock by disease...."

..

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

If they’re surviving and reproducing, then it isn’t actually below their needs. Sure, it might be below the needs of a fat American coop chicken that has been artificially selected to live off of commercial feed for the past century. But that’s not the kind of chicken we’re talking about.

Its like comparing a golden retriever to a coyote.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I assume they often include milk in the recipes because most farmers had their own milk cow(s) and meat scraps because people often did their own butchering.

Not on the farm I grew up on in East Tennessee. All the good stuff went to the pigs. We worked to feed the pigs.

The chickens were expected to feed themselves. In winter we'd feed them some corn that we grew ourselves, but the corn was mainly grown for the pigs, milk cow, and plow horses. We did grind some corn for corn meal. Even in winter the chickens found a lot of their own food.

We did not grow show chickens. We were not worried about maximizing their bodies for meat or to make them pretty. Mom could feed a family with five kids with one old hen. We sure did not worry about only eating cockerels at the peak of tenderness when they could be grilled or fried.

Dad had a flock of around 25 to 30 hens and one rooster. When we set eggs under a broody hen practically all of them were fertile and developed. We ate a lot of eggs and sometimes had excess to trade at a country store for coffee or flour, things we could not grow.

What did we spend on these chickens? Other than a little corn that we grew ourselves, nothing. No money whatsoever. For a subsistence farm that's not bad.

Dad had one semester of college, played high school basketball, and was high school senior class president but he wanted to be a farmer. He and Mom both believed in education. Dad read the literature about agriculture and brought in Dominique and New Hampshire to improve the stock. He did pay for those chicks so I guess chickens did cost up some money.

I understand Dad's goals did not match the goals of most people on this forum, but meat, eggs, and even poop to put on the garden for essentially no cost sounds pretty good to a subsistence farmer.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

Way to bury the lead. Even before they get to the science, THIS is the money quote:



2.5# to 3.1# (roughly) chickens aged 13-22 weeks (91 - 155 days) at peak harvest!
That's smaller than my production reds (Golden Comets), which were purpose built for egg production and low body weight (to minimize feed costs)

Basically the size range of wild and hybrid red Junglefowl.

There is a lot of room between quality commercial feed designed for layers (or broilers) pushed as far toward their potential as people have been able to push and a handful of grain sometimes thrown to the laying hens only.

The report said the villages saw the need for a little extra food once pullets/hens started laying.

They didn't see the need for chicks to get extra. They might not have "periodic devastation of the flock by disease" as often if the chicks were fed even 15% protein instead of 10%. It doesn't have to be optimal to be a lot better when you start that far off. And that is during the harvest season - when food should be most available.

One possible reason they don't see the need is they don't have any chicks raised differently to compare their chicks to.

I think its actually tone-deaf for the study to suggest the problem is lack of education concerning poultry nutrition when its far more likely that the people don’t have much or anything to spare for the chickens beyond what they already throw out from time to time. Its like telling the Ethiopians to eat cake to fatten themselves up.

I think its great that chickens are living on with little human care in a place that isn’t near as conducive for chickens as many other parts of the world. Again, this is where I think the coyote analogy applies. I wouldn’t criticize a coyote for not being a golden retriever in a place where dog food isn’t being poured into bowls for them.

 

[Perris]

The most important part of that article is in the Introduction to it:
"The indigenous chickens are a valuable asset to local populations as they contribute significantly to food security, poverty alleviation and the promotion of gender equality, especially in disadvantaged groups and less favored areas (Gueye, 2000; Moges and Dessie, 2010)." History suggests that pushing them to increase productivity by buying in processed chicken feed would put an end to all of that. Which would be not progress but regression, in my view.

 

[saysfaa]

Michigan State 1927
Source

It covers feeding for eggs
And care and feeding for chicks
Among other things poultry related
And other topics besides poultry

Standing out to me:
More than 175,000 farms in Michigan raised chicks every year in that era, practically all chicks were hatched and raised artificially. Twenty years earlier, practically all were hatched and raised by broody hens.

To raise chicks successfully, they must (among other things) be "fed sanely on clean, properly balanced diets and grown on clean ranges."

"...If chicks are not on green range, green feed should be fed in liberal quantities. Green clover, alfalfa, or other succulent green feed should be run through a cutter, cut to about one-quarter inch lengths and fed to the young chicks. Where chicks are brooded very early, and green feed is not available, alfalfa hay, if properly cured, makes an excellent substitute. Hay for this purpose should be cured so that it retains its green color and has a large quantity of leaf..."

They recommend using such alfalfa hay to line the brooder space so that the space does not have sharp corners and so the chicks can "relish it after the first few days"

When chicks "no longer need artificial heat, they should be moved to a summer range if they were not brooded there.... Quality of pullets in the fall depends largely on the summer range. The ideal range provides a good green pasture of alfalfa, sweet clover, or red clover; or, if these are not available, meadow pasture is quite satisfactory. Ample shade is essential..."

The bulletin gives a recommended mash ration also, to be fed until they are ready for layer rations. Where it talks of that, it does not mention the pasture or hay. I wonder if it is common in these old books to cover them in different sections or to assume that is how the chicks are raised, and, if so, whether the rations we often see that don't mention the pasture or greens didn't read the whole book and/or didn't know it was the assumption.

Bolding is done by me.

Also, it has a large section about the history of chick rations (people used rations that were very complicated and varied until "the past several years" when there was research at many experimental stations to develop a simple ration that would give satisfactory results.

Also, it says of the 175,000 farmers raising chicks, thousands lose millions of chicks every year and more thousands lose millions of dollars (1927 dollars!!!) to poorly grown chicks that couldn't use feed well for the rest of their lives. These are what this info is trying to help them avoid.)

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Way to bury the lead. Even before they get to the science, THIS is the money quote:

The total of 60 chicken (30 pullets and 30 cockerels with mean weight of 1.12 and 1.4 kg, respectively) at an age of 3-5 months were purchased on the basis of their physical appearance and informations provided by the participating households.

2.5# to 3.1# (roughly) chickens aged 13-22 weeks (91 - 155 days) at peak harvest!
That's smaller than my production reds (Golden Comets), which were purpose built for egg production and low body weight (to minimize feed costs)

 

[WI chickens]

Not sure how, or if, this applies to the conversation, but I think it applies to this small excerpt. "My intention to begin with wasn't to try to critique or change what the Ethiopian are doing. It still isn't - although thread drift there is fine with me. It is part of my path to finding a reasonable alternative to commercial feed that might work for me." I can share my experience with regards to that.

In the summer, my chickens have commercial feed available in any quantity they might eat. They eat very, very little, relying instead almost completely on what they free range. I bought one bag of food this summer and had much of it left when fall came. I don't grow grains of any kind in the area my chickens can reach. In fact, none of my gardens are on the same part of the acreage they are on, although my food forest is and they have ready access to it. That area is young and isn't producing much in the way of fruits and berries yet, but does have a wide diversity of plants. I observe my chickens eating grass, leaves and other plants, apples later in the season, but their preferred food is without question bugs. They love my compost bins because there are so many worms and tiny creepers. My chickens are obviously much bigger than the ones in the study. Mine are breeds most call "dual purpose". They seem perfectly healthy to me, as far as I can tell by looking and behavior. That leads me to believe you can raise and feed chickens without outside inputs if you are in an area where the climate allows. I think have large compost areas is a key element.

My situation is different with regards to chicks. I allow them to range out in a closed area but they eat a lot of starter/grower when they are young. I'm not certain how they would do on free range alone. I'm not convinced I would be giving them enough access to everything they need without commercial food, so I haven't tried it. As I said, I do allow them to forage as much as possible because I want them to know how, but they aren't reliant on it. I may expand my mealworm bins quite a bit this year to supplement their food, but will still rely on commercial grower food unless something cataclysmic happens and I can't get chicken food.

Winter is also a far different story here in WI and I rely on commercial food a great deal. As my food forest matures, and I get more gardens established, I hope to be able to change that a great deal, but I'm not kidding myself that I can switch to food that I grow for them exclusively. I think it's a good goal to have, but I won't be able to do it soon I don't think.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

Maybe I should leave off more of the ones that essentially say nothing new, like the last one doesn't. That one was because I figured out how to more consistently find older info.

What do y'all think?

I think it would be interesting to see the difference in different climates but I don't know that I'll invest the time since it doesn't also help me in this climate.

I don't think there's anything wrong with sources that are repetitive if the goal is to document the oldest literature possible that suggests what thoughts were on free ranging in earlier eras. My criticism is only directed towards the thought that the writings in fact reflect the widespread free-range practices at the time. They may be. Or they may not be and may instead be more of a reflection of changes in agricultural science happening at the time that indicate more about how we got to where we are now instead of where we started.

In other words, I'm challenging the interpretation specifically relating to writings from the early 1900s reflecting the state of free-ranging prior to that point. The early 1900s is when we started changing over to the current method of chicken keeping by raising chickens strictly in coops and relying on daily rations of prepared food that are becoming commercially made at that time. I think the writings of the time are reflecting that evolution, which is focused heavily on making chickens provide the maximum benefit to man in terms of egg laying and meat production. This is the time frame where we started realizing we could boost the performance of the animals by paying close attention to their nutrition, and the state of the tools of scientific study was getting to the point that we could understand a lot more about what was going on inside the bird and making in depth study of nutrition more possible.

The challenge I'm making is not a reflection of how you're researching. You're doing excellent finding old sources and posting them up. I'm merely debating their meaning. Which is generally what historians sit around and do all day.

 

[3KillerBs]

If you can reduce your input sufficiently, any meat or eggs you get from them is pure profit. But if you don't have the environment for minimal-input chicken keeping then higher production levels are necessary.

Personally, I know that I don't save any money on eggs, but I do just about break even on sales of started pullets and cull hens (and hope to figure out a good way to sell eggs).

^^^ That's why its important to understand the entire system in which these old recipes existed - the assumptions going in, and the assumptions going out.

Cherry picking parts without an understanding of the whole is a recipe for potential disaster, and virtually guarantees either waste, underperformance, or both. [Either of which you may be OK with, after weighing costs and considering alternatives - I'm just one for making an educated decision, as opposed to assuming things are fine based on some visual clues]. Risk Tolerance and Risk Management.

It's also important to remember that chickens ranging on a diversified farm are benefiting from the spillage, waste, and undigested grain in manure from the feeding of other animals -- being fed secondhand. Also, they'd have ready access to orchard waste and whatever they wanted from the growing crops -- which would also have been diversified rather than dozens or hundreds of acres in a wheat/corn/soybean rotation.

Modern farms are rarely diversified in that way today and most backyarders with limited amounts of land couldn't do it if they wanted to.

and skim milk replaces tankage and other similar feeds."

Skim milk and whey would have been byproduct from the more profitable sales of butter and/or cheese.

I don't have a source, but I remember reading about skim milk and whey being tried as irrigation/fertilization for fields -- with some concern about the build-up of salt content.