Developing My Own Breed Of Large Gamefowl For Free Range Survival (Junglefowl x Liege)

[Florida Bullfrog]

Here’s Azog’s brother off farm. He is large but also slender and graceful. I consider him a better version of Indo.

I do believe I am going to attempt to make more by crossing Indo to some new Liege hens should I acquire some.

 

[Shadrach]

I pulled the 3/4 Liege off of free range a couple of days ago. All 7 got sick with lethargy and stumbling, one died. Now locked in a coop they seem to be recovering. I think they got poisoned from the saltbush they ate.

If they make a full recovery, they won’t have it again. That seems to be the pattern.

Jon Jon, the BF stag I lost to the eagle several months ago, had eaten saltbush under my observation when being turned out to free range and he was in a weakened state when the eagle killed him but he was recovering.

Saltbush is everywhere on my farm. Too prevalent to be eradicated. Why some chickens are eating it and others are not, I do not know. Perhaps they all are and only some are effected by the toxicity. Also for those that recover and never have it again, I do not know if that means their body developed a resistance to the toxins or whether it means the bird learns to avoid it.

Sorry, dug this up from way back in the thread.
I think the drive to eat vegitation is strong. Even Ex Battery hens get the hang of it very quickly; more quickly than digging for bugs in my litited experience.
They seem to work down a preference list, short grasses high on the list. They'll try whatever is available I think right down to bay leaves and even nettles if there isn't anything else. I think as they get to know their territory they try stuff that makes them unwell and they avoid that in future. You can defintely notice mothers telling their chicks not to eat certain plants and this just one of the many reasons I prefer hens to hatch their offspring.

 

[Bigtom Turkey]

Here’s Azog’s brother off farm. He is large but also slender and graceful. I consider him a better version of Indo.

I do believe I am going to attempt to make more by crossing Indo to some new Liege hens should I acquire some.

He is far more mature than Azog.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

He is far more mature than Azog.

Yes. Same age though. He was isolated with hens far earlier than Azog was. I’ll check my messages later to confirm what the time frame was. I am pretty sure I traded the brother in the summer and I kept Azog on free range for months after the brother was sent away and put in pens.

 

[Shadrach]

I have a recommendation. Get a nut cracker or a hammer and a flat rock and crack several in front of your chickens and offer the insides to them. Do this on and off for several days. That may teach them that something good is inside. I have done that with my chickens simply for the fun of hand feeding them something they enjoy but I may have been inadvertently teaching them to eat acorns. Buried somewhere in one of my older chicken videos is a clip of me doing this. I’ll try to find it.

It was walnuts with the tribes in Spain. The wild boar I assume cracked a few open and the chickens got a taste for them. If I got a hammer out and started cracking walnuts on my front step it didn't take long for some chickens to come down from the woods for a share. I never saw a chickens manage to break one open on their own.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

I traded the brother end of September. Azog came off free range middle November.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

It was walnuts with the tribes in Spain. The wild boar I assume cracked a few open and the chickens got a taste for them. If I got a hammer out and started cracking walnuts on my front step it didn't take long for some chickens to come down from the woods for a share. I never saw a chickens manage to break one open on their own.

We have a smattering of oak species that produce large acorns, but most of our oaks make small acorns that a chicken can swallow whole. Once mine learned to eat acorns, they swallow them whole.

It was the swallowing of the acorns that caused me to ponder their gizzard stones and I realized I gave my coop birds no grit.

 

[Shadrach]

I am going to randomly cross them with Crackers, Indo, and the Cracker crosses to see if it improves the offspring’s survivability any.

The stags are not off to a good start, where one hasn’t made it a week free ranging. He disappeared the evening before the tropical storm came through.

I’m not a fan of grey gamefowl myself, for no reason than I don’t like the color. So if I decide to work the Fayoumi into my project lines, I’d want to bury them deep inside.

I am told by others I know who keep free range Egyptian Fayoumies that they don't cross well. I could never quite understand why they thought this due to language difficulties.

 

[Shadrach]

Do you have a lot bare exposed soil where the chickens hang out? It could be an over-impact issue if the birds have killed the vegetation in an area where they spend a lot of time. Unfortunately the best cure for most bugs/parasites/pathogens is to give the soil a good long rest/recovery period. I do this with my cows and also chickens in tractors, but it's much harder with free range birds. I know of a farmer that moves his flock every 1-3 days , but he says you need at least 50 acres or they'll just come back to their favorite areas anyway. In nature, changing seasons, good sources, and predators keep animals moving from one area to another.

Many serious keepers in Spain patch burn the ground when they move the coops to new ground.

 

[Shadrach]

I don't have any experience with the fayoumis, but I would guess they won't help your crackers much with predator evasion. I figure if you see benefits, it would be more along the lines of disease resistance. They are probably better than most chickens at free range survival, but I doubt they're better than your crackers. This is just based on what I've read, and the hype about fayoumis

I wouldn't dissmiss the Fayoumies hardiness and ability to evade hawks in particular as hype. Those that I've seen were very aware and very fast.