Yard vs Pasture?

[BayouPoules]

How much land does a flock of 30 need to be honestly called pastured? We have ours on over 3/4 an acre. Half is wooded with lots of old layed mulch for scrathing and bugs and half is grassy yard planted with clover and millet ... rye in winter.. It was explained to me by a vet and a farmer that if I had more chickens,. or less land they could not, in all honesty, be called pastured chickens..I tend to agree and that's why we are keeping it at 30... what do you think and why? Thanks for your input.

 

[boskelli1571]

Ok - I think I'm confused. To me, pastured means they have access to and use the outside land/yard. There maybe footage regulations for 'organic pastured' chickens in your area, which is what I think you mean. Obviously, overcrowding is not good and I think you are wise to keep to 30 birds, but I believe they are pastured hens. Please feel free to correct me if you find I'm wrong on this, I really would like to know,

 

[BayouPoules]

I was just hoping for any input.. I was taught that a pasture is a large area with grass.... I am seeing folks with small yards calling their hens and eggs pastured.. I was told by a farmer/vet that mine are almost not what he would consider free range.. I think with all the new backyard flocks..and newbies and farmer wanna be's ,.. the real meanings of pastured and free range have been lost. I think it's great that folks are backyarding it.. I certainly am,. at only an acre.. but I don't think we should lose site reality
and I just wondered what others thought..

 

[ChirpyChicks1]

This is confusing and I think it's gonna be something that people are going to just have different opinions. To me pastured means like cattle, they are out in a very large area and basically take care of themselves. Free Range to me would be a much smaller area than a pasture but certainly not a normal size yard. If you have your chickens walking around your normal yard then you simply have "backyard chickens"

 

[BayouPoules]

Exactly!

 

[Den in Penn]

To me to truly free range, there are no limits on how far they can go, with no fencing. Most of us do put some limits on where they can wander. Pasturing to me means that they can forage over a large enough area for them to find a lot of what they need, They can be limited to an area by fencing and still be pastured. Most of the time when I ask if a person free ranges, I am really asking if they have a area they let the chickens roam in that is much larger then the coop and run, where the birds can do some foraging. It is true many of the backyards can't support even a small flock with out additional feed, but there is square footage per bird that will give that bird some benefits. I haven't heard any regulation saying there has to be x square feet to be considered pasturing, just that they have to have access to the outside.

 

[Spangled]

It's difficult to define it all and I think that's fine since there are a lot of things to take into account.

A chicken (today's domesticated types) can only get about 5-15% of what it needs from foraging. But it depends on what grasses and forbs are available in addition to the protein load (spiders, insects, worms, etc.). Some land has a lot; some has a little. It depends on the soil and the climate and past care of the land. Our range and pasture and meadow and yard and weed patch and forest area and pond areas are all different. But I don't think any of it is rich enough to give my chickens more than 5% of what they need on any given day.

Also, if the land is "poor" and the chickens de-nude it of vegetation, then they are not free ranging by my definition no matter how large (5 acres) or how few fences they have.

We have to move our coops around to get them to use just the sections allotted to them, which might be 3 acres with them sneaking into other areas at times. They don't seem to travel much more than about 50 yards from their coop. Some of it is a trees/bushes (cover) issue; if there's no cover, then they don't go as far. (but we always give them some cover very close by because they just feel more secure if they have some.) Some of it is just what their actual range is, you know, biologically what their territory is. Sometimes it's a matter of the tempting taste of grasshoppers that just keeps them going further and further away from their coop until the rooster realizes it's time for a drink and bring them all back for water.

I saw one of the older hens, with a good memory, running from over next to the garden all the way through our backyard and over to the pond area this morning to muck about in the mud and under leaves, but last summer's chicks have no idea where she's going or why and won't follow. However, if the coop gets moved toward the pond this spring/summer, they will figure it out. The old hen's range is larger than the younger hens'. Is one free ranging and the others not because they certainly don't go as far as she does and she definitely gets a different diet than pals. My Marans are almost feeder parasites in comparison to some of my other chickens. So, while the Marans can travel as far as they want, they mostly stick to about 10 yards from the coop. (Sillies.)

About the richness of the pasture or foraging area ... for us, many, many of the bugs in an area are cleaned up in just a week. Of course, it does depend on the range, meadow, pasture, yard. This initially surprised me and I was a little miffed because I thought that they would get to eat grasshoppers all summer, but once they're eaten up, they're gone. Mostly.

Grass fed ... another term that can be misunderstood although it is very straightforward from my perspective. Are the chickens let out each day for a couple of hours to eat some grass? They eat their own chicken feed also because that's can't survive on grass only. However, that grass, if they can get it, makes a proportionally larger difference in the eggs that one would expect. I would pick a grass fed hen's egg over a "free range" labeled egg at the store. Will "grass fed" be misused as a term. Yes, but then, we can just ask questions of the seller if we're actually going to buy the "grass fed" eggs and make our buying decisions based on that. Since we personally eat our own eggs and grow a little bit of wheat grass in the winter and free range in the summer, our grass fed eggs are good enough for us.

And to me, a pasture is a field that has been planted with pasture grasses for cattle. It's not a wild untouched field; that's range. You know, Home, home on the range ... where the deer and the antelope play and also where cattle are ranging near the sign that says, "Open range. Be prepared to stop for cattle on road" and the road is gravel. A pasture has richer grass than the range because it's been planted, but the range sometimes has a stream running through it and some trees now and then or bushes. But a pasture can be different in different parts of the world. So ... regulating the term pasture ... wow, that would be difficult, I'd think. But you'd think that any planted grassy area (backyard?) could conceivably be called pasture. It's about what they're eating, I think, when people use the term "pastured," not about size. Isn't it about the omega 3 vs omega 6 ratio in the eggs the reason that people want a "pastured egg" these days? You know, Weston Price and Paleo stuff.

Anyway, how did I get started on this? I think I just changed my mind three times while blathering on about this just now. I am not going to worry about anyone wanting to call their chickens pastured or free ranged or cooped up or corn fed or house chickens or heritage or Americanas (spelling that way on purpose)--you can call them anything you want and I won't call you on it. There are better terms than others, but I'm just going to be happy that I've found someone to talk about chickens with.

 

[BayouPoules]

It sounds like you have very blessed chickens...

 

[Kinmera]

To me its very simple:

Free Range = chickens can run anywhere they want to on your property, the road, or anyone elses property they happen to roam.

Pastured = Chickens are contained behind a fence or in a movable chicken tractor of some type.

My birds are pastured 8 - 9 months out of the year depending on Mother Nature's snows. I use movable Electric Fence and tractors.