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

[3KillerBs]

I bet Europe and North America historically offered much better free range fair. Average size of the free range roosters in the study was around 2.5lbs. Historically free range gamefowl in Europe and North America were a pound or two larger than that at least.

It only stands to reason that diversified small farms with other livestock present provided a richer environment than large monoculture farms, suburban backyards, or even the sort of rural area I live in -- which consists of 3-5 acre lots, mostly wooded^ with some lawn and some scrubland post-logging, and no livestock other than an occasional flock of chickens.

Also you'd get a richer environment when you don't have large-scale use of pesticides.

^NC Sandhills -- very poor, acid soil growing primarily Longleaf and Loblolly pines with some scrub oak in earlier succession and sweet gums near water sources.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

^NC Sandhills -- very poor, acid soil growing primarily Longleaf and Loblolly pines with some scrub oak in earlier succession and sweet gums near water sources.

Florida scrub is the same. In fact nearly all of our woods have that acidic soil that won’t grow much in the way of human crops. The hammocklands and former canebreaks were our best habitat. Dark, rich soil. Most are gone now. I live in the pine flatwoods on the edge of swampland that drains into a major river system.

The best consistent habitat I’ve seen for domestic chickens, including gamefowl, is old fence line running through former hammocklands. The fence lines grow back in hammock so the chickens get the benefit of deep leaf litter and rich soil, but also sunlight from it being edge habitat so also lots of lush, low, greenery.

 

[3KillerBs]

Florida scrub is the same. In fact nearly all of our woods have that acidic soil that won’t grow much in the way of human crops. The hammocklands and former canebreaks were our best habitat. Dark, rich soil. Most are gone now. I live in the pine flatwoods on the edge of swampland that drains into a major river system.

The best consistent habitat I’ve seen for domestic chickens, including gamefowl, is old fence line running through former hammocklands. The fence lines grow back in hammock so the chickens get the benefit of deep leaf litter and rich soil, but also sunlight from it being edge habitat so also lots of lush, low, greenery.

*nods*

Edges are always the richest in biodiversity and productivity.

 

[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.

 

[centrarchid]

I am a proponent of the system like used in paper. System I have may be a little more diversified that even they have. My harvest are also very seasonal in nature where the term growing season has a meaning even with respect to the chickens.

 

[saysfaa]

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.

Ethiopia is a very diverse country, the study was done in a region that has minimal food insecurity, at least it did that year. I see that I wasn't very clear in the first post about that.

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. Also, So many people think they do better than commercial feeds - often, "because people had chickens long before commercial feeds."

If there is not much to spare for the chickens, wouldn't it be better to feed ten chicks well enough for them to be healthy than to fed thirty chicks what isn't enough for ten?

... 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.

Who is pushing the buying of processed chicken feed?

 

[Perris]

Ethiopia is a very diverse country, the study was done in a region that has minimal food insecurity, at least it did that year. I see that I wasn't very clear in the first post about that.

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. Also, So many people think they do better than commercial feeds - often, "because people had chickens long before commercial feeds."

If there is not much to spare for the chickens, wouldn't it be better to feed ten chicks well enough for them to be healthy than to fed thirty chicks what isn't enough for ten?

Who is pushing the buying of processed chicken feed?

the authors are, in the last line of the conclusion: "Therefore, the urgent need of developing awareness and a basic daily supplementary ration with the use of locally available feed ingredients is very critical."

 

[U_Stormcrow]

the authors are, in the last line of the conclusion: "Therefore, the urgent need of developing awareness and a basic daily supplementary ration with the use of locally available feed ingredients is very critical."

While I see how you might read that as you do - an encouragement to use a commercial feed as suppliment, I think it can as easily be read as encouragement for the locals to set aside some portion of local production for their specific feeding, rather than complete reliance on scavenging and scraps. Where the balance in terms of increased food (meat/eggs) from the local chickens and loss of feed for humans due to crop diversion to those chickens meets is beyond the scope of the study.

Ethiopia does have some interesting grains with potential as poultry feeds. Tef, particularly, but also the sudangrass/sorghum hybrid. Tef is superior to soft wheat in many metrics, and a number of studies show chickens on largely sorghum (or sorghum-hybrid) based feeds do significantly better than the raw nutritional numbers (which, honestly, aren't great - though better than corn on most metrics) might suggest - "why" is something still being researched.

 

[saysfaa]

Coyotes and Golden retrievers.
If both are well fed (enough; not too much), the coyote will be much narrower and shorter. That doesn't mean no coyote is ever stunted from lack of enough nutrients.

Stunted doesn't mean just smaller than they otherwise would be. Or just lower production of meat and/or eggs. It can also mean poorly developed digestive system so that less of the food it gets for the rest of its life is digested and used. It takes more food to keep it alive than it otherwise would.

Stunted can also mean poorly developed or damaged immune system, respiratory system, circulation system, liver...

I can see some variation in how much protein a given bird or breed (landrace or otherwise) needs. I need more than *some are still alive" to see ten percent protein being healthy when studies use 15% to study "stunting syndrome" in chickens. (Several studies via google scholar, although other levels were also used.)

Not just that they used that much to study protein deficiency, but also the results of the studies. Some studies looked at just production but others looked at the damage done to various body systems.