I grew up seeing hens loose along creek bottoms, hedge rows, and old windbreaks not penned tight, not fed heavy all year.
It makes me wonder: in the Midwest, was grain really for chickens… or was it insurance for frozen ground and snow cover?
From April through first hard frost, the bugs are thick, seeds everywhere, pasture alive. A good foraging breed works dawn to dusk if the land is right.
So here’s what I’m curious about especially from folks who remember pre-industrial scale homesteads:
If you’ve got acreage, water, hedgerows, and rotation is year-round feeding a modern habit, not a necessity?
I’m not talking about selling eggs. Just a household dozen, slower and seasonal.
Curious what folks in Missouri Kansas Iowa Nebraska actually saw work not what the feed store says.
Lenora said, So here’s what I’m curious about especially from folks who remember pre-industrial scale homesteads:
If you’ve got acreage, water, hedgerows, and rotation is year-round feeding a modern habit, not a necessity?
Welcome to the forum/
To me, chicken feed helps add vitamins and nutrients that chickens might not get if they only forage, especially in winter.
I am not sure there are many pre-industrial folks still living.
Here, in the 1960s and I guess before, everybody had lots of chickens. They were not penned up at all. They were not fed much at all except in winter when they got some cracked corn in the morning and maybe a little more as they came back to the coop at night. Coyotes, foxes and bobcats were almost totally absent back then because they were shot or trapped to near regional extinction. If one was spotted, every boy much over 8 years old was handed a rifle and put on patrol. Owls and hawks were very rare for the same reason and more so because of DDT. The coop was closed up at night against minks and weasels, which I guess were harder to eliminate.
I do mean lots of chickens. Baked chicken, fried chicken, stewed chicken was on the table at least once a week, all year along with the occasional turkey or goose. When mom said, you kids go get me a chicken for supper she did not mean, go the store. Eggs were on the menu one way or another almost every day. I don't remember what happened to excess eggs, maybe some were sold or given away or traded.
I don't remember much worry over breeds, but I do remember some breed names. Leghorns, Rhode Island Reds and bantams just lived together. They were just identified by body type. A big fat chicken to bake, a skinny one or an extra rooster to fry, an old fat one to stew. Roosters were commonly traded between families or farms. Broody hens were identified each spring and locked in their own little coops with a bunch of eggs, she and her brood were fed until they were big enough to be turned loose with the others, but I don't remember what. I think the type of chicken that dominated a flock was controlled by what roosters were chosen to keep living but there was always a big variety.
I think what I remember was about the last of it. DDT was banned and by the 1970s many farms were abandoned and especially in more hilly areas land was left to begin reforestation. I guess people didn't need their chickens anymore or their vegetable gardens, it was easier and more stylish to work in a factory. All the predators began to rebound. Now, if you tried to keep chickens that way, you would soon have no chickens.
In the interest of following posting guidelines, I want to make clear that the following is just my opinion. I might also admit that I personally have not read that book, nor would I likely do so even if I received it as a gift. I certainly would not part with a single penny of my own money to buy it. My opinion is that it is snake oil. My opinion is that such books are taking advantage of inexperienced people to get their money, a disservice and not at all included in my definition of permaculture.
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girl power ... turns out to be about a hundred watts. But they seriously don't like being connected to the grid. Tiny ad:
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