Dual-Purpose Flock Owners UNITE!

[CarolinaHen]

This is my kind of thread! Like most all of you, I keep livestock (dairy goats and chickens, and now a Jersey heifer calf) for their practical qualities. I want good quality animals, because I have to look at them, but they've got to earn their keep. I am just taking a break from butchering a goat who didn't give enough milk to justify feeding her, and the same criteria applies to the chickens. Right now I've got Golden-laced Wyandottes and Black Australorps, but I'm seriously considering switching to bantams, for several reasons.

For one thing, it's only my youngest daughter and I living here (she's mentally handicapped and will always live with me, so no growing up and going away to college to reduce the size of our household).

For another, I'd like to keep a few bantams as caged birds in the house to entertain DD, and would like to be able to rotate them in and out of the main flock (I'm thinking of using the house cage for raising chicks, and for broody hens -- DD would love that!).

Then there is the fact that I have several all-wire chicken tractors made from rabbit cages (bottoms removed, they work very well as long as the goats don't get out and walk on top of them, which did happen once!). The cages aren't tall enough to use as breeding pens for large fowl, but would work fine for bantams, giving me ready-made breeding pens. I can't free-range here, even with a good livestock guardian dog, the predator pressure is just too intense.

And, if I kept bantams, I could keep more birds, have more young ones to select from, and be able to cull more heavily.

Oh, and I'd like having a smaller carcass that was just a meal or two for the two of us. My frig is usually full of milk (right now it's full of home-made sauerkraut and milk), so there isn't a lot of room for leftovers.

So I think I've talked myself into bantams, LOL! I think I'll use RIR's, OEG (probably Ginger Reds, as I like the color of the hens, as well as the roosters -- a lot of the colors seem to have very bland-colored hens, and since part of the purpose is to entertain DD....), and Spangled Cornish. Maybe a little White Leghorn and New Hampshire if they have the same qualities as the LF versions. Should end up with colorful pea-comb dual-purpose birds!

Kathleen

You can always add in some bantam Easter Eggers for a bit of color variety in the egg basket

 

[Pathfinders]

Freeholder, I would hesitate to recommend to anyone that they keep chickens inside their home permanently. Chickens shed a copious amount of dust, and it really would be hard to keep it from getting all over your home. (The thought of chicken dust in the kitchen is unappetizing, for sure.)

I do keep chicks in the basement of our house (unfinished but with power), and that's hard enough to deal with. The stuff gets everywhere!

Perhaps your garage might be a better place? Other than that, your plans sound great.

 

[Arielle]

FReeholder-- with the economy the way it is I don't expext my kids to get off to college, not move out of the house . . . I think we are headed back to the multigenerational home . . . which is a good thing IMO.

 

[cubalaya]

i think you may be right. small tracts of farmable land used by multigenerational families maybe the only way to survive what is coming financially in the near future. families should help each other anyway.

 

[lizdelc]

I love this thread! I am startIng a flock this year and know this Is how I want to do It! Thanks for sharIng all your wIsdom!

 

[Arielle]

Quote: I have a more noticeable decrease than 5%. Many grasees stay viable all winter long-- my lawn is still greenish and the birds happily eat there. THey seem to prefer that to the pellets. But given itis winter and not the usually bugs etc, they do chow down a lot of grain.

You can grow your own grains and feeds for the winter-- farmers did that for years. Just more effecient and less costly to buy orgainic or non organic.

I am with you though-- trying to prooduce more of my own. I"m just starting in to this so I only have plans. Forages like alfalfa, clovers, variety of grasses; some bushes-- not sure what though; berrybushes, maybe strawberries; fruit trees. I still have pumpkins in storage in my house. I learn this summer ummer squash also puts on a rind and will hold for months though not as well as winter squash. Tomatos-- they love those. SO IMO you can do some growing of food for your birds.

 

[Natashka]

There is a general consensus that study is wrong. Even if it isn't, I think growing extra veggies and grain for your chickens is a good way to reduce the feed bill.

 

[Arielle]

I love this thread! I am startIng a flock this year and know this Is how I want to do It! Thanks for sharIng all your wIsdom!

Getting the right birds for the job is key IMO--there are many breeds for a reason.

There is a general consensus that study is wrong. Even if it isn't, I think growing extra veggies and grain for your chickens is a good way to reduce the feed bill.

Sorry, I'm lost, what study?

IT not only reduces the feed bill-- it improves the quality of the product. HIgher vit A in grass fed beef was proven years ago; higher omega 3 in eggs was also proven years ago. I have a BS in ANimal Scinece and learned the commercial methods of production---I now see a better way of eating and producting meat. and eggs. Gorgeous yellow fats from eating grass, lean meats from animals NOT fattened up, thick orangey yolks.

HOw much the feed bill is reduced is relative-- improving the land and buying seeds costs money-- it is not free. Many times I have purchased young canes from Millers and planted, only to see them die; yet the wild blackberries abound. Clearly I'm doing something wrong! lol Management is trial and error too. WE need each other to shae the how to that has been lost.

 

[cubalaya]

i usually let my young stags free range until they get big enough to eat or start fighting. they follow me around when i am picking blackberries or grapes and clean up all the ones that i drop. as far as food grown for them, we like black sorghum, sunflower, blue pop corn, and turnip greens. these are heirloom varieties and very easy to save seed for next year.

 

[Arielle]

i usually let my young stags free range until they get big enough to eat or start fighting. they follow me around when i am picking blackberries or grapes and clean up all the ones that i drop. as far as food grown for them, we like black sorghum, sunflower, blue pop corn, and turnip greens. these are heirloom varieties and very easy to save seed for next year.

Do the sunflower stalks have a job? What do you use them for, or do you compost them after collecting the seed heads??


Great benefits in the heirloom varieties. I started eating mustard greens myself last summer and turnip greens too. Birds have picked the garden clean long ago.