Wild Flock?

In some breeds of animals there is such a thing as a wild herd or flock. The males and females are kept together. No official records are kept of who breeds whom, though in Soay sheep at least, the flock itself can be registered, just not the individuals. Usually, in sheep, the dominant ram breeds until he is ousted by a younger, stronger, bolder ram. This includes breeding his offspring, as would be found in a wild flock. This practice is undertaken in pig herds to some extent too. Boars and sows live and breed together. Is there such a thing in chickens where the roosters and hens live together and the dominant rooster breeds until a younger stronger one bests him? What would the result be of a flock of chickens that were left to nature? This interests me very much. Rather than man intervening, if chickens were grouped and then left to breed, would the survival of the fittest rule apply?

The biggest problem I can see with that is having a flock size big enough to support the genetic diversity you'd need. Not so bad with sheep, because you can just graze them in large pastures, chickens however are prone to becomeing Preditor delicacies when free-ranged on that scale. If you were going to house them I think it would have to be be a farily large set up.

To me that is called a barnyard flock. Days of old when the chooks would just put themselves back in the barn at night with the rest of the animals. Eggs were hunted down where they could be found. Eventually the feather colour would return to 'wild type' and they would get smaller and faster for survival. You would have to be careful not to have to many cockerels at one time or the hens would be harassed to much and eggs would be a rare commodity. You can expect high losses, but if you are not interested in management and the losses don't concern you it can be done that way.

I think one would also need to consider the climate where they live. Chickens originated from jungle fowl so from a pretty warm place. Barnyard flocks of old I would think we're still provided with protection from preditors and good shelter in the winter, perhaps just in the barn with all the other animals (but remember the barn was probably pretty warm with the milk cow and the driving horses and all the other livestock in there). Or maybe a coop of their own.

There is a fellow i know who's parents homesteader in this area in the 30s. Back then where he grew up there were no roads (there was the Peace River Trail) no bridge to cross the river and they lived about 15 miles from the nearest town. To this day he lives on the homestead where he was born in a log cabin he helped build and uses a team of horses to do everything from clear snow to cut hay. He is up in his 80s now so the horses and dogs are the only livestock he still has. When we visited him this summer he told us stories for hours about his life back then. With regards to chickens, they did free range in the yard and barn for the summer and he said you had to always be on the watch for preditors, have good dogs etc. to keep them safe. They had a coop for the winter (the building is still there although empty) and heated it with a wood stove. He said you carried for your animals as best you could as by doing so you carred for yourself as they represented an important source of food to added diversity to what you had to eat and made sure you didn't go without.

My point is I think it is important to think about the health and well being of a wild chicken flock or I don't think it would last long enough to amount to much. It would be different in a warm place, like Hawaii where the chickens do live in the wild.

As for what natural selection would do to the flock over time, I agree with coopslave entirely on that one: smaller, faster, colored to blend in, eggs only seasonally for raising young...,