RoosterHuggerLiz
Songster
- Dec 27, 2020
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Serious question, back before commercial chicken feed was a thing what would farmers feed their birds and their chicks? Anyone here any good at chicken history?
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It's kind of funny you mentioned that, I live in Florida and a a good portion of my original birds were actually wild and lived in front of a cracker barrel. A lot of my birds are rescues'Old time' chickens on 'old time' farms had a variety of foodstuffs available, both from other livestock feed and a varied environment. Also, those birds may have produced a few dozen eggs, at most; good laying Leghorns were mentioned who produced 100 eggs each year!
The same thing applies to modern dairy cattle! Old dual purpose cattle breeds could raise a calf and produce some milk, but modern Holsteins produce over 100 pounds (I forget how much) of milk daily! That also takes careful dietary management, as do our hens producing 300 or so eggs each year.
Small game type chickens run wild in Florida and Hawaii, and probable those hens lay 30 or so eggs each year; if that's where you live, and the type of birds you prefer, go for it.
Mary
Oh oh those were where the restaurant got their eggs! LOL just kidding. Good for you to rescue them! I agree they used cracked corn ( that they gave to all livestock) and kitchen greens and meat...no fridge, and garden scraps. Remember the huge gardens they had. Prolly never got eggs in winter just enough corn to keep alive and leftovers and bread that had dried out and meat scraps from butchering animals. . I'm sure they had lots of chicks each year to refresh the flock. IMOIt's kind of funny you mentioned that, I live in Florida and a a good portion of my original birds were actually wild and lived in front of a cracker barrel. A lot of my birds are rescues
if you want to read old chicken manuals, a lot are available freely online now as they're out of copyright. For example, Lewis Wright's hereSerious question, back before commercial chicken feed was a thing what would farmers feed their birds and their chicks? Anyone here any good at chicken history?