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

[mississippifarmboy]

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Good news! Glad your BO is ok.

 

[Tracydr]

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This last batch of Cornish X I raised got lots of whole grains from a very early age, alfalfa hay and sprouted grains. I can't believe how large the gizzards on these birds are. The gizzard is a muscle, folks, and as a muscle, it requires exercise and development to work properly to digest larger items.
This could be why chickens who have never seen hay or whole grains and suddenly get all they can eat, after a lifetime of only eating processed mash or crumble might have issues. Their gizzards are undeveloped and may not even contain grit to digest real food.

 

[perchie.girl]

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This last batch of Cornish X I raised got lots of whole grains from a very early age, alfalfa hay and sprouted grains. I can't believe how large the gizzards on these birds are. The gizzard is a muscle, folks, and as a muscle, it requires exercise and development to work properly to digest larger items.
This could be why chickens who have never seen hay or whole grains and suddenly get all they can eat, after a lifetime of only eating processed mash or crumble might have issues. Their gizzards are undeveloped and may not even contain grit to digest real food.

Oooh good observation....

 

[toofarout]

Thank you everyone for continuing the discussion on hay/crop impaction, it has been very informative. I appreciate it very much.

 

[emvickrey]

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Thats what our kids think of us anyway.

 

[al6517]

With all the talk about hay and the different uses and some problems people have. I wanted to say that when choosing hay as any option we need to look at the hay. The quality of the hay is really the biggest factor in buying hay, do folks not know how to evaluate a bale, ask or detirmine what cutting it came from and where, do they dig in there and pull out a handful from deep inside a flake to check for mold, exccess dust, is the hay to dry or moist, is it fresh or old. Do we shop around for good hay, do you look at different grasses for different reasons feed vs bedding, best time of the year to buy and store hay. I guess what I am saying is we should explore the hay further before we make a decision to use it or not and if the quality is the cause of some of those problems. Hay can and does get shipped from all over the country and brokered in many ways before you get it, so you need to look at that and know what to look for. Just sayin.................

AL

 

[navasima]

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Actually - no. I for one don't kow how to check quality of hay at all. This is an excellent post!! Not asking for much - but is it possible to get a "checklist" of what to look for, good or bad. Know your Hay 101 is a course I definitely need!!

 

[al6517]

Wow that would be a long list LOL. the thing is that you can read till your blue in the face and still not be proficeint at checking hay, it is an accquired lesson that must be learned through hands on stick yer face in a bale kind of thing. It also has way to many variables to feel comfortable about handing out that advice. But perhaps we could just kick the idea around a bit, once again you can get good at it with a little common sense as in most things.

As an example.................

I use good fresh wheat straw hay for bedding for everything from horse, goat, stall bedding. and for the chickens. I feed different hay such as Bermuda hay and fresh 1st cutting johnson grass and Plains blue stem.

Knowing what field it comes from is a big deal IMO, I know guy's who sell hay from their fields that is so bad I woudn't drive through it LOL. Meaning do the treat for weeds and how and when, is their hay field used to pasture in also or just used to cutt hay. Do they bail at the right time of year and at the right weekend do you see them rake and air dry it before baling. Talk to others who may have used farmer johnson's hay and see what they feel about it and it's quality.

Do they treat for insects and how, I don't buy hay from a unused cow pasture that is in a 1st off season rotation, too many chunks of pie in the bales LOL. Certain types of hay keeps better and longer than others and prices always reflect quality and availability, supply and demand.

In short it is best to educate yourself on the type of grasses and bailed hay used and grown in your area, learn about the particulars about how that certain hay. I guess am saying you don't need to get a PHD in hay you just need to do things like talk and listen to hay farmers anywhere from the grocery store line to the coffee shop. Look around while on daily drives and pay attention to what is happening in the fields and when and why. So it's not really complicated just more of a paying attention type learning. Do these simple things and after a year look back at how much you learned and how you did it and you may be amazed at how much you did actually absorb.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Making good hay depends on a lot of things. Primarily the weather and the quality of the pasture from which it's cut. We only get one cutting a year here except for alfalfa. So, alfalfa hay is a little different story and alfalfa fields can vary a lot in quality.
Hay will usually consist of a primary grass(whatever had been sown in that field or a mixture of grasses.
Some hay fields can have a lot of brush or briars growing up in them in which case there's sticks and thorny strands that have no food value for horses and cows.
Whoever you buy from should be able to tell you what kind of grass it is. We had fields of orchard grass, brome grass, ladino and fescue.
Timing the cutting is critical but mother nature has a lot to do with it. You want the grass mature but not overly so. That way you get the good volume and grass is going to seed but is still green to keep good nutrition content.
If it's been very dry, the hay will be dusty, there's no way around that. If it's been dry a long time the grass will be poor quality or you just won't be able to make hay. You need dry weather for several days so the hay can cure after cutting before baling.
If it isn't dry enough before raking and baling it will mold. If it gets a shower on it, it will probably mold. If it gets rained on after baling before being properly covering or put up, it will mold.
Haying time is a busy - dawn to dusk, hot, dusty, scratchy chore and the amount and quality of the winter's feed depends on a few days task.
When the baler picks up the hay from the windrow a press continually smashes bunches into a square chute which makes the flakes(sections of the bale). You can reach in between them and pull some out and look for mold. You also want to look for sticks protruding from the bale. If you don't see any, the field was probably pretty clean. The grass should be dry but still have a fairly green tint to it(unlike straw). Some parts of the country have huge fields of high quality grass but we were mostly forested with most fields of only 5 to 20 acres and the forest was constantly trying to take them back.

 

[flagirl]

dirtsaver wrote:

Beekissed wrote:

DirtSaver, that would certainly be an interesting chapter! This first book will mainly be a general book to help people who are poor and getting more so that are wanting to help themselves and provide more ways to feed their family and save on expenses...without all the complicated advice currently being offered. Just plain and easy ways to get by and make do that are easy to put into practice and won't cost extra money in the process.

I also have a sequel planned that will involve different people who are putting such things into practice in their urban/rural yards, like cheese making, soap making, fiber production, etc(sort of a modern day version of Foxfire)...so a chapter on someone who earns extra money doing that sort of thing would definitely be of interest. Do you know anyone currently doing this?
Bee I sure wish I could say I did know someone still doing those things but....like so many goods thing..."this too shall pass". I do a few of of the "tinkers chores" when I can, and a fellow I work with takes in knives,scissors,garden tools and the like for sharpening. I'd really like to start a tinkers shop but so much of what we have today is not worth repairing(or made in such a way it can't be repaired!)

SORRY, COULD NOT FIGURE HOOW TO GET THIS HERE, BUT HERE IS A FASCINATING FAMILY THAT IS HOMESTEADING IN THE MIDDLE OF PASADENA, CALIF
http://urbanhomestead.org