Pastured Poultry, Free Range - What do they mean?

Pastured Poultry - this doesn't mean the same thing to everyone so I'll explain what we do. Our birds are put in bottomless pens in our grass/legume mix field at between three and four weeks old. The pens are roughly half enclosed steel and half hardware cloth (like chicken wire only a finer mesh). The pens are moved by hand daily at sunrise, and twice daily if necessary. They are moved at sunrise so the birds can start their day with fresh bugs and forage on "clean" ground.

Our Dark Cornish are most active in the morning and they really make the most of those early hours and the fresh forage. After the pen is moved we refresh their supplementary grain. What we noticed when we raised the Cornish Rock cross commercial-type bird on pasture was that the heritage breeds tend to eat the fresh grass and bugs first and eat grain second. The Cornish Rocks go directly to the feed trough and fill up on grain first, then eat grass. The heritage breeds also regularly polish off all edible grasses and legumes while the Cornish Rocks tended to leave more forage untouched or, sadly, cover it with manure.

The reason we move the pens by hand, which some would see as unnecessary manual labor, is that we need to move slow enough so birds don't get legs caught under the edge of the pen and if birds get frightened we are able to see them while moving and can stop to let them settle. The more likely event with the Dark Cornish is that they will escape under the edge of the pen if it's lifted too high. You can't catch five escaped chickens with an ATV anyway (well, maybe you could but I have my doubts), so for the minute it takes to roll the pen along by hand it's the most efficient and practical way. Being on foot also allows us to view the birds a little more each day to assess how they are doing.

We've read about a few different ways of pasturing young birds. Another distinct model is "day ranging" which involves allowing the birds out in a more extended area, enclosing them only with fencing and leaving their shelter in place for many more days at a time. Though at first glance the pastured pens may resemble confinement, we prefer this method for a few reasons. One is predators. We have hawks, eagles, coyotes, raccoons, skunks and possums. Those are just what we know about. The pens give them access to forage, sun and fresh air, but also a higher degree of protection from predators and an efficient shelter for shade and protection from rain and wind. Another reason is that we can be assured that the birds are on "clean" ground every single day while they are young. This is important because it lowers the birds' exposure to their manure, which can carry protozoan parasites that young birds can be particularly vulnerable to.

When the birds are between 14 and 16 weeks old we sort out any birds we think we'd like to keep as part of our laying/breeding flock and the remainder are processed for table birds. Those birds that we keep are brought down from the field to the hen house, closer to our house. From there they are "free range". For us that means the door to the hen house is open at first light. The hens and rooster are allowed to range as far as they can or want to walk in a day. This means that their exposure to predators increases but fortunately the area around our home and theirs has plenty of trees and brush which provides protection they don't have in the open field.

The birds we keep form a more cohesive flock with just one (or two, as we have now) roosters who do a pretty good job of alerting everyone if they sense danger. We provide the hens nest boxes in the hen house so they are exposed to them early on to "get the idea" to lay their eggs there. Sometimes they get their own ideas and we find eggs in other locations, but no one's perfect, right? In the evening the flock naturally heads for the hen house, having already become familiar with it as a safe place to roost for the night. We close the hen house at last light and after a few coos or occasional quiet but high pitched "rrrrrrr" from the rooster, everyone settles in until morning.