Releasing the raccoon in someone else's area is a completely illegal and immoral thing to do. Now they are wary of traps and killing someone else's chickens. Poison, shoot or take to animal control but never never never release them. I know of no area in US that it is legal to release them...
Chickens would need to eat about 1000 lbs per day to get enough hemoaglutinin to be toxic. So unless your chickens are eating that much it's fine.
Absolute nonsense.
Alfalfa and other legumes have very high protein compared to other greens. 30% compared to 8 for grass. The chickens love it and eat the leaves not stems. Consider growing it in a patch for them. Yolks get bright orange and seems to improve the taste a lot.
Sorry for what happened to your hen.
As for the rooster this is a sure fire way to keep him from doing that again. In a large pot combine 2 large potatoes peeled, 5 diced large carrots, half stick of butter, 1 lb pasta... Salt and season to taste.
Farmers would say that the freshest manure is best. They apply fresh manure and till it in immediately so the nitrogen doesn't gas off as fast.
The biggest concern is the amount of salt. Chicken manure has 100 to 200 lbs of salt per ton, and the recommendation is no more than 500 lbs of salt...
I would think that if you had a restaurant that catered to chickens, they would pay more for the feed with the live bugs in it.
I store what I can in the chest freezer until I need the space, but try to freeze it once a month or so or rotate bags in the freezer. I do this with any flour, dry...
Nobody wants to spray if they don't have to, but billions a year are spent on making better safer ag chemicals. Comparing technology from 40 years ago to now is like comparing the first cell phones to the latest iPhone.
Ld50 for bifenthrin... Modern insecticide, is 2g/kg. If you weigh 100kg...
Thier point wasn't about big ag being victims, it is about global food supply. If you are in India right now, you are paying more for your flour since some Western farmland is being diverted to organic. This increased price is incentive for more 3rd world farmers to cut down more forrests to...
There are a bunch of articles there hoss, covering thousands of farms, dozens of countries, peer reviewed journals, multiple crop types.
Actually you have it backwards. Non organic no till farmers only till once a decade. For organic farmers, no till refers to only once a year full tillage...
To anyone who is open minded, primary literature is cited in these articles...
https://www.npr.org/2021/05/03/989984124/a-giant-organic-farm-faces-criticism-that-its-harming-the-environment
https://www.cranfield.ac.uk/press/news-2019/organic-farming-could-increase-greenhouse-gas-emissions...
Just a few comments to those who might feel guilted into "do I need to do organic feed?". This is just my opinion, read at your own risk.
1 organic crops are much more damaging to the planet and require significantly more fossil fuels to grow. This is mostly due to the fact that organic...
When I lost mine to Marek's, the first one got sick, then 2 months later the next. It is a virus that causes a tumor on the spine or brain. It can take weeks or months to show.
I don't know if you can still get the rest vaccinated but it might be a good idea to talk to a vet.
I remember...
Another note. Midwest labs does soil and plant analysis testing. They can do silage and also test your chicken manure for fertilizer quality as well. You say your lawn is well fertilized. I thought my garden was too until I tested. PH was off, some things really low, some really high. The...
Glad to see you tried this. I came close to doing this in 5 gal buckets, but chickens ate all my alfalfa before I got a chance to cut it.
The article you quote, is that factoring in wet weight. I always knew alfalfa to be 30 to 40% protein content on a dry weight basis. Lycene is what...