Deal of the day!!

[Tala]

Quote:
Same here, liability issues. What a waste!

Watermelons are super easy to grow, they don't get supermarket sized in my experience, but twice we've "accidentally" grown some in the yard - which the chickens enjoyed! This year it was a total surprise! We had a water melon growing beside our back porch (just outside the chicken's reach) BEFORE we had cut our first watermelon. Tell me where that seed came from???????
They will also eat the plant parts too, and it grows SUPER fast even when it's pretty dry out, so if you grow it outside their pen and throw parts in for greens... Plus I think it's cool coz it climbs and you can convince it to grow up or across the fence. Heh, maybe I'm easily amused

 

[viktoriacl]

Id say the mystery watermelon seeds probably came from an animal or bird dropping that had seeds in it! Thats how nature spreads the wealth! Cool find!

 

[greenSearcher]

I have found most local chain markets will give away reasonable amount of waste, unless they have already made arangements to sell their food as animal feed. United in TX in my area lets me "trash pick" the waste bins from the produce room. I always ask if something looks too good, but most of the time I get enough for my girls to last a few days. Right now it doesn't take much, but next year with 40 birds, I may have to find additional sources. I make a point of not seeming greedy.
I don't think anyone has mentioned restaurants, they have waste daily, often salads and veges from prep work. All left overs are supposed to be time/date stamped, so they can have left overs that are still good but no longer usable. Even fast food places have salad makings and breads.
I'm not proud, I will ask and take stuff away if it is available. I hate to see waste, and we waste so much in our food industry both ready to eat and groceries.

 

[HaikuHeritageFarm]

I was feeding my flock about a 5 gallon bucket of kitchen waste from the cafe I worked at every couple of days for a while. It really cut down on the feed bill, and the girls loved it! Since I worked there, I could kind of monitor what was going into it and make sure everything was ok. There were inevitably things the chickens wouldn't eat, (avocado pits!) so I would just go through and rake the yard every other day or so to make sure there was nothing drawing flies.

I need to call them and see if we can come to some kind of agreement again, even though they were terrible employers and I quit!

 

[Nostalchic]

My local Vitamin Cottage will give away produce that is wilted or spotted or whatever to people with chickens on request. They do want to know that you are getting it for your chickens. In the summer I don't get it because I have so much stuff from my own garden, but in the off-garden-season, it's so great to get big boxes of slightly wilted lettuce or spinach or whatever for my flock, and it would otherwise be thrown out. They are just great, and ALL of their produce is organic.