Chickens for 10-20 years or more? Pull up a rockin' chair and lay some wisdom on us!

[Tracydr]

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Alfalfa does VERY well in the desert. It likes water, but not wet. Easy to grow, perennial, deep roots and loves to be roughed up. once established, they can eat it pretty much to the ground, and it will grow back in a week, or just run em through a little while every couple of days. Good protein, good roughage, lots of little bugs to eat also. When it gets to high or scraggily, run the mower over it.

And chia. It's a SW desert native.
Amaranth, it's practically weed. I can grow it here in AZ in the heat of summer, get a ton of greens+ grain. Buckwheat is another good summer grain crop, although no greens from it.
Use some vertical spaces, too since you don't have lots of room. A pot with a trellis can grow a lot of something vining or tall.

 

[Tracydr]

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Hmm, they drylands farm sunflowers in CO and KS. I plant them in places that are relatively ignored and too hot for most other crops. Although, I think in my heat amaranth and even sesame are a bigger bang for the buck.

 

[exop]

What about forage crops for a chilly zone 5? We get down to -10 - -15 on the coldest February nights, estimated last frost in mid May, summers hot, rainy (although not this last year or the year before) usually in the 90s.

Wet, muddy frosty springs, which change into muddy summer so abruptly that it makes it impossible to grow extended-cool season crops like fava, and difficult to plant snow peas (I sow pre sprouted seed in mid March, for harvest in early June before the summer kicks in full bore).

I have a depleted chicken grazing area which needs some robust new forage... I could rotate them off it, to let something new grow in, but wonder from those of you with similar growing conditions what my options are at this point (and at this time of year).

 

[Tracydr]

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I never could keep the white, pearl or lavender guineas. They seem to be predator bait. I used to raise about 300 keeps a year, hatching all in small batches in my silly Little Giant bator.

I usually hatch and sell week old keets.. I hatch about 300 a year. I have several styrofoam incubators for back up, but I use three GQF sportsmans for most of my incubating.. I have modified some egg trays so that I can stack them and set over 500 eggs in each of two of the GQF's.. I use the third one for a hatcher unless I get over stocked with eggs, then it gets interesting.. Many times I will take small batches of eggs and let the chickens or turkeys hatch them.. depends on what is broody at the time..

I always let my guineas free range when I had them to reduce insects and just collected the enormous amounts of eggs they laid. It's a wonder I didn't naturalize the species in the two places that I raised them! But the light ones just didn't survive.
When I get my retirement dream farm in the next year or two, I'll get back into hatching them, plus peafowl. I'd also like to raise heritage turkey, which I've never had before.
I'd love to make a big incubator out of an old wine cooler. I have just the prospect.

 

[Tracydr]

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Amaranth goes a long way. Greens and high protein grain. Then, you need cool season crops. Kale, mustard, collards are easy and produce a lot. Fenugreek is popular and higher protein, as is crimson clover but the clover is slower so I'd mix it with kale/oats/annual rye and some mustard.
Quinoa and chia are other easy high protein, cool season grains.
Plant some boss seeds anywhere you have vertical spaces for the summer and get big beatiful sunflowers.


Well, I'm in Phoenix so my schedule is upside down from the rest of the world. To be very efficient, I would recommend Eliot Coleman's Four Season gardening since you actually have seasons. I would then check my extension agency planting calender, which you should be able to find online.
You have a fairly reasonable winter so I bet you can even grow some very hardy greens through the winter, although I'm not exactly sure which zone you are.
I'm in the middle of my busiest planting season right now and for the next two months, starting tomatoes and peppers indoors, finishing up getting the greens and garlic planted and getting the potatoes in the ground. But, we take the summer almost completely off, unlike the rest of the world.
There are several great gardening forums which have wonderful communities, much like here. Baker Creek is a good one.

 

[Tracydr]

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Clover, rye, wheat, fenugreek, ? Its too late now of course.
Stuff I can grow through winter. How about annual alfalfa plus rye or canola?
Do you have any farm type feed stores or big farms around? Maybe stop and see what/when they plant pastures?

 

[pdbantam]

Hey Mississippi - I'm about 30 minutes north of the MS Gulf Coast. Is winter temperature even a concern for me? I've got space for some more chickens. I was gonna wait till spring but if chickens are that cold hardy, I'll get em now. Don't want to have to fuss over them though. Rock bantams good for anything?

 

[bobbi-j]

I have noticed on byc that people are afraid of the word kill.. when you take a chicken's life you kill it,, not cull it..

You also aren't sending it "to freezer camp". I don't know why, but that phrase irritates me. You're butchering or processing your chicken. Period. It might sound nicer, but you're still killing the bird, plucking and gutting it and putting it in the freezer.​

 

[calliecutiepie]

Just started reading this thread. Love it!! I got my first 5 chicks this past spring. Did everything wrong according to what the books say. They lived in a large plastic container where I could never get the temp to stay 88 degrees....any hotter and they avoided the heat lamp like the plague. My daughters had them outside in the yard when they were just 2 days old. They are the hardest things I've ever seen. My cat longed to make them her lunch for such a long time. Now they rule the backyard. They even survived the summer heat down here in Baton rouge, la....with a box fan in the shade! Guess the proof is in the pudding. Thanks for such practical advice.


about

Fred's Hens :

OK..... I just dip my toe in the water.... and see how this goes.

Brood chicks out in the garage, in a shed, or in the barn, or least in your mud room or back porch for goodness sakes. Chicks do not have to be brooded indoors, giving everyone cast iron lungs, sinus allergies and rooms that must look like someone shook out a flour sack. The entire brooder does not need to be 95F. Stop putting so much sugary crap in the water and cooking chicks in little suffocating plastic totes where the temps are 95-100 degrees and 99% of the posts of "Oh No!! My chick has poop butt, what should I do?" would go away.


Now, Bee, if I've already been too plain spoken, I'll bow out. No problem.​

 

[oshun55555]

I think freezer camp came from the chicken butt lickers, chicken saddles, along with with all the other silly mess I have read about on BYC. Freezer is where you put dead meat and it ain't no camp.