Home Feeding Ideas and Solutions Discussion Thread

[400constantne]

Mine eat potatoes, and they have commercial feed available at all times. I tried to throw them uncooked potatoes once though, and they wouldn't eat them.

 

[brahmamomma]

this is a great thread!!! im learning so much

 

[400constantne]

I did a search on google ebooks. "Chickens" (free). The search resulted in a lot of information on chickens, including "Feeding experiments with chickens..."

You can also get farming magazines from the 19th century.

 

[SouthDakotan]

My chickens always come running for whatever scraps I will toss them, including eating cooked potatoes. Mine devoured the cooked squash and pumpkin I offered. I haven't had decent potato harvest in several years, so I can't say I calculate any for my birds other than what comes from the table scraps. But I have had much greater luck growing winter squash and so I'm figuring on using some of it as a supplement for my chickens.

On another note; I just have to say I am gitty today, since I was just offered 20+ laying hens who are "retiring" from a larger farm and being replaced by 100 young pullets later this summer. Mind you the Old hens are two years of age, but I think it will be fun having a few older "broads" in the yard. I don't mind that they won't be laying every day and It will be a nice change of pace. So I will have a yard full of young batams (arriving in late April) as chicks... a couple new juvie Muscovies, several ducklings and various pigeons.

So this summer will be a population boom in my yard! I'm excited for spring!!!

 

[dsljim]

Learned a little trick to make 3 year old layers as tender as 48 day old broilers, but I think that belongs elsewhere.
My chickens all time favorite, even more than fresh dug earth worms is bones skin and fat left over from my dinner, and no it hasn't turned any into cannibals. The 3 cornered perforated dish in the kitchen sink was always called the "Chicken Dish" just like the small out building with nests hung on the back wall has always been called the chicken house.
A bunch of apples got mixed into the hay piles last fall and they are still in perfect shape, I was talking to an apple farmer and he said conditions in my composting piles were ideal for apples because the hay trying to ferment used up all the oxygen, and the heat of fermentation kept them from freezing. I tasted one the other day and its just as good as the ones coming from cold storage this time of year.

 

[Tivona]

Will they eat the potatoes? Mine won't. Even cooked, they just won't eat them. I suppose if they were hungry enough they might, I don't know. Just thought I'd ask.

My ducks dig up the potatoes in my garden and eat them raw. Big or small, bite by bite. I have to fence them off well when they are growing in the summer. Winter time I let them go for the remainder but I do try to pick up any with green skin and dispose of them where the birds can't get to them. They turn their bills up at cooked though.

 

[400constantne]

I read some of the "experiments if feeding chickens" material on google ebooks. Basically, all that I got from it was:

It is benificial to mix at least some of your chicken/chick feed with powdered milk (mixed).
Even in the early 1900's it was unprofitable to raise chickens unless you could produce your own feed.
This information was based entirely on meat chickens, not on laying chickens.

Note: When I say "unprofitable" I mean financially of course chickens are profitable for our enjoyment.

 

[ShortAnda]

The last few months we were busy renovating and trying to move to a new house which means my poor hens were neglected and given just lay pellets, water, occasional kitchen scraps and alfala hay. They were never allowed to free range but had a huge run. When the winter really set in egg production from the 16 (all about 1.5 years old) of them took a nose dive and I was lucky if I got 2 eggs a day. The lay pellet I use is milled locally and I've always had healthy birds with great egg production using it. I thought for sure the culprit was the age of my birds. Well we finally built them a new coop at the new place and moved them down about a month ago. Now the girls are laying like never before! I believe the reason for their turn around was their shelter. Previously they had a large run with a high cieling and only a lean-to that was open on three sides for roosting and protection from the elements. I always felt bad for them because with this set up they were left almost entirely unprotected from rain, snow and cold. In their new arrangements they are very protected in a completely enclosed 8x8 shed with a small pop door that is open for air flow all the time. When I step in the hen house in the evening it is very comfortable and warm in there. I really think the decline in egg production had a great deal to do with stress from being exposed to the winter elements. They don't have any lighting and their diet has only changed a little and now I get at least 10 eggs a day usually more like 13 a day. They still have not been allowed to free range since there are many predators at our new place.

 

[flowerchild59]

I have a large garden with raised beds set up near the hen house. I toss them items all summer long. I don't know if they will free range too much this summer. I have alot of ornamental hosta beds that are too valuable to let them dig around at will.
Near the hen house I have planted three gogi plants. I plan to use the greens for salads and stirfries all summer. I can keep this rather rangy bush trimmed up by feeding the branches to the chickens. The greens are very nutritious and quite tasty. I also have a comfrey plant that I feed leaves to them periodically all summer.
I plant lots of pumkins and winter squash that I store in a unheated barn. They make it for a couple of months thru the winter and I try to toss them one daily. I am also planting a big row of mangle (fodder beets) this summer for storage for the winter. My husband and I love sweet potatoes and we are planting more of them this year than we ever have before. The smaller, malshappen ones we will feed to the hens. The larger ones we will root cellar for our own use.
We do hunt deer. I am not crazy about it but will cook it thru the winter. My husband likes to process them himself and he bags up scraps for me to feed to the hens. They wil eat anything I throw to them.
We have tons of autumn olive (russian olive) around here and I like to take 4 wheeler rides into our fields behind our house and cut branches of the fruiting russian olive and toss them to the hens. They go wild for them. And this noxious weedy bush is everywhere. I want to try hanging branches upside down and seeing if I can dry them for winter use. Here is some information on them:
http://foragersharvest.com/autumnberry-autumn-olive/

 

[prairie]

Late last summer and into fall I had too many tomatoes and lots with a blemish on them that I didn't want so I started putting them in plastic bread bags and tossing the bags into the freezer. I did this too with all the extra produce and greens we had in the garden that I didn't want to can or preserve for ourselves.

Then this winter I would thaw out one of the bags of 'produce' and toss to the chickens -- they went crazy over it and I will do it again this year. It's a great treat for them in the cold winter when they can't find many bugs or anything green.