Debate on food, free range and egg quality...

We eat a lot of eggs. We are new to chickens.
We have a small flock of seven chickens that are soon to be egg layers.
Their run is 12x18, floor is currently grass, will add dye free mulch this fall when grass is gone.
My wife wants the healthiest eggs (and chickens)... She reads and watches info from the web about buying eggs from the store and what each term means and which is the "best."
Pasture raised chickens give great quality eggs is her starting point based on her research. Not going to debate that statement for this discussion.
She thinks that if they were free range we wouldn't need to feed them hardly any food and the eggs would be great quality... she thinks that is the implication from people talking about eggs from free range chickens. I tell her that they will still need access to feed.
I would rather build a larger (less secure) day time run instead of worrying about them destroying my garden, getting eaten by predators or going places they don't belong.
How large of a run would a dozen chickens need to be considered "pastured" for this discussion?

There are many threads here about range feeding chickens.

IMO, the bottom line is that if your area doesn't already support year-round flocks of feral chickens they environment is not conducive to supporting chickens without use of chicken feed -- though you may see a savings in feed during favorable times of the year.

The quality of your land matters.

Geese graze on grass. Chickens eat seeds, bugs, and greens from broadleaf plants with grass being very low on their priority list.

Consider getting electric poultry netting so you can move the chickens to different areas as they eat down their preferred species. I'm very happy with the netting I got from Premeir 1.

Badchickenpun said:

How large of a run would a dozen chickens need to be considered "pastured" for this discussion?

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Pasture raised, like many of the other terms used to describe the way chickens are kept seems to vary depending on country and interpretation.
It's a bit like the term free range.
This is a picture of a major egg product concern and these chickens are described as pasture raised.

As you can see, not much pasture left.
Yes it is a lot better than the caged keeping conditions but...

I and other who have looked into this and made comparisons to the areas a jungle fowl family need to be self sufficient estimate an acre of ground per breeding pair.
But, jungle ecology and an average back yard or even an average farm are very different environments. The most obvious difference being that should the acre of jungle the breeding pair live off become insufficient in forage, the pair move on to another acre.

I used to free range four or five tribes/groups on very varied vegitation and still fed some commerciial feed. The amount these chickens ate of the commercial feed varied from season to season. If I was to make an informed guess I think it might have been possible for one of these tribes to survive on four acres.

One aspect that often gets overlooked is the breed of chicken and their knowledge of their environment. The first generation of say hatchery birds let loose to free range are likely to die quite quickly due to predation and food shortages left to fend for themselves.
Also, the breeds that tend to fare well free ranging don't lay many eggs and by USA standards wouldn't make a decent meal for one person.

Full free ranging as in only confined at night, or left to roost where they choose in just about any environment apart from a jungle or similar climatic ideal is a long term project, even with the right breeds. I headed towards this for ten years and still didn't get there with a mix of bantams and Marans.

I know a few people that have done it and it's taken generations in human terms, not chicken terms and they had the pick of some of the best free range capable chickens known.

The best you can hope for unless you wish to make chickens your lifes work is to free range them on whatever land you have available. Even then, they will need feeding, be that with commercial feed or a feed you make up yourself. You will also lose chickens like small change if you have any of the more persistant predators in the locality. It all looks like a wondefull idea on the internet, but the reality is hard on the keepers and even harder on the chickens.

If you can for example fence half an acre of ground which has trees, shrubs, bushes and varied vegitation you'll be doing better than many. You will still need to provide the chickens with feed. Hopefully when forage is good, you can reduce the feed costs, but that's about as good as it's going to get for the vast majority of people who just want to keep a few chickens for some eggs and possibly entertainment and they are wonderfully entertaining.

U_Stormcrow said:

I'm one of the "complete feed" people. I'm ALSO one of the "free range" people. And I will say again, anything other than a commercially complete feed has the *potential* to imbalance your chicken's diet.

@NatJ has the right of it, if "free ranging" means turning birds loose in a perfectly manicured residential backyard of zoysia or bermuda grass, or St. Augustine or whatever, surrounded by equaly well manicured lawns and residential pest control, there is a lot of potential for imbalance. Same if their range is acres of sunflower seed, or a corn field, or even a sea of clover. Its magical thinking to believe a balanced meal comes out of a single (or substantially a single) ingredient.

Monocultures are bad, because the chickens have no choice. If they are hungry, they will eat. Monocultures of particularly high energy/fatty feeds (sunflowers, corn, etc) are like sticking sodas, chips, and candy bars in front of teenagers - ruins their dinner.

Feeding something less than a commercially complete feed and then setting your birds loose to free range in hopes it will fix a deficient diet is likewise magical thinking. Unless you have deliberately planted fields to compensate for known feed deficiencies. Which, honestly, is a level of foresight, planning, and execution well beyond the typical poultry owner.

If you are going to free range, and if you plan on their foraging being a substantial portion of their diet, the first thing you have to do is stop pretending. There are *NO* gurantees. There is, however, intelligent risk management. Keeping their complete feed available at all times is a form of risk management - if the nutrition they need isn't currently in their forage (out of season, buried under snow, simply not present), they have complete feed available. Deliberately planting a polyculture - and I don't mean three varieties of grass - but rather a diverse mix of grasses, grains, near grains, legumes, pulses, and all the rest - at least gives the birds a choice - in hopes that they will select during their foraging a mix of plant life (this also attracts a mix of insect life - yum!), and any imbalance will be kept to a minimum, while the period in which the plot is productively "in season" is extended.

Is it nutritiously optimum? No, probably not. Is it Perfect? Nothing is. Is it a reasonable response to address the known deficiencies of monocultural plantings? (to say nothing of the way those degrade the soil over time) Yes, I think so.

"Better than the Alternatives" is good enough for me.

and if circumstances or resources make sprouting trays, rather than forage plots, the most practical solution? then I encourage you to follow the same thinking - don't offer the same ingredients, day after day, month after month. Variety helps avoid imbalance.

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I am attaching this from another thread. Stormcrow has been doing a lot of homework on nutrition.

Hens that fall victim to predators definitely do NOT lay healthy eggs.

Free range birds al.ost certainly would still need feed supplemented. Most places just don't have the right balance of nutrients and mi era's, let alone enough for a bird to survive on.

Badchickenpun said:

We eat a lot of eggs. We are new to chickens.
We have a small flock of seven chickens that are soon to be egg layers.
Their run is 12x18, floor is currently grass, will add dye free mulch this fall when grass is gone.
My wife wants the healthiest eggs (and chickens)... She reads and watches info from the web about buying eggs from the store and what each term means and which is the "best."
Pasture raised chickens give great quality eggs is her starting point based on her research. Not going to debate that statement for this discussion.
She thinks that if they were free range we wouldn't need to feed them hardly any food and the eggs would be great quality... she thinks that is the implication from people talking about eggs from free range chickens. I tell her that they will still need access to feed.
I would rather build a larger (less secure) day time run instead of worrying about them destroying my garden, getting eaten by predators or going places they don't belong.
How large of a run would a dozen chickens need to be considered "pastured" for this discussion?

Click to expand...

Your wife is, politely, "mistaken". I would guess she has fallen prey to marketing and attractive buzz words. No disrespect - if they didn't work most of the time, for most of the people, we wouldn't have a business in "marketing".

Feeding chickens an optimal diet is COMPLICATED - and humans, as a general rule, don't like Complicated. Honestly, we are a time limited species - we don't have enough lifespan to research things for ourself, se we are forced to rely on others for much of the information upon which we base our decisions. "Influencers".

and "Pastured" is one of those buzz words of uncertain and somewhat nebulous definition. The quality of eggs from pasture raised hens depends almost entirely on the quality of the pasture, though size can help mitigate somewhat for poor production.

As a practical matter, one can neither meet the optimum nutritional needs of one's chickens from their own pasture (in almost every case), and one can not completely feed one's flock from one's own pasture (in almost every case). That's not to say that chickens can't survive on one's own land without a commercial feed (or a home mixed feed - which I don't recommend attempting), simply that the nutritional needs of a modern bird to be most productive are much higher than is available thru nature alone.

Gallus Gallus Domesticus - the domestic chicken - has been bred by man to be far more productive than its jungle fowl ancestors - and that productivity comes with a need for man to provide support for them.

I've been at this a couple years now, my flock is in my Sig below. My birds free range around five acres, in one of the most forgiving climates in this nation. Its split roughly two acres of pasture and three acres of woods I am slowly clearing to expand the pasture. The pasture is one I've deliberately planted with a mix of greens. Best case? I save about 35% on my expected feed amounts during the most productive part of the year, and closer to 10% during the least. That's not to say it can't be done better - I hope that it can, its why I keep trying things to improve on what I'm doing. Its merely an example of what should be reasoanble expectations for what can be (relatively) quickly accomplished with limited efforts at continued maintenance.

3KillerBs said:

Volunteer to rake your neighbors' yards. You save on both a gym membership and buying bedding.

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I know someone who volunteered with a bunch of teenagers to rake the big lawn at a local church. Then this person volunteered to haul away all those bags of leaves

So this person did not have to do ALL the raking, but did get ALL the leaves. A good arrangement for everyone!

(This would probably work with any place that has a big lawn and counts on volunteers to rake the leaves.)

Badchickenpun said:

Yeah. Not sure all the sources, but mostly doctor/health/holistic type sources I would say. The focus of the date was not from the farming perspective, but from the shopping perspective. I am trying to translate what the people said about which eggs from the store are the healthiest to doing something similar for our own...

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The fact your chicken will be able to be outside, not squished together, eating bugs and things and getting real sunshine already makes them leaps and bounds better than store eggs. A balanced feed and occadional fresh greens and fruits sowill do wonders for the health of the eggs.

Florida Bullfrog said:

Do they though?

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In many cases, yes they need SOME amount of purchased chicken food.

For someone who is new to chickens, I would strongly recommend they provide free-choice chicken food at all times during the first two years or so. That is in addition to letting the chickens range/forage as much as the people want to allow.

I suggest 2 years because of seasonal variation and year-to-year variation. After that long, you've seen most of the options, and can more easily evaluate what is right for your conditions.

(No, that advice won't be right for everyone, but I think it will work for most people who are new to chickens.)