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

[saysfaa]

And, for perspective regarding the above post, one state over in Kansas for a similar time frame (1920 - 1924)

Hens averaged about 80 eggs per year.

Source

Edit to add the picture of the page that shows the eggs per hen.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Thank you @saysfaa for your research in this field and the helpful links!

 

[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.)

 

[saysfaa]

Semirelated to the topic. Source

"EC legislation requires the land to which free-range poultry have access to be ‘mainly covered with vegetation’, but the nature of this vegetation is not specified....In practice, most free- range land will be grass pasture.
Modern poultry nutrition is a highly-developed science. [explation/details of what that means]...

... it is impossible to prevent outdoor-kept poultry from consuming pasture (or indeed inhabitants of the pasture, such as invertebrates), and therefore it is useful to consider how much they might consume and what nutritional value they might derive from it. ...

the specifications of a modern poultry diet [explation/details of what that is - including how and why it is different from older diet]...

In recent years the contribution of grazing to the nutrition of the birds has generally been considered negligible. Thus, commercial pasture management has often consisted of little more than keeping the grass tidy. Sward composition, using mixtures dominated by perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne), has been aimed at the provision of durability and ease of management rather than at nutritional potential. However, birds on range appear to ingest a little grass, and therefore the quality of the pasture may affect their performance. ...

[Explation/details of the variables affecting the nutritional composition of pasture] ...these factors for ruminant pastures is well documented, but not for poultry pastures.

Authors of the pre-industrial era of poultry production were convinced that pasture grass had feeding value. [examples of such authors in the 1950s, one who thought pasture could reduce purchased feed by 5%, another by 10%]

[It is] not clear ... whether the feed savings were made at the expense of egg output. Of course, the chicken genotypes of 1948 were less prolific than those of today, and it could be argued that the poultry feeds of that time were closer in nutritional value to the pasture on which the chickens ranged.

In a handbook of guidelines Poultry World (1959) mentioned that many different seed mixtures had been tried for poultry pasture, but gave an example [in the picture]....

[Details of the nutrient profile of such a pasture, including some of the plants and some of the invertibrates]..."

The conclusion was this type of pasture would make a small but economically important contribution.

I think it could make a lot more contribution if the pasture was managed for that purpose or at least not managed for the purpose of "staying covered with vegetation" while the chickens are out on it.

However, I also noticed the 1950s era also found pasture contributed only about 5%.

I also noticed there was no mention of alfalfa and not much clover was used, even in the 1950s pasture. Is that because they aren't used much in the UK? Maybe a climate difference?

Source is

Intake of nutrients from pasture by poultry​

Proceedings of the Nutrition Society 62 (2), 253-256, 2003

 

[U_Stormcrow]

^^^ remind me to come back to this this weekend, no time this AM

 

[centrarchid]

Fair point.

If all you want is enough of them to have a long enough life span to lay enough viable eggs to have another generation then perhaps it could be called above their needs.

System above was similar to what we did on the barnyard walk for our game chickens. We collected all eggs for eating when nights were cold. Chicks hatched before June 1 were regarded for use as fighting chickens by us or sold. Females of early hatch were used as replacements for broodstock. All chicks hatched after June 1 were consumed. We could produce on average about 50 birds hatched after June 1. Many details I leave out as are not included either in study cited.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

Semirelated to the topic. Source

"EC legislation requires the land to which free-range poultry have access to be ‘mainly covered with vegetation’, but the nature of this vegetation is not specified....In practice, most free- range land will be grass pasture.
Modern poultry nutrition is a highly-developed science. [explation/details of what that means]...

... it is impossible to prevent outdoor-kept poultry from consuming pasture (or indeed inhabitants of the pasture, such as invertebrates), and therefore it is useful to consider how much they might consume and what nutritional value they might derive from it. ...

the specifications of a modern poultry diet [explation/details of what that is - including how and why it is different from older diet]...

In recent years the contribution of grazing to the nutrition of the birds has generally been considered negligible. Thus, commercial pasture management has often consisted of little more than keeping the grass tidy. Sward composition, using mixtures dominated by perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne), has been aimed at the provision of durability and ease of management rather than at nutritional potential. However, birds on range appear to ingest a little grass, and therefore the quality of the pasture may affect their performance. ...

[Explation/details of the variables affecting the nutritional composition of pasture] ...these factors for ruminant pastures is well documented, but not for poultry pastures.

Authors of the pre-industrial era of poultry production were convinced that pasture grass had feeding value. [examples of such authors in the 1950s, one who thought pasture could reduce purchased feed by 5%, another by 10%]

[It is] not clear ... whether the feed savings were made at the expense of egg output. Of course, the chicken genotypes of 1948 were less prolific than those of today, and it could be argued that the poultry feeds of that time were closer in nutritional value to the pasture on which the chickens ranged.

In a handbook of guidelines Poultry World (1959) mentioned that many different seed mixtures had been tried for poultry pasture, but gave an example [in the picture]....

[Details of the nutrient profile of such a pasture, including some of the plants and some of the invertibrates]..."

The conclusion was this type of pasture would make a small but economically important contribution.

I think it could make a lot more contribution if the pasture was managed for that purpose or at least not managed for the purpose of "staying covered with vegetation" while the chickens are out on it.

However, I also noticed the 1950s era also found pasture contributed only about 5%.

I also noticed there was no mention of alfalfa and not much clover was used, even in the 1950s pasture. Is that because they aren't used much in the UK? Maybe a climate difference?

Source is

Intake of nutrients from pasture by poultry​

Proceedings of the Nutrition Society 62 (2), 253-256, 2003

I don’t know why pasture grasses and miscellaneous meadow-type plants wouldn’t have significant nutritional value to chickens.

For most of us, a “poultry pasture” is just the farmyard right around the homestead. My farmyard is 2 acres of mostly bahia grass and the various weeds that grow with it. I’d estimate about half my chickens’ diet consists of what plant material they browse off the yard. It could be more than that.

 

[Geena]

I don’t know why pasture grasses and miscellaneous meadow-type plants wouldn’t have significant nutritional value to chickens.

For most of us, a “poultry pasture” is just the farmyard right around the homestead. My farmyard is 2 acres of mostly bahia grass and the various weeds that grow with it. I’d estimate about half my chickens’ diet consists of what plant material they browse off the yard. It could be more than that.

I think a lot must depend on what type of chickens and what they get fed otherwise. They probably do, but I've never actually seen my chickens eat grass, I have mostly tall fescue here. They do like chickweed and henbit but other than that I seldom see them eating anything green. They seem to mostly be looking for flowers, seeds and insects.

 

[Geena]

Looking though one of @saysfaa 's links I found this-

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S003257911937186X

It reminded me that they do really like Ladino Clover. I planted some in the chicken fields and they totally destroyed it. That's the most difficult thing in providing chickens with good forage, if they really like something they will decimate it in no time.

 

[saysfaa]

...That is the most difficult thing in providing chickens with good forage, if they really like something they will decimate it in no time.

Rotational grazing would solve that. It would work as a fence in system if you use runs or as a fence out system if you free range.

Or possibly providing enough of it to get past the compensation stage. I'm not sure that is clear - I mean the cafeteria style self-balanced feed trials found chickens that were short of a nutrient would eat a LOT of it for a short time then go back to the amount that balanced. The free range version is doing much the same (as berries ripen, for example.)