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

TooCheep said:

FYI- Consider using dead leaves instead of wood mulch. Just collect them in the fall and store in bags. They are much easier on chicken feet and they love digging around in it and it gets broken down (along with chicken poo) into an excellent compost you can use in the spring.

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Don't get much by the way of leaves. I guess I can try to save the cottonwood tree leaves in the back... are there any types of leaves to stay away from?

Badchickenpun said:

Don't get much by the way of leaves. I guess I can try to save the cottonwood tree leaves in the back... are there any types of leaves to stay away from?

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Poison ivy.

IMO, the best bedding in the run is a mix of different materials. Free is tops.

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

Badchickenpun said:

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.

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Badchickenpun said:

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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If you're comparing with "free range" eggs in the store, you don't need to change anything about your chicken-keeping arrangements. Your chickens are already "free range."

I notice you are in the USA.
Here is a page with USDA definitions:
https://www.fsis.usda.gov/food-safe...safety-basics/meat-and-poultry-labeling-terms

Free range says, "Producers must demonstrate to the Agency that the poultry has been allowed access to the outside."

Your chickens have access to the outside, therefore your chickens are already "free range."

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.

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:

Don't get much by the way of leaves. I guess I can try to save the cottonwood tree leaves in the back... are there any types of leaves to stay away from?

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I'm not aware of any (though I'd definitely recommend staying away from poison ivy/poison oak and other obvious toxic types). Chickens generally don't eat leaves, so that isn't an issue. I use all of my own leaves and even ask for/get some "clean" bags of leaves from one of my neighbors. It is free and easy to use. Be sure to give them some eggs once in a while.

BTW- Do you have enough trees/bushes to offer them shade in the summer and cover from aerial predators (if the run is open-top)? Might want to think about that. Given adequate cover, chickens are very good about avoiding hawks. I've seen squadrons of them in my area occasionally (10-18), but my chickens are fine because they have plenty of cover when they free-range. I have lost 1 in 5 years.

NatJ said:

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.)

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Win-Win!

My own yard generates enough pine straw and we invested in a used lawnsweeper so I don't have to rake it by hand.

3KillerBs said:

Poison ivy.

IMO, the best bedding in the run is a mix of different materials. Free is tops.

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

Click to expand...

TooCheep said:

I'm not aware of any (though I'd definitely recommend staying away from poison ivy/poison oak and other obvious toxic types). Chickens generally don't eat leaves, so that isn't an issue. I use all of my own leaves and even ask for/get some "clean" bags of leaves from one of my neighbors. It is free and easy to use. Be sure to give them some eggs once in a while.

BTW- Do you have enough trees/bushes to offer them shade in the summer and cover from aerial predators (if the run is open-top)? Might want to think about that. Given adequate cover, chickens are very good about avoiding hawks. I've seen squadrons of them in my area occasionally (10-18), but my chickens are fine because they have plenty of cover when they free-range. I have lost 1 in 5 years.

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Unfortunately, the bulk of the yard is open.
The crows do a good job of chasing the hawks.
If I made a larger "day-time run" it would be from cheaper fencing and bird netting on top. They would not have access if we were not out and about.

I'd think about planting at least a couple bushes in a day-time run. You might have to surround the bushes with chicken wire for a year or two to allow them to get established. Depending on the type, the chickens might directly nibble on the plant or might decide to dig under the plant to create dust baths. The shrubs provide good shade even if they are never out to be vulnerable to hawks.

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?

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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.