More like 98 % , butclose enough :
“ Every so often someone posts a question require if chickens can exist entirely on gratuitous - compass / forage . The consuming response is generally a reverberating “ no ” , followed by a laundry list of reasons why it should n’t be attempted ( from not enough forage to increased exposure to predation , etc ) , which is probably straight in most situations .
I am always interested in the threads talking about this because it just seems to me that 100 % loose - range is a species - appropriate life for a chicken , and in my idea , is the gold banner that I should strive for . Adding to that , I geek out on nutrition topics ( humans AND animals ) , so the idea of truly complete kernel and eggs makes me syncope .
I just ca n’t believe that this practice is nothing more than a relic of mean solar day gone by , only be in stories of how our grandparents did it . I ’ve been toy with the idea of trying it out for years . I do n’t feed my goats or my bullock , so … why am I feeding the chickens ?
I determine to go for it .
So , back somewhere around May I assemble up 48 testis from my troop and dusted off the Janoel . I had never try a dry hatch / incubation , so I decided to try it out . 38 of the 48 hatched right on prison term with a 3 daytime spread from first radar target to last out of the shell .
I flow the chicks fermented organic , soybean - free , non - gmo bed mash direct from the mill while they were in the brooder phase . ( Yes , layer mash . 17 % to be accurate . ) I did not vaccinate them , add anything to the water , or append with ‘ delicacy ’ ) . Not a individual chick had pasty butt , by the way . ( That ’s because of the fermented feed ) .
I moved the chicks to an outdoor , heart-to-heart - tune incubator when the first adult feathering started showing up . Yes , this is earlier than ‘ general Wisdom of Solomon ’ says to do so . I kept them on the fermented feed and started pulling up large clumps of grass and weeds and random vegetation from the creek banking concern , ( rootage and dirt and rocks included ) to put inside the brooder every day . Once over the initial fright of the new ‘ thing ’ in the incubator , the wench would assail the thud of botany with gusto . I also did not clean out the outside brooder . I left all the grass and stain turn down in it .
The incubator is a two - floor prefab coop marketed for 4 - 6 adult birds , ( but is n’t bad enough for one bird to live it ’s life in if you ask me ) . I make a hardware cloth story for the brooder and put it on wagon tires . It sits outside in the pasture and is surrounded by electric poultry net . My intent was to move the brooder and fencing every workweek or so and keep the tiddler confine within the galvanising fowl netting .
I started letting the chicks out of the incubator house when they were about 1/2 fuzz and 1/2 plume . They would stay on out all day and return to the hencoop for the dark . What I did n’t realize at first is that some were going flop through the poultry netting and out into the godforsaken unknown all day long . When I work out this out , all bets were off and I just protrude start the logic gate in the mornings and closing it at night . The experiment was officially begin whether I like it or not .
I put some fermented provender in the brooder each even for about a week , mostly for my own peace of nous that it would get the birds to render home . It did . However , the dame all had full crop upon returning to the incubator each evening , so I decide it was time to stop declare oneself food completely .
And that is how it has stay to this day . I never moved the incubator from it ’s original location and I do n’t even close it . I do end the galvanizing fencing . get ta say that I ’m happy to NOT have to commit up and reset a idiotic amount of electric poultry fence every hebdomad …
Have there been losses ? Yes . I lose 3 birds to sour crop early on , which I believe was due to eat excessively fibrous grasses . Do they still return to the brooder ? Most do , others just yield to the general expanse . They do n’t all take to roost inside the brooder household . Some roost on top of it . Others perch high up up in nearby Oak trees . Two hens and a roo seem to prefer roosting on my lawnmower .
All but one biddy and 4 rooster have figured out that flying over the fence every aurora is preferable to waiting on me to go open up the gate for them . Half the flock haul butt into the timber and the other half head off to the brook first affair every twenty-four hour period , even before daylight ( I only know this because I can hear the rooster ) . I seldom see them at all until twilight rolls around and they originate heading back to the incubator house .
An armadillo and a possum have decided to make home inside the fowl fencing material . The opossum routinely steal the nest box bedding , which is fine because the hens wo n’t habituate the nest box . A few will consist eggs inside the brooder house . Two lay ball on my front pack of cards . One lay an ball in the kennel that my older cat stays in during the wintertime . The rest of them lie eggs in the Grant Wood . None of the birds seem to mind the armadillo and opossum hang around .
Are the birds skinny ? Malnourished ? Bony ? No , No , and No . They are all of comparable size to my other flock that free ranges during the day and is given 16 % layer pellet every evening after come back to the barn .
Do I give them any food at all ? Sure . I give their shell outside after breakfast . If any birds are still around the house they will immediately come and eat them . I also throw out the meat and osseous tissue leftover from take a leak chicken bone broth . They eat every rubbish of it . I occasionally bewilder out wilty fruit / vegetables or moth-eaten gelt end ( homemade ) . I do this mostly because I ’m slothful and it ’s easy to fox this poppycock off the back deck than it is to have it stinking up the kitchen trash can . If the chickens do n’t eat it , possums and raccoons will . Either is hunky-dory with me . Point being that I throw material to them on occasion , but in undistinguished amount . The bollock are modest than those from my old barn mint , but they are the same in regards to having slurred shells and membrane . Unless you come to a rock , the egg bounce when you switch them on the ground ! ”
This really meshes with what I read in the bookFree - Range Survival Chickens .
That book has everything you need to sleep with about traditional chicken keeping and extreme spare - range flocks . It ’s a must - have resource .
I also talked more about the pursuance for a more springy no - care chicken in last Nox ’s Goodstream :
It is quite an interesting subject . Right now I have some eggs incubating which are cross between Production Red rooster and Brown Leghorns , Black Australorps and California Whites . We butchered our two Production Red rooster on Sunday evening , but their genetic science will persist . Incidentally , they ’ve been replaced with game cock . The chicks from those crosse will be interesting to see !
