For those who ferment: how do you handle (human) vacations?

[Appalachickens]

I read that kombucha scoby is loaded with probiotics so after my last ferment when the scoby was dividing, I took half and cut it up and fed some to the chicks. They went nuts for it.

 

[Perris]

@Perris, this is more of a forage/treat question, but is there research on how much spinach it takes to interfere with calcium absorption? And does this also happen for other dark green leafy vegetables?

I expect it exists for humans but I'd be surprised if it did for chickens, both for spinach and other veg. It's quite shocking how little nutritional info there is on common weeds; the ones that have history as herbal / trad remedies have seen research on their pharmacological properties, but even those rarely have a nutritional profile as yet.

If chickens are allowed to choose, and have diverse choices (so it's not an 'eat this or starve' situation), they usually choose well.

 

[Mother of Chaos]

I expect it exists for humans but I'd be surprised if it did for chickens, both for spinach and other veg. It's quite shocking how little nutritional info there is on common weeds; the ones that have history as herbal / trad remedies have seen research on their pharmacological properties, but even those rarely have a nutritional profile as yet.

If chickens are allowed to choose, and have diverse choices (so it's not an 'eat this or starve' situation), they usually choose well.

Thanks. This gets mentioned at times in connection with posts asking for help with eggshell problems.

 

[Perris]

Thanks.

maybe you can get access to this via your Uni ?
https://www.cambridge.org/core/jour...uri-pastures/59BCCF3642B48236CCC25C2524954D78
If so, so please pass on the key results on "the nutritive value of 20 common pasture weed species throughout the season".

Here's another one, same access issue
https://www.cambridge.org/core/jour...weed-species/31E7A4A583F2E3770340B027AF0AFC95
From the abstract "Forage quality was determined at vegetative, flowering, and fruiting stages for nine cool-season weed species and four cultivated forages... All weed and cultivated forage species had adequate levels of Ca and K for livestock. Nearly all weed and cultivated forage species had suboptimum levels of P for high-producing ruminant animals; Carolina geranium and cutleaf evening primrose had high Ca ratios, which can cause metabolic disorders. Carolina geranium, Virginia wildrye, wild oats, cheat, little barley, and all the cultivated forage species had inadequate levels of Mg and could be considered “tetany prone”. Most of the forbs had high Mg concentrations."

 

[Mother of Chaos]

maybe you can get access to this via your Uni ?
https://www.cambridge.org/core/jour...uri-pastures/59BCCF3642B48236CCC25C2524954D78
If so, so please pass on the key results on "the nutritive value of 20 common pasture weed species throughout the season".

Here's another one, same access issue
https://www.cambridge.org/core/jour...weed-species/31E7A4A583F2E3770340B027AF0AFC95
From the abstract "Forage quality was determined at vegetative, flowering, and fruiting stages for nine cool-season weed species and four cultivated forages... All weed and cultivated forage species had adequate levels of Ca and K for livestock. Nearly all weed and cultivated forage species had suboptimum levels of P for high-producing ruminant animals; Carolina geranium and cutleaf evening primrose had high Ca ratios, which can cause metabolic disorders. Carolina geranium, Virginia wildrye, wild oats, cheat, little barley, and all the cultivated forage species had inadequate levels of Mg and could be considered “tetany prone”. Most of the forbs had high Mg concentrations."

Thank you for these links! Agronomy is such a wonderfully nerdy subject. I wish I'd known about it decades ago.

My uni is a tiny 3,000-student addition to a state-wide network (University of North Carolina), with my campus serving as the liberal arts and sciences campus. It's really common for the other large campuses to have access, but not mine. (Note to self: call UNCA librarian and find out why.) So no access that way, BUT the second article is available via jstor, hooray: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4044187.

The abstracts are pretty generous, so it's not that big a problem, just annoying.

Anyway, the articles seemed to address the amount of individual nutrients in specific plants at different times in their lifecycles. Good to see why my girls adore Carolina geranium! - not the greatest source of Ca in the world, but not bad as part of a general mix. It is at the end of its bloom cycle and is dying back now, aided by several hours daily of determined munching.

My question was less about what is in individual forage plants, but whether it is true that something in spinach (oxalic acid or a relative, I think) blocks the body's absorption of calcium from other sources. It does block Ca absorption from spinach itself (10.1093/ajcn/47.4.707), but does it also block absorption from other sources of Ca? And if so, how much? -not literally, but "a bit" vs "to a significant degree." I'm still digging on that one.

Edit to add: you noted that most nutritional research is on human issues; very true! I saw that one of the articles mentioned bioavailability of these nutrients for beef cattle, which is about as useless for poultry as the human angle.

- I kept seeing great numbers for evening primrose, but the chickens aren't getting mine!