What now is a diverse chicken pasture was an old monoculture grass field. Focus was placed on introducing perennial woody plantings, poultry forage and groundcovers. We experimented with chicory, various brassicas (radishes, mustards), comfrey, alfalfa, vetches and clovers. After few years of tweaking, we now have a fenced irrigated rotational pasture with four grazing areas.
Every other year we raise 25-35 chicks for meat. We harvest our chicken ourselves, following a ritual of thanking them for the gift of good food. Some of our friends or students join us to help and to learn what it means to harvest your own meat. To raise chicks, we have been using chicken tractor system: a large light weight cage that we move across the chicken pasture for controlled grazing. We cannot leave our chicks in the tractor overnight: too many predators in our area, but we train them to go to the chicken house and back to the tractor, just by simply following us. The training takes 3-4 days and a lot of running around and cursing. But the chicks eventually figure out to follow us; straight into the tractor!
Favorite Chicken Breeds:
- Araukana (lays green eggs, very alert to predation)
- Dominique (good layer, tasty meat)
- Cornish Rock (best mama of all breeds! Gets broody and brings up wonderful chicks)
- Australop (good layer and tasty)
Favorite Turkey Breeds:
- Bourbon Red
- Royal Palm Rio Grande Wild
Bourbon Red (pictured on photos in the left bar) is an elegant and beautiful breed. They are good breeders and never fail to procreate, and the females are excellent mothers. All our males have good predisposition and don’t get aggressive as turkey males tend to do (except with the male we have this year… his name is Stalin).
Royal Palm turkeys are beautiful and gentle. They don’t grow as large as any other breed, in fact they are the smallest turkey of all. They are also devoted moms and fend for themselves very well.
Wild Rio Grande breed is spectacular and very self-sufficient. However, we did not have much lack with keeping them - they tend to wander off.
Commercial Breeds
We once made the mistake of purchasing a commercial breed of chickens. These grew at an astounding rate, resulting in crippled birds, which were so unhealthy as not to be able to walk, pooping under themselves… We found the idea of eating their meat very unappealing, yet this is the breed commonly found on the shelves of food stores. This experience led us to looking into heritage breeds to find healthier, happier poultry that fit into our philosophy of animal husbandry. Since receiving our first heritage birds we have learned that they are better moms (commercial breeds don’t maintain broodiness), are a lot more alert to predators, are healthy, live longer, and produce significantly more delicious meat and eggs.
Flock Composition
Presently our flock consists of chickens, ten or more guinea fowl and turkeys. Guinea fowl are an excellent watch bird, making a loud ruckus when anything unusual takes place. They prefer protein to vegetative diet, i.e. really enjoy catching grasshoppers and caterpillars. The turkeys also patrol the land as a grasshopper control squadron, which, also, seems to be their preferred food. Chickens are more interested in scratching the soil surface, looking for seeds. In combination, the medley serves functions of pest control, land security, fertilization of soil, mild weed control and production of meat and eggs.
Partial Chicken pasture plant list:
- Nanking cherry
- Sand Cherry
- Siberian Pea Shrub
- Day Lily
- Apple
- Plum
- Raspberry
- Mulberry
- Black Locust
- Sea Buckthorn
- Pasture Grass
- Alfalfa
- Apricot
- Strawberry clover
- Brassicas
- Hairy Vetch
- Comfrey