Grains in the forest pasture

We went out of town for four days a couple of weeks ago, and without their daily dose of garden scraps, our flock got interested in the buckwheat and beans.  In addition to eating up their usual storebought feed, the chickens consumed every single bean and buckwheat kernel in the pasture, even scratching the vines up well enough that I could easily rake winter wheat into the soil for a spring grain crop.

Although the grain paddock certainly didn't cost me much work, I can't help wondering whether a system of perennials wouldn't be a better use of the space.  The paddock only fed six chickens for four days, so I'd need a huge patch if my goal had been to feed the flock grain all winter.

On the other hand, our pastured hens are finding lots of invertebrates to munch on (especially as I wheelbarrow mulch and compost out of their pasture.)  They look healthier already, and are laying an average of 3 eggs per day among 5 hens at the moment even though I have them on 2/3 rations.  For the sake of comparison, at this time last year, we were getting the exact same number of eggs per day from our current flock, were feeding them half again as much, and the birds were all a year younger.  Clearly, cutting back on laying pellets doesn't harm egg production when the pasture is so bountiful.