Developing the grass in your yard for increasing free ranging nutrition

[Beekissed]

37 in!!!!! I've seen some pretty big crimson clover but never heard of WDC that big!!!! You must have had soils to die for! I thought my WDC had gotten tall one season but now I know it was just fluffy....here's a pic of it one spring right after we tilled rows into the clover and left the clover for the pathways. Way in the back you can see our outhouse, the coop and the dog barn/broody pen and then the hay shed and sheep jug/pen. This is an old farm homeplace I rented for several years and these structures were already in place except the hay shed and pen.

 

[AletaG]

37 in!!!!! I've seen some pretty big crimson clover but never heard of WDC that big!!!! You must have had soils to die for! I thought my WDC had gotten tall one season but now I know it was just fluffy....here's a pic of it one spring right after we tilled rows into the clover and left the clover for the pathways. Way in the back you can see our outhouse, the coop and the dog barn/broody pen and then the hay shed and sheep jug/pen. This is an old farm homeplace I rented for several years and these structures were already in place except the hay shed and pen.

Yep. That D*** Oregon Willamette Valley clay... sticks to the shoes, but is probably the most fertile stuff you'll see. Just didn't take it into account when purchasing seed. Same year I couldn't give Swiss Chard away either<shudders in horror>. Don't feel bad! The flooding can be pretty heinous, hence the fabu soil. And the freezing rain. Every year. Don't need a tree trimmer, when pretty much every year all the dead branches become instruments of destruction... We've all got trade offs!

 

[LindaB220]

You know what else they love? Chicken manure. Darkling beetles are one of the primary bugs that feed on chicken manure in poultry houses and they hate them there because they get in the walls and destroy the materials therein. Anyone having deep litter in their coops probably already have a good population of darkling beetles growing there....it's like cutting out the middle man(you) and providing habitat for bugs that turn into food for the chooks.

Now, a lot of folks would be concerned about the beetles recycling intestinal parasites but in a flock where these are not a problem, I don't worry much about it. One cannot control the bugs a chicken eats out on free range and such things as beetles and earthworms are always going to be a link in the parasite chain. The key is to cull the flock judiciously, not overstock the soils, and promote intestinal and immune system health. Has worked for me for a long time with good success.

I'd definitely recycle some chickie manure into your meal worm production....just think of the symbiosis of it all.

I know a lot of folks would rather just open a bag and feed the chickens, scrape out the poop in the coop and compost it until they can put it on the garden, etc. but it's a very short range view of livestock, soil and pasture management. I think this thread and others like it could maybe open up the minds of those thinking that keeping chickens comes from a bag and get them to thinking of all the possibilities, even on their own small holdings. Intentional, intensive management of your available, natural resources for the animals is an easy thing and it doesn't have to break the bank to initiate it.

I'm not talking about tilling the land and planting BOSS, millet or sorghum....not many backyarders have enough land to make that pay off and those grains are not going to provide a well rounded nutrition, plus they have to be replanted each year and the little dab of harvest won't pay off for the space used. Improving the grasses in the lawn, using a deep litter system in coops and runs, forage frames of pick and come again greens for those birds in confinement, growing bugs and worms, etc. are all relatively easy to do and won't cost too much money or time to maintain, or start, if a person can just use a little imagination and ingenuity.

I love the bedspring idea and that can even be used in a smaller fashion by using discarded baby mattresses. I picked up one out of the curbside trash one time and utilized the "horse hair" over the springs to restore the springs and upholstery on an antique settee...wish I had thought to use those springs for an interesting little garden feature. I love recycling things into other things that have purpose. Just like gathering wheat from the local feed place that would ordinarily be discarded or left to waste....excellent idea! Scoring brewer's grains from a local distillery is another....lots of folks getting in on that. Fermenting the chicken feed from the bag is also another great way to take something and repurpose it into something much, much better and also cutting feed costs in half. Using the composted deep litter on the lawn instead of just in the garden is another idea...farmers do it all the time with their barn manure to improve their pasture growth. Getting free manure from a local horse barn is another cool thing...build a bin, dump it in and let nature provide another type of buffet for your birds that you didn't have to buy...and then keep adding to it.

All these ideas used in conjunction can really make for cheaper, healthier and more sustainable ways to feed chickens.

Ha!! I am learning SO much. Imagination and ingenuity.

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

Yep. That D*** Oregon Willamette Valley clay... sticks to the shoes, but is probably the most fertile stuff you'll see. Just didn't take it into account when purchasing seed. Same year I couldn't give Swiss Chard away either. Don't feel bad! The flooding can be pretty heinous, hence the fabu soil. And the freezing rain. Every year. Don't need a tree trimmer, when pretty much every year all the dead branches become instruments of destruction... We've all got trade offs!

I'm up on a foothill of the Wilamette Valley ... Pinot Noir country. Perfect property for a vineyard, but less fertile soil than down on the flat. With the little bit extra elevation we get some snow here ... But not every year and not very much with rare exceptions Last winter when everyone in the valley had gorgeous freezing fog we had gorgeous sunshine and a white carpet of clouds between our hill and Mt. Hood. The rain and mud and slope of the hill make nursery digging season (now) a big ordeal. The mud is very heavy. About the ice ... the tree murder crew came through a few weeks ago to shave off anything anywhere near a power line. You'd think they'd bury the lines here, but nope, they'd rather disfigure the trees so we have a better view of the power polls and such. We seem to specialize in blackberries on this farm. Everything grows like crazy in the spring and would swallow you whole by mid June, but is pretty dreary mid-July. Then we get what I call a "second spring" in September/October. The crocuses will even get confused and rebloom. It's that dry spell July & August that I'm most eager to survive pasture-wise. If there is enough summer forage that the chickens don't scatch down to the bare earth when it's dry, then we won't have mud issues in the other three seasons. We'd all be happier. Blackberries and coyotes and mud. And wineos. That's my hood.

 

[Aphrael]

I'm up on a foothill of the Wilamette Valley ... Pinot Noir country. Perfect property for a vineyard, but less fertile soil than down on the flat. With the little bit extra elevation we get some snow here ... But not every year and not very much with rare exceptions Last winter when everyone in the valley had gorgeous freezing fog we had gorgeous sunshine and a white carpet of clouds between our hill and Mt. Hood.

The rain and mud and slope of the hill make nursery digging season (now) a big ordeal. The mud is very heavy.

About the ice ... the tree murder crew came through a few weeks ago to shave off anything anywhere near a power line. You'd think they'd bury the lines here, but nope, they'd rather disfigure the trees so we have a better view of the power polls and such.

We seem to specialize in blackberries on this farm. Everything grows like crazy in the spring and would swallow you whole by mid June, but is pretty dreary mid-July. Then we get what I call a "second spring" in September/October. The crocuses will even get confused and rebloom. It's that dry spell July & August that I'm most eager to survive pasture-wise. If there is enough summer forage that the chickens don't scatch down to the bare earth when it's dry, then we won't have mud issues in the other three seasons. We'd all be happier.

Blackberries and coyotes and mud. And wineos. That's my hood.

I would LOVE to be buried in blackberries! I can do without the other 2 though...

 

[Beekissed]

Quote:
In the cattle world and pasture, when things are droughty and pasture is suffering, farmers often keep the cattle in a "sacrifice" area and feed last year's left over hay to keep them off the struggling pasture grasses and take them through the drought and then let them back on pasture to fatten up on cool season perennials in the fall.

Maybe you could do the same for your chickens and prepare for your drought months by creating some really good foraging reserves in grow frames, compost bins, etc. and confine them during those months to just those areas so your pasture has a chance to recover from the drought and then let them back at it in Sept. Then this will let the intentional plantings and food reservoirs in your sacrifice areas have enough time to recover and grow back for winter feeding options. It could be a rhythm and cycle you could implement each year, improving on it as time goes along. If you could even fence them for awhile into the blackberry patches so they can feed up on all that fruit and the bugs that come to feed on the berries as well, it could really provide additional food sources for them.

I plant a "sacrifice" row of flowers by the garden each year that are a place for nuisance bugs to live and eat instead of on my veggies. Then the chickens are allowed into that row to eat any bugs they want, to use it for shade, etc. This past year we let the garden lie fallow but still planted our row of flowers and the bugs were incredibly plentiful in that row. The chickens would regularly glean that buffet over and over throughout the season, then also picked seeds from the flower heads also. I use a wildflower, sunflower mix and it's beautiful, functional and well worth the brief time it takes to sow the seed.



At the end of the season and the flowers were over grown and gone to seed, we trimmed off the excess growth and added other herb trimmings and deposited them into my too dry coop litter...the coop smelled like chocolate mint ice cream for months after that!

Below is last year's sacrifice row left to keep attracting bugs in the fall, and the garden rows overseeded with clover at the end of the season. Both are places of bug buffets, tender green growth and seed gleanings.



The one time that flowers and chickens go hand in hand..in the sacrifice row!



For my sheep, the sacrifice area was my large garden areas in which I would confine them to clean up all the old plantings, the clover in the rows, the old squash, melons, tomatoes, etc. that was still left in the garden. This kept them off the late August pasture and let them go back to fatten up on tall fescue in the fall..and man would they get fat on that!

I also used the gardens for their winter quarters and sacrifice area so that their manure and pee could be deposited where it could do the most good. I built a temp shelter connecting the two garden areas and the hay shelter and provided a self feeding station on the hay stack. It worked out lovely and kept the sheep off my very limited pasture during the winter months when grass has low nutrition and is vulnerable to overgrazing.

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

In the cattle world and pasture, when things are droughty and pasture is suffering, farmers often keep the cattle in a "sacrifice" area and feed last year's left over hay to keep them off the struggling pasture grasses and take them through the drought and then let them back on pasture to fatten up on cool season perennials in the fall.

Maybe you could do the same for your chickens and prepare for your drought months by creating some really good foraging reserves in grow frames, compost bins, etc. and confine them during those months to just those areas so your pasture has a chance to recover from the drought and then let them back at it in Sept.

At the end of the season and the flowers were over grown and gone to seed, we trimmed off the excess growth and added other herb trimmings and deposited them into my too dry coop litter...the coop smelled like chocolate mint ice cream for months after that!

Great, now I'm hungry for ice cream.

Below is last year's sacrifice row left to keep attracting bugs in the fall, and the garden rows overseeded with clover at the end of the season. Both are places of bug buffets, tender green growth and seed gleanings.

Your photos are SO gorgeous with your birds enjoying your work.

 

[Lacy Blues]

Hey, total newbie here. Bee and Kassaundra, I feel I know you well I have read your threads for the past couple of months. My first day at BYC I found fermented feeds for meat birds. Ha. Right down my alley because I love kombucha. I learned so much especially how I want my hoop house Bee. Perfect for my needs. I don't have the eww factor on processing so it worked right in with the idea of going further and caponizing. It always comes down to financing doesn't it. I have been saving and will be ordering from Mr. Tao soon.
But the reason I brought it up now is I have ordered from Mr. Coe and can attest that comfrey grows like wildfire. I'm outside of Shreveport in zone 8b so not much winter. And its still growing. Don't plant it where the chickens can get it. You'll waste it. Plant it in a row a couple of feet apart and add manure to it. It will grow so fast that you will be able to harvest it (cutting 2 inches above ground) at least 8 to 10 times a year. I'm talking pounds of the stuff. Chicks don't like it so much fresh but cut it and let wilt overnight to get rid of prickles and they will engulf it. I plan to use it for about 25% of my protein . All theoretical so far as my first babies will not come until late January. So excited to get started on my endeavor. And great to finally meet you.

Glad some of my posts have been of help. Mr. Coe's comfrey is awesome!

Do you ladies have a link to Mr. Coe? I'm thinking I want to get some seeds. It will be a one time investment so I think the $5 is worth it. Comfrey does well here, I just have to give it lots of water! I would like to have enough to harvest several times a year to let dry and feed green as well!

 

[Beekissed]

We've got a discussion about raising meat rabbits on more natural food sources on the FF thread that really ties into the info we have on this thread. Most of the forage grasses we mentioned here are in the natural diet of eastern cottontails, so planting for the chickens will also serve the needs of meat rabbits that are kept in paddocks or in tractors on the pasture.

 

[Aphrael]

We've got a discussion about raising meat rabbits on more natural food sources on the FF thread that really ties into the info we have on this thread. Most of the forage grasses we mentioned here are in the natural diet of eastern cottontails, so planting for the chickens will also serve the needs of meat rabbits that are kept in paddocks or in tractors on the pasture.

I was thinking about that the other day. I'm planning to have meat rabbits in the future and would like to raise them on pasture. So I was thinking that developing the forage areas for the chickens would serve double duty by providing feed for the rabbits as well.