Anyone keep free range or organic poultry?

SophieSakura

Hi If anyone keeps any kind of free range poultry, would you mind answering a couple of questions for me? It's for a project about farming I have to do for college. Thanks.

What poultry do you have? species, breeds?

Are they for meat or eggs?

Are they organic?

What kind of housing do you have?

What feed do you use?

What are some common health problems?

Thanks

whelan1

we have 15 hens and ducks , they can go round the yard as they please and kids look after them , they get scraps from the house , we also had a turkey for christmas . Not big scale , we have a good few different breeds , light sussex , buff orringt9on , rhode island red , and we had 2 banthams but the cock had to be gotten rid of as he kept attacking me and only me:eek: couldn't walk over yard with out him going for me

Birdnuts

whelan1 wrote: »

but the cock had to be gotten rid of as he kept attacking me and only me:eek: couldn't walk over yard with out him going for me

Sounds like he fancied ya!!:P - I was going to make a joke about "good-lookin birds" but managed to resist;)

PS: To be serious this has the making of good thread and as I'm thinking of expanding into this area myself and I await peoples experiences in this area with interest:)

whelan1

my son is 9 and is mad about poultry , has me driven mad , santa got him the banthams , he knows all the breeds etc , its a great interest for him....

Birdnuts

whelan1 wrote: »

my son is 9 and is mad about poultry , has me driven mad , santa got him the banthams , he knows all the breeds etc , its a great interest for him....

Great to hear youngsters into such things as opposed to being zombified by Game-boys and the like.:)

SophieSakura

Thanks

I'd love to get chickens, and ducks, one day too. They seem like really nice animals!

That's why I chose poultry for my project (for a veterinary nursing course), we could choose cows, cattle, pigs, sheep or poultry . . . loads of the things we're meant to write about are funny, cos they're about pregnancy, lactation, weaning and all, and don't really apply to poultry!

Bizzum

This is an interesting topic alright.
Traditionally many farms kept some, usually small numbers of fowl, to supply eggs and the odd sunday dinner!
They were typically freerange and organic even before the terms became fashionable.
Nowadays I see, more and more, Hens being kept in domestic situations in these hen arks etc, and to me it seems very well meaning and idealistic but when the novelty wears off I think it may be a recipe for disaster.

Anyone that ever kept a few hens know that they are great characters that love to be out and about rooting.
When I see 3 or 4 hens in these arks, in the back of a semi D sometimes, I think to myself that if hens had dreams, its a nice farmyard they'd be dreaming of.
Now I know where the term 'flew the coop' comes from!

whelan1

you are right about them having different characters and habits , one of the hens lays her egg in a fertiliser bag that has twines in it , another lays hers in a calf pen and was very disorientated when i cleaned it out last week.

Birdnuts

Bizzum wrote: »

Nowadays I see, more and more, Hens being kept in domestic situations in these hen arks etc, and to me it seems very well meaning and idealistic but when the novelty wears off I think it may be a recipe for disaster.

!

I think your being unneccesarily negative on this - I know a good few people doing this for a few years and they have gone from strength to strength. Indeed keeping backyard hens is the fastest growing hobby in the UK according to a recent study

Bizzum

Birdnuts wrote: »

Indeed keeping backyard hens is the fastest growing hobby in the UK according to a recent study

That's what frightens me!

CJhaughey

We have 11 hens at the moment, used to have more but some of the older layers died from old age and we didn't replace them.
Most are Hyline hybrids as they lay better, but we also have a couple of Marans and a couple of mongrels that were the result of broody marans and eggs from the neighbours, more to show the kids how chickens grow than any desire to get more birds.
I did have 3 nice Ross Cobbs as meat birds but the fox got to them the day before I was going to harvest them.
Meat birds are nice but a lot of work and feeding.
Ours live in a 6x4 shed, no real problems but they get wormed every change of season.
Organic feed

I think if you want eggs just buy hybrids they are as good as you can get for egg production 11 birds give 5-7 eggs per day left to their own devices and supplemented with organic feed.
Thats plenty for a family and anyone else that wants some.

Birdnuts

Bizzum wrote: »

That's what frightens me!

- so you'd rather kids being raised on battery reared muck from the big supermarkets!!

Bizzum

Birdnuts wrote: »

- so you'd rather kids being raised on battery reared muck from the big supermarkets!!

From reading my posts on this subject, is this the logical conclusion you came to?