Fermenting Feed for Meat Birds

[wlhtx]

I love peppers! I keep a shaker of cayenne on the table with the salt and pepper and let me tell you, I pile it on some things. lol To me eggs aren't half as good if they don't have pepper in them or on them. I bought a gallon jar of pickled jalapenos a day or two ago just for omlets. Sooo good! I will have a hard time sharing much of my pepper with my chickies. LOL

I love jalapeños, but only of they're in salsa or stuffed with cream cheese and wrapped inside dove or quail breasts and bacon.

We had an excess of them in our garden this year and we just can't eat them fast enough! No cayennes on hand, but if the jalapeños serve the same purpose for the birds then that would be a nice bonus!

 

[Demosthine]

I officially have what I think is a breeding pair of the biggest *** hawks waging war on the birds in my chicken tractor. NOT pleased! D< Coons aside, these birds are scary as all ****. I held a great horned owl on my arm once and I have NEVER seen claws like on these birds! Yikes! If my dogs weren't also intent on killing my chickens I'd let them out there to guard 'em but I might loose more chickens to my dogs than to hawks....

Check your local laws, but here in Arizona, we are fully allowed to kill any animals in the protection of our livestock, property or lives. From the sounds of it, this is definitely one of those situations. Much of our laws would permit the predators to be kept and eaten, providing proper notification was given. Endangered animals would be different from the eating aspect, but our Game and Fish Department is very good with situations like this.

One of our biggest problems are with javelina destroying property. It has become such a big problem that if they are caught on your property, AzGFD fully encourages you to kill them. If you process it yourself, there is no tag required. But if you want to take it to a butcher, you can call them. They'll send out a Ranger to inspect it for foul play, and then issue you a hunting tag for it. Texas is having an even larger problem with their wild boars. It's full blown open season on those beasts. Trucks, helicopters, full auto weapons if you have access to them. I can't imagine hunting down a 600 to 900 pound pig, though! That's a whole lotta bacon! And they are mean, too.

 

[Demosthine]

I love jalapeños, but only of they're in salsa or stuffed with cream cheese and wrapped inside dove or quail breasts and bacon.

We had an excess of them in our garden this year and we just can't eat them fast enough! No cayennes on hand, but if the jalapeños serve the same purpose for the birds then that would be a nice bonus!

Have you tried canning them? I've canned them by themselves or with tomatoes to make homemade RoTel. Both options worked really well and my wife loves the homemade RoTel significantly more than the commercial version.

 

[Triple Willow]

I get excited about ice cream too....        As for the oats, depends on for how long?  Some people feed quite a bit of oats in their ration and you can even feed straight oats...but I wouldn't recommend it be the total ration for very long.  They are high in fiber and low in proteins, so not a bad summer feed but not a balanced ration in regards to total nutrition, minerals and vitamins. 

Right now I've got 1/3 of my ration mixed with steamed barley and will watch how the birds do as time rolls along...I've had it at 50% before with good results still, so it's not a big deal...particularly if you free range and the feed ration is merely a supplement. 

I'm barely feeding 1.5 c. of feed now to 14 birds...not even enough to cover the bottom of the feeder..and they are foraging for the rest. 

I use to like ice cream but I do believe I love it now! lol

I didn't know if too much oats would give them the raging poops or not. 50 lbs of oats sure does look funny. That's a lot of oatmeal! lol I just mixed some with layer ration and whole flax seed to get a 16% ration. The layer pellets gave my young birds some real runny smelly poop. I think when the layer is gone I am going to feed them all starter/grower, steamed rolled oats and flax for a 16% ration then feed the eggshells back to the layers. They have all done good on the starter/grower so I think I'll use it. I believe mixing 1/2 oats and 1/2 starter/grower (9 parts of that mix) then 1/10 flax will get me a 16% ration. But like you said, I will watch them and see how they do on whatever I feed them.

 

[ChocolateMouse]

Yeah, my worms do fine on used rabbit bedding and emptying the occasional water bottle over them before refilling it to keep 'em moist.

As for the hawks, there's all SORTS of laws against killing hawks around here. Oh it can be done, but only once you have tried to scare the hawk off several times and applied for a permit. Plus, no firearms. There's more wildlife protection law in place in my area than there are livestock protection laws!

I'm going to hang some CDs and keep an eye out my window. The minute I see the hawks, BAM! Out goes Nukka, my lightning-quick animal-killing husky!

 

[wlhtx]

Texas is having an even larger problem with their wild boars.  It's full blown open season on those beasts.  Trucks, helicopters, full auto weapons if you have access to them.  I can't imagine hunting down a 600 to 900 pound pig, though!  That's a whole lotta bacon!  And they are mean, too.

Yep! I'm in the piney woods of East TX, and the wild pigs are a huge nuisance. It's open season here all year round. Kill as many as you can whenever you can. Our property is literally infested with them and they will sure tear up a pasture. There is no other natural predator (of the bigger sized ones) other than humans. Coyotes will kill the smaller ones, but the big ones breed and multiply so fast that it really is a problem. We had a 400lb momma and two of her 80 lb "babies" in our pasture 2 days ago. Our big dog almost caught one of them... Also, my husband's a high school football coach and he has literally had more than one teenage boy late to practice before because they were on their way to the school when they saw a wad of pigs. They stopped, went home for their gun, and came back to shoot the pigs. (We live in a very small, very rural community.) You can eat the smaller to medium sized ones, but anything over abt 300 lbs is very greasy and has a nasty taste to it.

Have you tried canning them?  I've canned them by themselves or with tomatoes to make homemade RoTel.  Both options worked really well and my wife loves the homemade RoTel significantly more than the commercial version.

I have to admit, I've never canned anything before. Everything we've ever harvested from our garden has just gone into the freezer. :/ It's a skill that I know I need to learn from my grandmothers while I still have a chance...

 

[Triple Willow]

@ChocolateMouse... somebody posted this the other day:

http://www.fws.gov/permits/

This is a form to apply for a permit to kill migratory birds if they are causing loss of personal property (livestock, poultry). Some common misconceptions:
1. It is illegal to kill hawks and owls. False.. If you have a permit it is legal.
2. It is illegal to harass birds of prey. It is not illegal and you must show that you have tried to harass birds before a permit would be issued.
3. You will go to jail and receive a $10,000 fine if you kill a hawk or owl. False.. It is actually a Class B Misdeamenor and fines can be a small as $50 with no jail time.

 

[ChocolateMouse]

Wilow; Yeah, but first you have to harass the hawk and try to chase it off. I have no idea where it's nesting right now but I have some ideas for harassment. Most notably my long bow and my children's arrows. They won't do more than bruise a hawk real good if they kit it, but I think that'd count as some solid harassment.

The CDs may just be a reasonable deterrant. We'll see.

As for my dogs, they can't stop me from letting my dogs into my back yard without a leash whenever I like. If it just so happens that there is a hawk, coon or my neighbor's cat in my yard at the same time, well that's just too bad for the stupid animal that decided to go into the area blocked off my a 6ft wood fence instead of all the open lawns and bushes around it!

wlhtx
Canning is stupid easy. It's like this. Get your canner (pressure canner for anything non-acidic, non-jelly), fill with water, wash your jars in HOT HOT water. Pack your HOT HOT FOOD in the jars with HOT HOT liquid. Put the tops on the jars, throw 'em in the canner, apply heat and follow the directions (either found online or in your canner's manual) on how long to can them for. Remove them when they're done, let them cool slowly. Your food is now canned! It's pretty easy.

 

[Triple Willow]

I love jalapeños, but only of they're in salsa or stuffed with cream cheese and wrapped inside dove or quail breasts and bacon.

We had an excess of them in our garden this year and we just can't eat them fast enough! No cayennes on hand, but if the jalapeños serve the same purpose for the birds then that would be a nice bonus!

Oh my goodness that sounds good! Can you believe I have never ate quail? Yeah, I am ashamed of myself. lol I like to get those big fat peppers and stuff them with sausage dip and top with cheese and bake them in the oven. Yum! (The sausage dip is just browned and drained sausage of some kind, add one can of rotel and a pack of cream cheese. Cook it all together. Good!)

Just cut your peppers up and put them in a baggie and freeze them. They will be good this winter. I've done cayennes that way. I've also pickled cayennes. I believe I used half water and half vinegar.

 

[Triple Willow]

Wilow; Yeah, but first you have to harass the hawk and try to chase it off. I have no idea where it's nesting right now but I have some ideas for harassment. Most notably my long bow and my children's arrows. They won't do more than bruise a hawk real good if they kit it, but I think that'd count as some solid harassment.

The CDs may just be a reasonable deterrant. We'll see.

As for my dogs, they can't stop me from letting my dogs into my back yard without a leash whenever I like. If it just so happens that there is a hawk, coon or my neighbor's cat in my yard at the same time, well that's just too bad for the stupid animal that decided to go into the area blocked off my a 6ft wood fence instead of all the open lawns and bushes around it!

wlhtx
Canning is stupid easy. It's like this. Get your canner (pressure canner for anything non-acidic, non-jelly), fill with water, wash your jars in HOT HOT water. Pack your HOT HOT FOOD in the jars with HOT HOT liquid. Put the tops on the jars, throw 'em in the canner, apply heat and follow the directions (either found online or in your canner's manual) on how long to can them for. Remove them when they're done, let them cool slowly. Your food is now canned! It's pretty easy.

I like bottle rockets! lol I read somewhere on here that one of those fake owls works fairly good at keeping them away. I have wondered if my Black Australorps look like crow from up there. lol