Feeding your flock amidst of feed shortages

[Minister Marc C]

Just thinking about all those 7 extra birds, must be noisy there in the mornings, just got rid of 3 extra youngsters, and couldn't believe how quiet it was afterwards hahahaha. Only the one guy crowing now and not so much now that he is King of the manure pile!!!! Gotta love chickies .

No. "Leave the leaves" on ! "Husk the corn" (peel the leaves back) and let em dry.
(the corn on the cob) not the leaves!
Hang em up with twine in rows so the air can dry em out. It takes about a week. Sometimes 10 days or so, depends where you hang em. If you have a barn, shed, garage, somewhere out of the rain, as long as they are getting some air. Somewhere dry preferably.
( You can give the chickens fresh cobs, corn & all too.) After they are dry,
run em through a course grain / corn grinder. You can buy a manual hand-cranked grinder for about $38.00 -$45.00. ( it's good exercise !) It's not hard. Build you a little wooden trough
2 - 2 1/2 ft wide, 3 or 4 feet long, clamp the grinder onto one end and grind away !
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Corn per bushel here is $5.57 which is ridiculous. I was paying $11.00+ per 50lb. bag.
Now it's almost $16.00. Been slowly stocking up. I suggest anyone reading this to do the same. This is not going to improve any time soon, if in fact -- ever.
Time to be a "farmer" again.
"Toil in the soil" folks, the good days are coming to a close."SOCIALISM" is NO GOOD.

 

[Minister Marc C]

I have found my chickies all love mash potatoes, turnip an green peas! The potatoes esp they Loooove! I tried raw carrots and they won't touch it, anything cooked though they love.

They esp like roast beast mash potatoes and the fixings. Yummy!

I have very discerning chickens

Ours wont eat whole carrots. But if we peel em with a peeler, they eat em.
We had a bunch of heirloom cucumbers (the little round ones) come in late, that were kind of tough & thick skinned.
We gave em to the chickens and they had a ball with em, chasing each other around !
"Mashed potatoes" - eh...? We never gave ours Mashed potatoes, "mashed-taters" don't last very long around here !

 

[saysfaa]

Nice info on storing corn. I meant the carrots, though. I should have quoted.

 

[Minister Marc C]

I had 4 roosterlets who started crowing at 5 weeks, omg they were hilarious.... At first.

Once they got really going it was very noisy. Yep not much meat on youngsters. Bit what r u gonna do? Can't have a bunch of useless males running around causing drama!

Nice info on storing corn. I meant the carrots, though. I should have quoted.

Yeah---> That's a bit different, eh!?

 

[Minister Marc C]

Yeah---> That's a bit different, eh!?

4 Roosters cock-a-doodle-doing!? OY ! hahahaha !
Our big Ol' Rhode Island Red was noisy enough all by himself.
Let alone 4 of em !!

 

[NatJ]

Question about burying carrots in damp sand. Are they supposed to sprout?? Because we did that and they are sprouting like crazy... Which the chickens like. But I was surprised by it! They are in a Rubbermaid bin with a lid on in a cold room...

I'm guessing temperature is the issue, although I don't know how cold your "cold room" is.

A carrot plant thinks it is going to grow from a seed into a plant with a big root, then sit dormant all winter, then use the energy from the root to make lots of seeds next summer.

So to store carrots, we want them to think it's winter.
Refrigerators work well, but so does anywhere else that is cool enough.

If you store them somewhere dry, they dry out and shrivel up and are not as appetizing, which would be the reason for the damp sand. But a drawer full of carrots in the fridge also works fine, and they stay moist enough without adding any sand there (which helps, because you can put more carrots in the fridge drawer if you don't need sand too.)

 

[Hensintexas]

Feed prices are increasing here, but not so bad that I can’t feed my chickens. I have, however, run into shortages in chick starter, which resulted in switching to layer crumbles a few weeks early. It didn’t bother them, and I haven’t noticed any difference in their health. Watching, though!
We also give them some kitchen scraps, greens from the garden, fruit (in moderation), and scratch grains.
I always have at least one bag of feed in reserve.

 

[Pippin quail]

I'm guessing temperature is the issue, although I don't know how cold your "cold room" is.

A carrot plant thinks it is going to grow from a seed into a plant with a big root, then sit dormant all winter, then use the energy from the root to make lots of seeds next summer.

So to store carrots, we want them to think it's winter.
Refrigerators work well, but so does anywhere else that is cool enough.

If you store them somewhere dry, they dry out and shrivel up and are not as appetizing, which would be the reason for the damp sand. But a drawer full of carrots in the fridge also works fine, and they stay moist enough without adding any sand there (which helps, because you can put more carrots in the fridge drawer if you don't need sand too.)

I have too many to store in the fridge. And my cold room is really cold. It's side walls area uninsulated from outside and it has a solid door with weather stripping even. So I think it's maybe just the sand is too moist or they were put in too fresh. Or maybe it wasn't quite cold enough when I first put them in.. Getting colder by the day though, so I'm sure they'll stop growing!

 

[alwaystj9]

Feed prices are increasing here, but not so bad that I can’t feed my chickens. I have, however, run into shortages in chick starter, which resulted in switching to layer crumbles a few weeks early. It didn’t bother them, and I haven’t noticed any difference in their health. Watching, though!
We also give them some kitchen scraps, greens from the garden, fruit (in moderation), and scratch grains.
I always have at least one bag of feed in reserve.

I had chick starter issues this year, too, but I think it had more to do with the sudden chick-craze that swept through here. After August the starter became easy to find and I have no issues buying right now. Feed prices are supposed to keep going up this winter.

 

[Ponypoor]

Ours wont eat whole carrots. But if we peel em with a peeler, they eat em.
We had a bunch of heirloom cucumbers (the little round ones) come in late, that were kind of tough & thick skinned.
We gave em to the chickens and they had a ball with em, chasing each other around !
"Mashed potatoes" - eh...? We never gave ours Mashed potatoes, "mashed-taters" don't last very long around here !

We give the carrots peelings to the horses, but tried the hens and nope didn't like them hahaha.

Normally mashed spuds don't last long here either, but when we do have them they go mad for them haha