I applaud anyone who is looking for a healthier and more self-sufficent way if life, and I presume that you are looking at poultry for eggs and meat? I must say, however there is a lot more to it than meets the eye!
Feeding chickens is a very interesting subject, as humans we have been keeping chickens for domestic purposes in India since 3200BC, well if you include cock fighting! The orignial chicken Gallus Gallus or Red Jungle Fowl which still can be found and originates in Asia. The diet of Jungle Fowl ( this is the bird that all domestic varieties of poultry originates from) is mainly seeds and insects which they forage for in a largely wooded enviroment. This is why even today, our domestic poultry is happier if shade and somewhere to hide is provided, it is very unnatural to let hens roam in a completely open enviroment.
The orignial Jungle Fowl however,is a far cry from the engineered varieties of hybrid seen today, and, this fact is very important when considering diet. Rather like comparing the dietary needs of a sumo wrestler and someone in their nineties!
Sadly, with the emergence of our comsumer demand for cheaper and cheaper eggs has meant the "super efficent" egg laying machine has evolved, and with it, the scientific diet. In short, if the incorrect ratio of minerals, calcium and protein are given to the egg producing machines ie hybrids, then serious egg-laying problems commonly occur, some hybrids are just not able to produce eggs on a typical diet of scraps,indeed there is nothing more nutritious than an egg! However due to hormone levels they don't just stop laying, as they are actually programmed to lay early, compared to older breeds, and,this is the time where the awful and often fatal consequences are discovered, from internal laying to poor egg bound hens, and diseases like fatty liver syndrome. This is why the advice with hybrid breeds produced nowadays is to be careful with diet, there are very old pure breeds around which will happily forage, they will not lay half as many eggs as the "designer" birds, but the diet will not need to be so critical either.
In the early post war days, it was the rough and ready older pure breds in the back yards, the good hens were selected for breeding, and these strains were continued, you would never breed from a hen that prolapsed or didn't lay for example! and often kept through to their second year and then they were chicken soup! It was a far cry from how hens are bred today - days old sent to breeders to rear and then sold on. The colour and "prettiness" being the deciding factor, and of course the 300+ eggs per year!
So how many eggs a year did our old Jungle Fowl lay a year?
?
Answers on a post card please!
Similar Topics
December 18, 2008, 17:03