HenriettaPizzaNolan
Raising Layers and Meat Birds in the City
I hope this question makes sense. I'm newer to chickens and did not grow up in a family that had them. On BYC, and in real life, I have heard people say that their grandparents didn't feed their chickens any commercial feed, but simply threw the flock a small amount of grains/scratch such as corn, oats, barley, etc. every day and let them find the rest of their food by grazing. People have said you can't do that with today's chickens because they are bred to produce eggs so much that they have dietary needs only the commercial feed can meet. So my question is, is this really true, or are there still breeds that can survive this way? If so, which breeds?
This is all hypothetical, but I can't help but wonder how families raised eggs and meat for hundreds of years using these methods, and now suddenly we can't. I understand why my production RIR can't live on a handful of scratch every day, but I even hear people say the heritage breeds can't. Are we too far away breeding-wise from the breeds of old to do this? Or were chickens back then actually very short-lived and our standards are higher now so we feed this higher quality feed? Well, this has turned into more than one question so I'll stop here, but let me know what you guys think.
Edit: I also wanted to add that I do understand the chickens way back when produced fewer eggs and less meat. I am just asking about why chickens supposedly can't be raised at all using this method anymore.
This is all hypothetical, but I can't help but wonder how families raised eggs and meat for hundreds of years using these methods, and now suddenly we can't. I understand why my production RIR can't live on a handful of scratch every day, but I even hear people say the heritage breeds can't. Are we too far away breeding-wise from the breeds of old to do this? Or were chickens back then actually very short-lived and our standards are higher now so we feed this higher quality feed? Well, this has turned into more than one question so I'll stop here, but let me know what you guys think.
Edit: I also wanted to add that I do understand the chickens way back when produced fewer eggs and less meat. I am just asking about why chickens supposedly can't be raised at all using this method anymore.