How to get free range chickens to forage

In a previous post, I
hypothesized that you can tell the quality of the forage by how much
time a chicken spends lounging around vs. actively foraging.  It turns out that
scientists have spent considerable time collecting data on the
activities of chickens in commercial day
range settings, and have discovered that broilers often prefer to
sit around inside.  Even at peak foraging times and temperatures,
only 13% to 25% of broilers will set foot outside the door.  (I
guess I need to give our ladies a break — even when they’re not
actively working, they do tend to hang around outside.)



Here are some highlights
of the studies:

• Morning
  and/or evening seemed to be peak foraging times.  Students
  at Truman State University found that the most chickens were
  actively foraging from 7 am to 10:59 am while this
  UK study (the data of which is shown here) found the most chickens
  outside right after the popholes opened in the morning and right before
  they closed at night.
• Chickens will range further from
  their house if trees are present.  Marian
  Dawkin planted young trees in bare chicken pastures and studied the
  flocks’ behavior for the next three years.  In year one, there was
  no difference between the pastures with and without trees (presumably
  because the trees were so small), but two years later, more chickens
  were found in the tree-filled pastures than in those that had been left
  bare.

The take-home message is
— make sure your chickens have access to pasture early in the morning
and late in the evening and plant some trees!