Fermenting Feed for Meat Birds

[Beekissed]

Yep...just old hay for mulch. Or these rows do well with weed suppression cloth also, as they are not very wide. The hay sort of just dwindles away all through the garden season and then I just till it in when we are done and plant clover over it if we are in the second year. If in the first year of the row, I just don't till it, add more mulch and let it sit. Sometimes the chickens will pull the mulch over and grass will grow there but it's no big thing. In the second year we plant the clover over the rows at the end of harvest and till the paths the following spring.

 

[ChocolateMouse]

Thought I'd share a picture of some of my CX's enjoying their Fermented Feed!



Not as heavy as I'd like for 7 weeks. I think they're 4-5lbs. I want them at 8lbs before I process. I'd like 5lb carcasses.

 

[Jo Anne]

they look great

 

[galanie]

I'll tell you a fine thing we've found for moisture retention and weed suppression in our gardens we've been using the last several years....permanent rows with white dutch clover planted in between them. Then you just mulch the actual row after planting and weeds are very few and far between after that. Here's a pic of my clover, right after plowing the rows into it...sure does cut down on the tilling too and the clover attract pollinators to the garden... By the second year here at Mom's place(pic below), her clover had been taken over with native grasses, so it makes it a perfect time to switch the pathways...here you see where we've seeded the garden rows after the garden was done with the white dutch clover and the following year we plowed the pathways instead..leaving the old garden rows filled with clover as the new pathways. It covers the tilled ground in the fall, provides green forage through the fall and winter months for the chickens and keeps the nutrients and moisture in the soil where it belongs. The clover fixes nitrogen in the soils, is good nutrition for the chooks and keeps the soils covered so that weeds cannot get a foothold. Another good thing about overseeding your rows with clover is when it gets too high or you want to trim it, you just take a mower down the row and mow it down. No muddy shoes from the garden, a place for worms and beneficial bugs to live, a pollinator attractant and a good cover crop in the fall for the animals to make use of...we will never go back to tilling up the whole garden and trying to keep the weeds hoed out of it any longer. We just till the rows only, each year, plant them back to clover after harvest and we never have bare soil in the garden. It also helps us till in nutrients in the spring, while doing a bit of crop rotation. The pic below shows early spring, with the rows on the right being planted to potatoes and mulched with hay~you can just see some potatoes sticking up through the mulch. The other rows have been plowed once and worked by the chickens and will be tilled once again before planting and mulched when the plants are placed or grown large enough.

You know, that is genius. I think you've given me the solution to "how I'm going to do THIS garden." Before, I had a fairly small garden and permanent raised beds. Well now, I'm in sandy soil on a hilltop so I don't need raised beds. And it's going to be MUCH bigger so putting in permanent beds the way I did before is just out of the question. Too much work. Been mulling over different ways to do it w/out buying hundreds of dollars worth of tractor attachments and THIS looks to be my answer. THANKS! Now to research what cover crop to use that will grow here. Clover dies during the summer. But there's others that might work.

 

[Lacy Blues]

Well I would be glad to but I don't have that much extension cord. lol
I don't know if they checked with chickens, doubt it. The package says, "This unit is safe for non-rodent pets such as dogs and cats. Do ot use this product around any rodent pets such as hamsters, gerbils, mice or tarantulas."

Oh I was laughing during my froggy meltdown too! LOL If it had got in my hair we both might have died!!! Ahhhh the thought of it! LOL

Do you maybe have a friendly neighbor who also has chickens and electricity in their coop?

 

[Triple Willow]

Do you maybe have a friendly neighbor who also has chickens and electricity in their coop?

I didn't think of that! I will check with a buddy of mine and see if he does.

 

[Beekissed]

You should see how much extension cord I have running to my coop!

Probably 200 ft of cord going on there....strung up in the trees, over to the outhouse, etc.

 

[DaveMorey]

Since we are discussing greens and forage crops I might as well ask this now. I think I have seen in this thread that some folks use alfalfa in their ff. Please correct me if I am wrong. If this is the case, where do you normally get it and is it chopped? I can only imagine that it would have to be in order for the birds to eat it. If I am way off base let me know. Also, how do you go about fermenting pumpkins? It is that time of year and I would like to make use of excess pumpkins I can find. I did feed my birds the guts from a fresh pumpkin tonight, much to their delight. I just shredded the stuff to make it more manageable for them.

 

[Triple Willow]

You should see how much extension cord I have running to my coop!  Probably 200 ft of cord going on there....strung up in the trees, over to the outhouse, etc. 

I'm going to put up some solar lights - including Christmas lights! LOL

 

[Triple Willow]

I'm going to put up some solar lights - including Christmas lights! LOL

I've been wondering if lights will make predators say, "Hey look over there, let's go check that out!" or could it possibly help keep them away?