FERMENTED FEEDS...anyone using them?

[Tikkijane]

I'm very happy for you to have escaped our little corner of hell. Why did you live here so long if you hated it? Did you hate it from the beginning or did it just become worse each year? Probably job or financial is my guess. I happen to absolutely love it here (24 years) and cannot see myself living anywhere else!
No bugs EVER! No weeds, no predators, no hurricanes or tornados, no wildfires or rising river flooding. No snow, ice storms or freezing rain. Rare hail and only in the summer. No fog. Dust storms in the big city, but we don't get them here. I complain about the cold when it drops below 70 and we have about 6 solid weeks in July/August when you really don't want to live here. Other than that it is paradise for us!
The challenge will be keeping my chickens protected from the heat as this will be my first summer having them. I've gotten great advice on that being a member of this wonderful community!

Job. Had to leave the company after 20 years to get out because they would not allow management to move out because they couldn't get anyone to move in.

You had no bugs? We had scorpions, black widows, tarantulas, ect. Haboobs, no kidding. Regular winds were sustained 30-40 mph. We used to say we had 2 seasons- windy and hot and windy.

High desert gets cold- cold fronts could take us into the negatives; 100 + degrees from the end of May to usually the end of September. Some folks live the climate; this Mi girl thought it was hell, lol.

 

[Tikkijane]

Job. Had to leave the company after 20 years to get out because they would not allow management to move out because they couldn't get anyone to move in.

You had no bugs? We had scorpions, black widows, tarantulas, ect. Haboobs, no kidding. Regular winds were sustained 30-40 mph. We used to say we had 2 seasons- windy and hot and windy.

High desert gets cold- cold fronts could take us into the negatives; 100 + degrees from the end of May to usually the end of September. Some folks live the climate; this Mi girl thought it was hell, lol.

Frozen watermelon; frozen jugs of any kind- milk, pop, etc. Kiddie wading pool in the shade. Misters in the shade. Wet shade cloth (like burlap) + wind = off-grid swamp cooler. Wet sand in the shade. Ice water (will rapidly melt) in the waterers; bread pan blocks of ice in the kiddie pool. We had a large freezer dedicated to just frozen stuff for the chickens.

My SIL commented that people were like cockroaches during the summer; only coming out when the sun was down.

I don't know of anyplace that doesn't have predators. Yotes are an issue. We weren't in the mountains, but the bears would come down when it was particularly dry. The state (NM) often spends a lot of time on fire. We also had tornados about once or twice a year.

 

[perchie.girl]

Quote: Yep we are night people..... Crazy to try to do anything midday. Up to about twelve oclock and your good to go but from about one till about four the earth has absorbed all the heat it can for the day and begins radiating it back up.... I used to live in San Bernardino, then
Roswell NM. Then Vegas now the mildest of all San Diego. and just recently up by the Mexcian border. Best climate of them all.... Mild summers mild winters some snow some monsoon..... Forever wind sometimes the screens on the windows would scream so loud you coudnt have a conversation on the phone.

I have faimily that lives near Ridgecrest CA.... The mojave is one area I wouldnt want to live long term...

deb

 

[flockanuts]

Since I'm new to ff for my flock of nuts, how often do you feed them? Once a day, twice a day??? They also free-range but winter doesn't give them much so I add wild bird feed once a day. With the pellets, I had a hanging feeder so they had food all the time. Now I have NO idea how to feed them.

 

[Beekissed]

I would melt in that heat...fat girls don't do heat so well. Humidity is even worse, so maybe the lack of humidity would help me tolerate the heat..but I doubt it. I've always wanted to see NM...I've heard it's very pretty!

I don't know what I would do without my four seasons...I love that changing that is so predictable that you can set your life activities around it. I like the rhythm of life that revolves around the awakening of the land in the spring, anticipating growing things in the garden and all the planning that goes into it as well as the labor...it's cleansing after a winter of sitting by the fire. New babies, new leaves and pink flower buds drifting to the ground in a breeze so soft it feels like a baby's kiss.

I like the summer months when things are growing, bees are working and flowers are so bright they make you pause in your day, with a harvest time of beautiful vegetables at the end. What a bounty and a blessing to see colorful jars all in a row! Honeysuckle so heavy on the air you can almost taste it and thunderstorms that vibrate down your spine in a warm tingle....bliss!

Fall is my favorite time of all! Crisp mornings that smell like the first day on Earth, skies so blue and clouds so white it hurts your eyes, and the fruit harvest overflowing. The colder weather rejuvenates me to doing all the chores we do to prepare for winter, the harvest of meat continues and the battening down and tucking in of animal quarters and the home makes me feel like the giving of love.

Then winter...a time of rest, of learning, of fellowship and stillness with the Lord, crisp nights filled with diamonds in a velvet sky, monochromatic landscapes of crisp white and stark trees accented with red birds, and the blessing of a warm house after being out in the cold. Wood smoke on the air, my breath smoking out in front of me, a warm dog jumping around in the soft powder like he's on springs.

I love them all!

 

[kpgoldstar]

You dont get the monsoons? I get about ten inches per year that includes snow. You must be around Yuma.

deb

We are near Havasu and the monsoons tend to skirt around us. About every 5 years we get a torrential downpour or two in August. We watch the sky for hours hoping for wind and rain and it never comes.

 

[kpgoldstar]

Job. Had to leave the company after 20 years to get out because they would not allow management to move out because they couldn't get anyone to move in.

You had no bugs? We had scorpions, black widows, tarantulas, ect. Haboobs, no kidding. Regular winds were sustained 30-40 mph. We used to say we had 2 seasons- windy and hot and windy.

High desert gets cold- cold fronts could take us into the negatives; 100 + degrees from the end of May to usually the end of September. Some folks live the climate; this Mi girl thought it was hell, lol.

On the Colorado river we really don't have any bugs, certainly not any biting ones. I haven't seen a tarantula in about 8 years, maybe a scorpion every other year or so. Black widows only if you create an environment for them. We don't get the haboobs or dust storms. We'll have monsoon rain each summer and only severe every 5 years or so. Coldest it has ever been in 24 years here is 27 and I have seen that maybe 5 times total. Surprisingly with global warming, we've had more freezes in the last couple years than I have experienced in the last 15.
Our winds are worse in the winter. Dry piercing cold wind like today even though it was 65 degrees, it felt so much colder. We say we have 4 seasons LOL! November, December, January and Summer.

 

[kpgoldstar]

Since I'm new to ff for my flock of nuts, how often do you feed them? Once a day, twice a day??? They also free-range but winter doesn't give them much so I add wild bird feed once a day. With the pellets, I had a hanging feeder so they had food all the time. Now I have NO idea how to feed them.

I feed twice a day. Their main ration at daybreak which they finish anywhere from 10:00 til 1:00 in the afternoon. I also offer a snack in the early evening when I let them out to free range which is about 1/4 of what they get in the morning. They probably don't need the snack, but I don't give scratch and very occasional kitchen scraps so it is more of a habit. I don't like them going to bed with an empty crop. Mine also don't have access to any dry feed or any other form of food during the day.

 

[Beekissed]

Since I'm new to ff for my flock of nuts, how often do you feed them? Once a day, twice a day??? They also free-range but winter doesn't give them much so I add wild bird feed once a day. With the pellets, I had a hanging feeder so they had food all the time. Now I have NO idea how to feed them.

I feed once a day in the morning for winter months and they forage for the rest of the day. I feed once a day in the evenings for the rest of the year and they forage all day to fill up on healthier foods before getting a dab of feed before bedtime.

I'm currently feeding layer mash and a little whole grains of barley and BOSS and am feeding 9 LF birds 4 cups of feed. And they are waddling on that amount so I'm thinking of cutting that down a bit....

They truly do not need to have food in front of them at all times...one good meal is enough to sustain them until the next day. I've butchered birds that hadn't eaten for 17 hrs that still had good amounts of feed in their crops, so no worries of them being or going hungry.

 

[kpgoldstar]

And I just want to say....WHAT?? No comments on my street sausage??