Creating more nutritious free range for your flocks

[Hinotori]

I don't plant anything for them. Whatever grows in our lawn grows.

Dandelions are their favorite. Plantain is high up there. They have grass type preferences. Trefoil isn't liked much. They eat moss.

They eat a lot of blackberries through the summer and early fall since there are a ton of those invasive things.

 

[Mini Horses]

I like to buy the food plot grass mixes that you see here in deer season...when they go on sale! Not only do my chickens like the things, the goats love it, too. Chicory, hullless oats, clover, turnip greens, peas, various grasses, etc. So when young, there's chicken feed, when older, goat feed. Works for me. This year some buckwheat is going into the chicken lot -- bees love the flowers, then the seeds for the chickens. Leaves & stalks for mulch.

I've had milo come up from the scratch mix I throw out in early Spring. They miss some when foraging and scratch it in the ground. It looks like young corn coming up and they leave it (chickens, not the goats) and it will head up with a lovely topping of milo seeds! In fact, I have seed just to plant for that this year. Only gets about 2 1/2 -3 1/2 ft and if you cut the big bunch, then hit it in a bucket, the seeds pop off. The goats can eat the forage then. It's a good producer of grain.

Dandelions & plantains are all over this place. All my animals eat the leaves but those deep roots keep the plants going. Lots of good minerals in the leaves.

This time of the year my chickens free range on the horse manure piles. Recycling at it's best. LOL

 

[sumi]

Mine had wonderful mixed pasture to roam on in S.A. and when we moved I grew spinach for them, which I tossed in their run. Alfalfa is something I'd grow for them always, if I got to pick something. Followed by grass.

 

[milkmansdaughter]

I've got a half acre area back behind my shop that is still green with clover even after several hard frosts and a heavy snow. Quite a few chickens were back there today. I was raking up some pine straw back there and noticed how green that section still is. It's nice to see this late in the year.

 

[Beekissed]

My clover stays all year round under the snow and under places that are sheltered from the snow. It's very cold hardy and does excellent in a fall sowing over the garden.

 

[Beekissed]

Look at this pic, y'all! One egg was gathered in Sept....used that last egg of stored eggs this morning(yep, I'm eating a four month old egg and it's just as delicious as the fresh one!). The other egg is a winter fed, fresh egg. The difference?

Free range!


These birds haven't been able to free range much this winter due to the cold and snows. Today we got a heat wave and the snow melted rapidly in the warm breezes. The chickens were out there working the meadow and woods like crazy.

 

[treerooted]

I miss my orange yolks too.
Will be awhile before the bugs come back, so it's just a waiting game.
As for their free range area, it's just an overgrown paddock. If I get a lot of chickens though, I may need to consider adding something like clover, but it's a large area so I don't know if I'll ever have so many I'll need to do that.