Recent content by Rainey

I have chicks that are now a month old that never had chick starter. I haven't fermented, but have sprouted or soaked in whey the wheat and oats I gave them. They also have had potatoes (ours were starting to sprout in the root cellar and need to be finished up), some scrambled eggs the first...

I've been raising chicks this spring without using chick starter. They were 3 weeks old on Wednesday and went to the outside coop with a run (movable) and a compost pile. Today I was sitting by the pond and watching the minnows and wondered about catching some of them for feeding to our hens and...

The first time we got day old chicks we followed the conventional advice, had a heat lamp and very slowly decreased the heat over 6 weeks, fed chick starter, moved them outside after fully feathered at 6 weeks. Three years later, we're starting a new batch of 8 chicks for egg laying. In the...

we planted hardy hazelnuts a few years ago. They really grew well and made lots of nuts and spread so we could divide the clumps--put some in the hedgerows we're developing between goat paddocks. The down side is that the nuts were really small so it took a lot of work to get a significant...

Haven't fed acorns myself. Read about it in a British WW II era book about feeding rabbits and poultry on scraps (during rationing--almost no feed grain available). Also recently saw discussion on chicken forum of permies.com about folks actually using acorns for large part of chicken diet and...

Most of what I see about non-commercial feed is for adult birds. What about starting chicks? I know that the best raiser of natural chicks would be a hen and plan to get there eventually. But this spring I'll be starting with 10 day old chicks (chosen and raised for egg laying, not meat...

Thanks for sharing what you did--so far we've had our chickens in a coop that moves onto fresh ground every few days spring through fall but have just kept them in a coop for the winter months (in NY just east of Lake Ontario--lots of snow) This summer we'll be building new space for rabbits and...

Found this thread searching for info on giving whey to chickens and read through it. Found it very helpful. We have goats for our own milk and cheese--give the whey to pigs May to October but wondered if we could give it to chickens the rest of the year--that was answered. Wasn't clear if it...

We've been feeding wheat fodder to the rabbits and some to the goats this winter--grow it to 6 to 8 days. Not sure what we'll do for the new chickens--have read a lot of posts saying that hens have to have all grass/plant material chopped up to avoid crop problems. May try just sprouting some...

I'm just getting started trying to do this for chickens after moving rabbits off commercial pellets last spring/summer. We were able to raise rabbits for meat using hay and wild gathered forage through the growing season and then grew wheat fodder to feed in the winter along with hay, roots...

Have you used the acorns for feed--or do the hens eat them on their own? I read that they were used in England when feed was scarce during WW II. Last year was a high mast year here, but I didn't read about using them for rabbits and chickens until the snow had covered everything up. And I was...

Still figuring this out. Right now the plan for the 10 chicks we start this spring is to use a small movable coop we started the last batch in. It had an attached run and was moved daily. This time we're going to have a compost pile in the center of the area we'll use and move the coop around...

I just found this thread and enjoyed reading it. We have goats and rabbits as well as chickens and I feel like I have a better handle on what is good for them. Last spring we started some hedgerows around and between the goat paddocks that we rotate between. Willow and elder we could just stick...

We grow wheat fodder for our rabbits during the winter and have been feeding some to the goats as well recently. Would you always give chickens sprouts instead of fodder--or is that just for the chicks? If just for chicks, how old would they need to be to eat fodder without cutting it up fine?

I read the whole post but just wanted to ask a question (as a newcomer) about this last part. For someone whose goal is eggs, not meat, is the direction of the hatcheries appropriate? In the past I've kept (obtained from hatchery) hens described as dual purpose, and I came to the point of...