Re: article including remarks about free range chicken

The peron who wrote this is an idiot who has probably never actually
taken care of chickens. S/he is right that for something to be called
"free range" it only has to be outside for an hour a day, usually in a
cage and that it is a farce and sad. However...

In nature, the mother hen wouldn't allow her chicks out much from
under her before five to six weeks anyway. All farmers keep their
chicks in a brooder or in a brooder house with a hen for that time.
They don't have feathers and would die of exposure if you let them run
around, not to mention being pecked to death or smothered by the larger
chickens, being eaten by rats/raccoons/eagles/hawks/owls/coyotes/etc,
getting wet and chilled and freezing.

This is part of why we have our chickens at home. They are in the
coop at night, where they are protected from predators, and in their
chicken yard during the day where they can scratch and eat grass and
weeds and bugs. They are fenced in, the fencing is planted about two
feet in the dirt to discourage animals from digging under it, there is
netting above them, and there are bushes and trees that they can hide
under when a hawk flies by. It took them about two or three days to get
used to going in and out of the coop, but now they wait by the door when
they hear us coming to open it in the morning, and when it starts to get
dark they start marching back into it. If these big farm birds are too
afraid to go out, it's because they only tried it one day.

As for the food and water being indoors, except for in the heat of
summer, our birds have their layer ration in a hanging feeder in the
coop along with their water in a hanging waterer. We only put water
outside when it is really hot, because otherwise they just go in and out
to get water when they need it, slurp the dew from the plants, etc. In
the summer, they drink so much more, so we put one outside as well, so
they don't have to go too far to get water, it is near them in the coop
if they are close to that, and it is outside if they are farther from
the coop. However, most of their food is the stuff they find and eat
outside, so who cares if their layer/broiler feed is inside? We also
give them mashed eggshell and kitchen scraps to eat as treats and for
calcium and grit. Just don't ever feed a chicken avocado or uncooked
potato is what we've heard, and if you want them for eggs, no
onions/peppers/brassicas, since they will flavor the eggs.

Regards,
Ranee

Probably you won't have the answer, or perhaps no one does, but I'm curious
about feeding eggshell to chickens, only because isn't that where the
problem lies with the spongiform diseases; i.e., feeding animal products to
animal?
Thanks,
Dee Dee


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