Yeah... I was supporting our local farms... I think I blamed that bit of indiscretionary spending due to the heat wave we had that week. Yeah, that's it...
I keep a few planters around just for growing oats. The chickens love it! Now I am started some wheat germ for them as well since they showed me how much they love that. Also if you have horses, or any hay eaters, we give all the "scrap" hay to our chickens as well. They LOVE it.
I saw Tobin123 has a small pumpkin farm. Igrow lots of vine crops and start tall fast growing plants like sunflowers, broom corn and buckwheat right where the vines will travel among. I plant oats all the way around the patch, cut of the grain and use the oatstraw as mulch to keep down weeds. My girls also loove cooked pumpkins.
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I suggested a meat grinder either manual or power. They have different blades for the front so it should work. Either that or a really big rock.
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I suggested a meat grinder either manual or power. They have different blades for the front so it should work. Either that or a really big rock.
For most BYC'ers chickens are a hobby. When grain/pellets become to expensive to justify keeping chickens we'll reduce the number or get out altogether.
Sad to say, most Americans don't have access to a local farmer.
I don't know about MOST, but there are people who do not have access which is very sad. Fortunately there are websites like www.localharvest.org out there. It makes finding local sources for great food easy.
I did some figuring and not including labor or the coop, feeding my six chickens is cheeper then buying similar quality eggs at the store. Plus I save a lot of money on fertilizer and my garden yields are better because of all the grasshoppers they eat.
I ate breakfast at a little diner a couple weeks ago and was served two over-easy eggs on hash browns. Normally, I'd consider this comfort food, but I was completely disgusted with the "fluorescent yellow" color of the yolks and the flavor was kind of "canned" or something. I'm sure the eggs would have been fine for most chickenless folks, but after having chickens I will never be satisfied with commercial eggs again.
I'd like to see a future with chickens on every street in America.