Revolutionary Benefits of Pastured and Free Ranged Birds: Why All Homesteads Should Give It a Whirl!
As a homesteader, you’ve likely heard about free range and pastured chickens. By keeping chickens in a pastured or free ranged environment, you unlock many incredible, exciting benefits for your land, family, birds, budget, and yard space.
Wouldn’t you like to be able to save over 50% on your feed costs?
Perhaps see the chickens run and forage naturally?
Maybe enjoy a bit of pest control around your yard?
Your chickens can do so much more for your homestead if you release them from their coop and run; of course, safety is a major concern for many homesteaders; with appropriate safety measures in place, you can join the exciting world of free range chicken keeping!
Are Free Range Chickens Healthier, Happier, and Bigger?
Healthier.
Happier.
Bigger.
Do free range chickens fall into all of these categories, as many claim? Yes, and no!
There are both benefits and drawbacks to allowing your birds to roam free, and I’m not going to sugarcoat that.
As far as health goes, there are a few things that must be kept in mind. Free ranging allows the chickens to forage naturally, allowing them to ingest real, natural, wild food; something they cannot get with feed. While this can be healthier, chickens may not satisfy their full dietary needs. For example, you may have to offer your hens a calcium supplement if their egg shells become thin. For the most part, this is not a concern with free ranged birds, unless your flock size exceeds your land’s capacity. In addition, chickens can and will pick up parasites. However, this is true of any chicken that has access to the ground. You should always be mindful of your birds’ parasite loads and worming requirements, whether they are kept in a small run or allowed to roam 1,000 acres of land.
When it comes to happiness, chickens are most definitely happier when free ranging or being pastured! They are free to scratch in the grass, find delicious little morsels of food, and lounge in the warm sunlight. However, chickens do not enjoy being caught in the elements; a free range chicken without cover is not going to be a happy bird, especially during the colder months.
As you might assume, the size of a bird is a direct result of the bird’s breed and lineage. Even birds of the same breed can vary greatly in size, simply due to coming from different hatcheries. Chickens may grow a bit slower when they are free ranged or pastured with no commercial feed, but this is to be expected. When you eliminate feed, you are also removing all of the additives that are introduced to make chickens grow as big as they can, as quickly as they can. On the flip side, these chickens receive far more exercise, which can increase muscle mass. The chickens may grow slower, but the increase in muscle mass in active birds may result in larger legs or thighs.
Why Free Range Chickens Are Better
Let’s get down to the benefits of free ranged or pastured birds! While they may face slightly slower growth rates and a higher risk of being taken by predators (like I said, I won’t sugar coat the drawbacks!), the amazing list of benefits is quite extensive.
- Tick Control: Ticks are dangerous pests that are frequently found during the spring and summer months on most homestead. With Alpha Gal, Lyme Disease, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, and other tickborne diseases, homesteaders have good reason to fear these little critters. Chickens can take a toll on your local tick population, greatly reducing the risk of illness for your family and livestock.
- Garden Pest Management: Chickens are incredible garden tools; but be prepared to face some losses among your veggie patch. Chickens will eat tons of pests from your garden including tomato horn worms, grasshoppers, locusts, moths, beetles, and even voles! Unfortunately, they are not the biggest fans of squash bugs. Yes, this is a bummer; if they did, I’d have an endless supply of chicken feed!
- Reduced Feed Costs: If your chickens are free ranging, they are finding most of their food around the homestead, rather than from a commercial bag of feed. As a matter of fact, many homesteads don’t offer their chickens feed during the spring and summer months. However, once the frosts arrive, it’s time to supplement their food.
- Reduced Space Requirements: When you free range chickens, you don’t have to keep a large run for your birds. I always recommend having a coop with an attached, predator proof run, especially during the winter months; this is ideal when heavy winter storms may move through and predators are struggling to hunt and survive. If you have a predator proof, large coop that provides adequate space for exercise, you may not require a run at all; instead, your birds have the entire homestead to forage.
Do Free Range Chickens Need a Coop?
All chickens need protection from the elements, even in places that never become cold. They must have a place to sleep safely, lay their eggs for your family’s consumption (or for hatching), escape the elements, and hide from predators.
For pastured birds in a tractor, a roof fashioned out of a cattle panel and a tarp over the tractor with roosting bars and nesting boxes inside will make an acceptable shelter. For larger groups of laying hens, it is wise to invest in a larger, walk in coop. This makes cleaning and egg collection easier, while providing a large space for roosting.
Even plastic storage totes can be fashioned into shelters! As long as the bird can escape the weather and roost, lay, or brood safely, the shelter is a success.