I was watching our Light Sussex
chicks forage in the garden when…out of the blue…a hawk swooped
down on top of them.  Chicks scattered everywhere, I screamed in
anguish, our scaredy cat ran for cover — quite the excitement for our
quiet little farm.  I think the combo was just too much for the
Sharp-shinned (or was it a Cooper’s?) Hawk because he missed his prey
and flew on down the powerline cut and out of sight.



Except for losing
chicks to rats,
we’ve never had any trouble with predators on our farm.  I’ve
always given credit to our well-trained
dog, who patrols the
perimeter day and night, but I think I should also consider the fact
that forest
pastures have more
going for them than whatever food the trees produce.  Those trees
shield our flock from avian predators.  Our open garden is much
more like a traditional pasture, with no cover for the chicks to hide
in and no canopy to shield our tasty morsels from birds of prey soaring
overhead.  Small wonder that our near miss occurred when the
chicks got bold enough to try out this open habitat.



I wrote previously that chickens
are much more likely to go out on pasture if trees and bushes are
present, and I can’t
say I blame them.  I wonder if the reason our
laying flock refused to forage in the oat and pea pasture was because it was suddenly
a wide open expanse with no tall weeds to protect them?  Yet
another data point to add to the mix as I design the optimal chicken
playground.

I had high hopes for Day Range
Poultry by Andy
Lee and Patricia Foreman, so perhaps that’s why I was
disappointed.  Here’s what you should expect:

• An honest account of why the authors no longer believe that
  chicken tractors are for everyone.  (See my analysis of chicken
  tractors vs. day range for more information.)
• An explanation of their specific day range model, used to pasture
  thousands of chickens and turkeys.  Basically, this is the same as
  Joel Salatin’s egg-mobile — a moveable but semi-permanent coop
  surrounded by pasture.  Poultry are let out into areas marked off
  by portable electric fence and are moved at intervals.
• A good explanation of incubation and hatching (my favorite
  chapter of the book.)
• Easy to read with lots of illustrations.

Unfortunately, you need
to expect these negative qualities as well:

• A shallow feel, without data that would allow you to take their
  experiences and tweak their model to apply to different settings.
• Spelling errors, repetition, and jumpiness, with the contents of
  many chapters not matching the title.  (A good editor could have
  worked wonders with this book.)
• Large font, so the book holds much less information than you’d
  guess from the page count.

I hate to say it, but
this book offers little of interest to the backyard
enthusiast.  Day Range
Poultry is an
explanation of how to make a part time living by raising chickens in a
manner better than the industrial model — if that’s what you’re
interested in, this book should be on your shelf.  However, if
you’re just trying to figure out the best way to raise chickens on
pasture on a small scale, their model of 1,000 Cornish Cross broilers
per acre with a feed
conversion rate of 4:1 won’t give you any ideas.