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

raingarden

Songster
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Apr 12, 2021
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Survival of our quasi-feral chicks are like that. 25-30%. If they are captured and penned up with the hen survival is more like 80-90%. I'm still trying to sort out how much of the loss is predation and how much disease, or how much the two are intertwined.

Then after being weaned, most young-of-the-year are driven away so the flock size remains somewhat stable. I feel like they are adjusting their numbers to accomodate the forage base or carrying capacity.

When an adult is butchered it feels like a loss at first but it is really just opening up a slot for a new poulet.
 

annaschicken01

Chirping
Nov 4, 2019
13
35
61
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?
If she is looking for a good chicken feed to feed on the side I recommend Dumor 16% Layer Feed. I find the yolks are solid, and the shells are hard. I have tried other feeds and I don't get the same results. We also let our chickens free range, we lock them up in the chicken coop at night. I lost all of my french cuckoo maran hens to preditors last year which is why we started doing that.
 

Shadrach

Roosterist
Jul 31, 2018
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Catalonia, Spain & UK
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Survival of our quasi-feral chicks are like that. 25-30%. If they are captured and penned up with the hen survival is more like 80-90%. I'm still trying to sort out how much of the loss is predation and how much disease, or how much the two are intertwined.

Then after being weaned, most young-of-the-year are driven away so the flock size remains somewhat stable. I feel like they are adjusting their numbers to accomodate the forage base or carrying capacity.

When an adult is butchered it feels like a loss at first but it is really just opening up a slot for a new poulet.
Human predation (we ate some) and other predators accounted for the deaths in Catalonia. The Goshawk killed most.

Then after being weaned, most young-of-the-year are driven away so the flock size remains somewhat stable. I feel like they are adjusting their numbers to accomodate the forage base or carrying capacity.
How many of the young who don't stay with the parents form new tribes do you think?
I ended up with new tribes but I controled the breeding quantity by either not letting them sit and hatch, or limiting the amount of eggs the broodies sat on.
Predation managed the rest. The total number of chickens, both sexes, used to fluctuate between 20 and 30 spread over 3 or 4 tribes.
 

raingarden

Songster
Premium Feather Member
Apr 12, 2021
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How many of the young who don't stay with the parents form new tribes do you think?
That's what I've always wanted to know.

A few can form a new group up next to the highway where the main flock do not go. Other than that, they would have to move to someone else's property.

I've always wanted to be able to walk through everybody's property to map the chicken flocks. But, a crazy old chicken guy walking through your yard might not go over to well.

From the highway, you can see flocks scattered along. Maybe every quarter mile or so. Some people hate them, some people feed them, some people eat them.

We're less than three acres and not fenced. The chickens go where they want. But, they stay close enough to home to hear the top being removed from the metal feed can.
 

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