FREE-RANGE CHICKENS

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HOMESTEAD HANDBOOK

The chickens turn out to forage for themselves on our place. They don't run wild all over, you understand: A snug henhouse lean-to along the outside wall of the horse's barn stall lets the flock come home to roost at night and to shelter through a heavy rain. During our hard New England winters, the flock is forced to coop up and live on dry stores (homegrown, whenever practical), like the rest of us. But from the first warm days of March till the snow returns in earnest late the next December, our chickens range—free as a bird, you might say—to work for their own supper. Cash sale or barter of extra eggs and an occasional dressed capon more than pay for what feed and equipment needs buying, so the poultry products our family enjoys are free for the time spent looking after the flock—perhaps half an hour a week, egg collecting included (once the operation is up and going on its own).

There's nothing new about running poultry free, of course. It used to be done that way all over. A natural part of every old-time farmstead was a half-wild flock of chickens scratching around the barnyard and fields after bugs, native seeds and berries, plus whatever feed grain got past (or passed through) the larger farm animals.

Today, though, when you set out to raise your own chickens, you'll find that a lot of published information tries to get you into factory-style production, just on a small scale. Guess the Aggy-school-trained experts don't know any different. So they urge you to set up a miniature version of a commercial "broiler factory"—wire mesh cages tiered up one on top of the other-in your cellar. You supply medicated water and preground mash, then execute the inmates after eight weeks in solitary, during which time they don't get to scratch in the dirt or see the sun or engage in what passes for love 'n' marriage in Chickenland. I decided early on that I wouldn't raise plastic chickens on my own place, and you don't. have to either. Here's how to resurrect those fine old-time skills and raise egg-and-meat birds as close to nature s way as makes practical sense anymore.

Prospecting Your Land

The idea is to convince your birds to get out into the country and eat as much as they can for free You don't need a lot of land; a flock can find a whole bunch of bugs and seeds on an acre or two. The more the better, of course, and our flock has several square miles of wild mountain to wander over, if they want. However, they restrict most of their travels to the orchard and woods that abut the henhouse side of the barn, as well as the barnyard and a couple of pastures in the other direction. The flock patrols perhaps five acres in all, seldom going much over 100 meters from the house. I can't prove it, but I would think that this is close to the natural territorial limit for a flock of a dozen or two domestic chickens.