In poultry keeping, yarding is the practice of providing the poultry with a fenced yard in addition to a poultry house. Movable yarding is a form of managed intensive grazing.
Yarding is often confused with free range. The distinction is that free-range poultry are either totally unfenced, or the fence is so distant that it has little influence on their freedom of movement.
Before the discovery of vitamins A and D in the 1920s, green feed and sunshine were essential to the health of poultry. Vitamin D was synthesized from sunlight on the skin (as with humans), while vitamin A was obtained through green forage plants such as grass. Yards small enough to be fenced economically were soon stripped of palatable green forage and become barren. This is followed by a build-up of manure, parasites, and other pathogens.
Free range husbandry was the most common method in these early days. Most farms had only a small free-range barnyard flock. Larger flocks were kept in small houses build on skids, which were dragged periodically to a fresh piece of ground. This method is similar to the modern practice of pastured poultry.
Experts of the day estimated the sustainable level to be about fifty hens per acre (80 m2 per hen), with one hundred hens per acre (40 m2 per hen) as an absolute upper limit if special care was taken. These levels are sustainable in the sense that the turf can make use of the nutrients in the manure left behind by the chickens, and in the sense that, at this stocking density, the chickens will not completely destroy the turf through scratching.
At the Oregon Station on clay soil it was found that the day droppings from 200 laying hens on an acre [20 m2 per hen] in four years made the soil too rich for the successful growth of cereal crops where cropping the ground was done every other year. The night droppings were put on other land. If the soil contains too much manure for the crops it is safe to assume that it is not in the best condition for poultry. Sooner or later it is bound to show not only in a failure of grain crops but in failure of poultry crops. For a permanent system under average conditions of soil and climate the following points are suggested for consideration.
- Maximum number of fowls per acre: 100 laying hens [40 m2 per hen].
- Disposing of the night droppings on other land.
- Dividing the ground into at least two divisions or yards, and growing a crop on each yard at least every other year. In sections where crops may be grown every year the number of fowls may be increased.
- Growing crops that will use up the maximum amount of manure.
- Keeping the ground vacant [of chickens] at least six months in the year.
- Thorough underdrainage, where necessary, to carry off surplus water.
.... It is not assumed that as many as 500 hens may not be profitably kept on an acre [8 m2 per hen] for a few years under favorable conditions. It has been done, but it is a different matter when it is planned to make a permanent business of it. [1]
Because fifty hens per acre represents 800 square feet (74 m2) per hen (80 m2 per hen), while the density inside the house at the time was normally four square feet per hen (0.4 m2 per hen), this required that the yard be 200 times wider than the house, assuming a yard on one side of the house. That is, a house 20 feet (6 m) wide required a yard 4,000 feet (1,220 m) wide to provide the necessary area. This would normally be provided as two yards, one on either side of the house, each 2,000 feet (610 m) wide. In reality, such yards are expensive to fence, and the chickens spend most of their time on the portion closest to the house, so sustainability was never achieved in practice except with portable houses, which were moved periodically to fresh ground. Yarded operations were operated with unsustainably small yards that were quickly denuded and which received excessive levels of manure.
The use of multiple yards, frequent plowing, and liberal use of lime would allow higher stocking levels to be used, since plowing and liming would allow much of the nitrogen to escape from the soil.
The following is typical advice for the successful use of yards in the 1930s and 1940s:
All poultrymen should realize that there are no known substitutes for sunshine and young green grass in keeping poultry in the best possible state of health and in promoting growth and maintaining egg production. Where sunshine and green grass cannot be provided, as in the case of birds kept in strict confinement, the best possible substitutes must be provided. In the case of most farm and many commercial flocks, however, the growing stock is reared on range, and the adult birds are given yards or allowed to roam at will.
If the staggering losses among growing chicks and laying birds that occur annually are to be reduced materially, better methods of flock management must be employed. The losses from mortality are due largely to internal parasites and diseases of one kind or another. Bare ground over which the chickens have run for some time, mud puddles, and stagnant water are the chief sources of the spread of diseases, most of which are filth borne....
The mortality that usually occurs in growing and adult stock may be materially reduced by providing the birds with an alternate yarding system. Probably the best arrangement is to provide each colony brooder and each laying house with three yards (3 m) which the birds would be allowed to use every 3 or 4 weeks. By alternating the birds in the yards every 3 or 4 weeks each yard is kept reasonably sanitary, especially if the soil in the immediate vicinity of the house is cultivated and treated with lime, and young green grass is available for the birds throughout the season. The importance of clean range for both birds and adult stock cannot be emphasized too strongly... For adult stock a good grass sward can be maintained on fertile soil, allowing about 200 birds to the acre [20 m2 per hen]. [2]
Nutritional advances increasingly turned yarding into a liability, and it fell out of favor. Free range continued to be used, especially for breeding flocks and for pullets before they reached laying age, because of the lower rate of disease and greater overall health of grass-reared chickens. Breeding flocks (which lay eggs destined for incubation) are always given a better diet than flocks laying table eggs, since a diet that will produce table eggs cheaply will not provide eggs that hatch well. For some time after confined laying flocks produced table eggs satisfactorily, breeding flocks benefited from free range
In Britain, Geoffrey Sykes developed a new yarding system in the 1950s. [3] This used a small yard covered with a thick layer of straw, with more straw added frequently. He also recommended that shade and a windbreak be provided by a solid fence around the yard, or by other means, such as rows of haybales. Once a year, the old straw was removed by a front-end loader or similar machinery. This method eliminated mud and pathogens. It was later forgotten because the industry moved to high-density confinement before the method was widely established.
Today, commercial poultry producers generally call yarding free range on their labels. This conflation of two very different techniques has led to confusion. The vast majority of "free-range" operations are really yarded.
Pastured poultry, as promoted by the APPPA, the American Pastured Poultry Producers Association, [4] and author/farmer Joel Salatin, takes a different approach, attempting to achieve the benefits of free range while using penning or yarding. The key element of Pastured poultry is the use of portable housing and the optional use of portable electric fencing. By moving the house and yard frequently, perhaps daily, all the disadvantages of permanent yards are eliminated.
Poultry are domesticated birds kept by humans for the purpose of harvesting useful animal products such as meat, eggs or feathers. The practice of raising poultry is known as poultry farming. These birds are most typically members of the superorder Galloanserae (fowl), especially the order Galliformes. The term also includes waterfowls of the family Anatidae but does not include wild birds hunted for food known as game or quarry.
The chicken is a large and round short-winged bird, domesticated from the red junglefowl of Southeast Asia around 8,000 years ago. Most chickens are raised for food, providing meat and eggs; others are kept as pets or for cockfighting.
Polyface Farm is a farm located in rural Swoope, Virginia, run by Joel Salatin and his family. The farm is driven using unconventional methods with the goal of "emotionally, economically and environmentally enhancing agriculture". This farm is where Salatin developed and put into practice many of his most significant agricultural methods. These include direct marketing of meats and produce to consumers, pastured-poultry, grass-fed beef and the rotation method which makes his farm more like an ecological system than conventional farming. Polyface Farm operates a farm store on-site where consumers go to pick up their products.
Debeaking, beak trimming, or beak conditioning is the partial removal of the beak of poultry, especially layer hens and turkeys although it may also be performed on quail and ducks. Most commonly, the beak is shortened permanently, although regrowth can occur. The trimmed lower beak is somewhat longer than the upper beak. A similar but separate practice, usually performed by an avian veterinarian or an experienced birdkeeper, involves clipping, filing or sanding the beaks of captive birds for health purposes – in order to correct or temporarily to alleviate overgrowths or deformities and better allow the bird to go about its normal feeding and preening activities. Amongst raptor-keepers, this practice is commonly known as "coping".
Animal husbandry is the branch of agriculture concerned with animals that are raised for meat, fibre, milk, or other products. It includes day-to-day care, management, production, nutrition, selective breeding, and the raising of livestock. Husbandry has a long history, starting with the Neolithic Revolution when animals were first domesticated, from around 13,000 BC onwards, predating farming of the first crops. By the time of early civilisations such as ancient Egypt, cattle, sheep, goats, and pigs were being raised on farms.
Pastured poultry is a sustainable agriculture technique that calls for the raising of laying chickens, meat chickens (broilers), guinea fowl, and/or turkeys on pasture, as opposed to indoor confinement. Humane treatment and the perceived health benefits of pastured poultry are causing an increase in demand for such products.
Free-range eggs are eggs produced from birds that may be permitted outdoors. The term "free-range" may be used differently depending on the country and the relevant laws, and is not regulated in many areas.
Free range denotes a method of farming husbandry where the animals, for at least part of the day, can roam freely outdoors, rather than being confined in an enclosure for 24 hours each day. On many farms, the outdoors ranging area is fenced, thereby technically making this an enclosure, however, free range systems usually offer the opportunity for the extensive locomotion and sunlight that is otherwise prevented by indoor housing systems. Free range may apply to meat, eggs or dairy farming.
Battery cages are a housing system used for various animal production methods, but primarily for egg-laying hens. The name arises from the arrangement of rows and columns of identical cages connected, in a unit, as in an artillery battery. Although the term is usually applied to poultry farming, similar cage systems are used for other animals. Battery cages have generated controversy between advocates for animal welfare and industrial producers.
Organic egg production is the production of eggs through organic means. In this process, the poultry are fed organic feed. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, organic means that the laying hens must have access to the outdoors and cannot be raised in cages. Only natural molting can occur within the flock; forced molting is not allowed. Organic certification also requires maintenance of basic animal welfare standards.
Intensive animal farming, industrial livestock production, and macro-farms, also known as factory farming, is a type of intensive agriculture, specifically an approach to animal husbandry designed to maximize production while minimizing costs. To achieve this, agribusinesses keep livestock such as cattle, poultry, and fish at high stocking densities, at large scale, and using modern machinery, biotechnology, and global trade. The main products of this industry are meat, milk and eggs for human consumption. There are issues regarding whether intensive animal farming is sustainable in the social long-run given its costs in resources. Analysts also raise issues about its ethics.
Poultry farming is the form of animal husbandry which raises domesticated birds such as chickens, ducks, turkeys and geese to produce meat or eggs for food. Poultry – mostly chickens – are farmed in great numbers. More than 60 billion chickens are killed for consumption annually. Chickens raised for eggs are known as layers, while chickens raised for meat are called broilers.
A chicken tractor is a movable chicken coop lacking a floor. Chicken tractors may also house other kinds of poultry. Most chicken tractors are a lightly built A-frame which one person can drag about the yard. It may have wheels on one or both ends to make this easier.
The Buckeye is an American breed of chicken. It was created in Ohio in the late nineteenth century by Nettie Metcalf. The color of its plumage was intended to resemble the color of the seeds of Aesculus glabra, the Ohio Buckeye plant for which the state is called the 'Buckeye State'.
Poultry farming is a part of the United States's agricultural economy.
Manure is organic matter that is used as organic fertilizer in agriculture. Most manure consists of animal feces; other sources include compost and green manure. Manures contribute to the fertility of soil by adding organic matter and nutrients, such as nitrogen, that are utilised by bacteria, fungi and other organisms in the soil. Higher organisms then feed on the fungi and bacteria in a chain of life that comprises the soil food web.
Feather pecking is a behavioural problem that occurs most frequently amongst domestic hens reared for egg production, although it does occur in other poultry such as pheasants, turkeys, ducks, broiler chickens and is sometimes seen in farmed ostriches. Feather pecking occurs when one bird repeatedly pecks at the feathers of another. The levels of severity may be recognized as mild and severe. Gentle feather pecking is considered to be a normal investigatory behaviour where the feathers of the recipient are hardly disturbed and therefore does not represent a problem. In severe feather pecking, however, the feathers of the recipient are grasped, pulled at and sometimes removed. This is painful for the receiving bird and can lead to trauma of the skin or bleeding, which in turn can lead to cannibalism and death.
Cannibalism in poultry is the act of one individual of a poultry species consuming all or part of another individual of the same species as food. It commonly occurs in flocks of domestic hens reared for egg production, although it can also occur in domestic turkeys, pheasants and other poultry species. Poultry create a social order of dominance known as pecking order. When pressure occurs within the flock, pecking can increase in aggression and escalate to cannibalism. Cannibalism can occur as a consequence of feather pecking which has caused denuded areas and bleeding on a bird's skin. Cannibalism can cause large mortality rates within the flock and large decreases in production due to the stress it causes. Vent pecking, sometimes called 'cloacal cannibalism', is considered to be a separate form of cannibalistic pecking as this occurs in well-feathered birds and only the cloaca is targeted. There are several causes that can lead to cannibalism such as: light and overheating, crowd size, nutrition, injury/death, genetics and learned behaviour. Research has been conducted to attempt to understand why poultry engage in this behaviour, as it is not totally understood. There are known methods of control to reduce cannibalism such as crowd size control, beak trimming, light manipulation, perches, selective genetics and eyewear.
Egg drop syndrome '76 is a viral disease that affects birds, notably chickens, ducks, geese and swans. It is characterised by a sudden drop in production of eggs as well as its eggshell quality in apparent healthy laying birds.
The broiler industry is the process by which broiler chickens are reared and prepared for meat consumption. Worldwide, in 2005 production was 71,851,000 tonnes. From 1985 to 2005, the broiler industry grew by 158%.
