Home Feeding Ideas and Solutions Discussion Thread

[RaZ]

If you are collecting duckweed from the wild, please make sure that the pond you get it from isn't contaminated or polluted. Duckweeds (Lemnaceae family) are great for absorbing heavy metals and other pollutants.

By the way, duckweed is a common name and may mean different plants in different regions. There are 3 divisions in the genera:
1. Wolffia - no roots
2. Spirodela - several rootlets, purple underside (2.5 - 3.5 mm width)
3. Lemna - single root (<3.0 mm)

 

[Kassaundra]

I was not successful in making my IMO, but was in making the LAB, I have sprayed it in the coop a couple of times now, deliberately not cleaning up the poop just to see if it would take care of the ammonia odor, it seems to be working well. I'm going to expand my use of the LAB and work again on some IMO.

 

[WI FarmChick]

I read something to that effect. I am planing on having 3 separate feed bins. I already feed them my homemade mix. I haven't figured out exactly what I am going to put it the 3rd one yet. still working on the details. I have a bit of time left before we move them into the new coop. in the next week or so.

To bring things back on topic, you all might be interested to know I recently gave a workshop on chicken keeping, and included a demonstration of my localized, personal adaption of the Korean Natural Farming feeding system discussed a while back. It was probably the most popular segment of the workshop! People were really intrigued by the idea of home-feeding and eager to run with it. Not surprising since feed is something like thirty dollars a bag here these days...

On a separate note, I also recently came across something interesting in the book the Resilient Gardener that I wanted to throw down here. The author puts out feed for her free-ranging layer ducks in two separate troughs, one for "high protein" and one for "high energy." (a third container could have the oyster and grit, or whatever). Which means that one feed trough has chick starter or game feed or (or theoretically, the home-sourced equivalent, grubs, whey, whatever); and the other has scratch (or the home equivalent, squash, mangels). This way, she says, the ducks can supplement the most appropriate mix of carbs and protein according to what they are NOT getting by foraging.

In theory, this is more efficient feed use, if a substantial amount of the birds diets is indeed seasonal forage. What do you all think of this idea or something similar? Or at least, of providing "protein" and "energy" components SEPARATELY, so the birds can eat just what they need?

 

[galanie]

I was not successful in making my IMO, but was in making the LAB, I have sprayed it in the coop a couple of times now, deliberately not cleaning up the poop just to see if it would take care of the ammonia odor, it seems to be working well.  I'm going to expand my use of the LAB and work again on some IMO.

I'm experimenting with just using the IMO2 rather than going all the way to IMO4. My FPJ and LAB combined are being really enjoyed by my tomato plants! The only problem I forsee with using IMO2 is all the sugar. Ants.

 

[DawnCols]

It your going to put a plant in there run area you need to protect the plant until it gets large enough that they can't kill it. Like for the tomatoe putting a chicken wire fence around it or something like that.

Indeed. I thought of that, but sadly, I didn't realize that they'd be able to reach through the openings in the chicken wire to maul the plant. They have a longer reach and more persistence than I gave them credit for

If I were to try it again, I would fence a larger perimeter around the plant. But it seems to me easier to just grow tomatoes in the fenced-in garden and occassionally throw some to them.

 

[Kassaundra]

I'm experimenting with just using the IMO2 rather than going all the way to IMO4. My FPJ and LAB combined are being really enjoyed by my tomato plants! The only problem I forsee with using IMO2 is all the sugar. Ants.

My comfry is doing well enough to harvest some from it I want to make some FPJ from it, you just do comfry leaves and brown sugar let it set. How long I forgot, then to use just mix w/ nonchlorinated water right?

I was going to do the FPJ from my thinned young pears this year, but my pear tree isn't cooperating I don't think it has enough to thin! I may try w/ my honeysuckle that stuff is vigorous.

 

[galanie]

Instructions say 70 degrees for a week but I found I had to do it longer than that. I sealed it in a jar and it blew out through the top a little so it wasn't done fermenting yet (canning jar).

 

[triplepurpose]

It your going to put a plant in there run area you need to protect the plant until it gets large enough that they can't kill it. Like for the tomatoe putting a chicken wire fence around it or something like that.

I've played around with this idea of growing things in the run for them but in practice I've found it's just much more practical for me to grow the stuff elsewhere and just throw some in to them periodically. I've yet to find a way to do it that actually justifies the work of preparing a special aree in the run, watering it separately, and figuring out how to protect it meanwhile from the chickens. Once I tried to plant a little forage patch in their run, for example, and after tilling the hardpacked area, trying to water it daily with a sprinkler, etc., when I finally turned the chickens out onto it they destroyed it all in half a day. Much easier to just cut or pull some forage daily and throw it in their pen. Similar experiments have been similarly unsatisfying...

Not that it couldn't work for some people's setups, though, depending, and if you were determined and clever about it...

 

[Beekissed]

Great thread topic!!!

I've always free ranged and provided home grown supplements to their once a day layer/whole grain ration. I feed pumpkins and other gourds/squash that store well in the cellar....they seem to like them much better when fermented. They get any garden left overs, kitchen garbage, etc.

I just recently got into fermenting their actual chicken feed, starting with 54 CX chicks that are now 1 wk. old. I will continue this with the new layers we will be getting to see how cheaply we can go and how good production levels can continue.

 

[triplepurpose]

I read something to that effect. I am planing on having 3 separate feed bins. I already feed them my homemade mix. I haven't figured out exactly what I am going to put it the 3rd one yet. still working on the details. I have a bit of time left before we move them into the new coop. in the next week or so.

I'd be curious how that turns out.

Right now I'm feeding mine a three-way mix of greens/energy/protein, which is working pretty well as is. It cut the amount of feed we were buying in half overnight, for one, without noticeably sacrificing egg production. In theory these could all be fed separately, but I don't leave food out during the day anyhow because a lot of the stuff I feed is perishable fresh things that might spoil and attract flies and such (or literally crawl out of the feed trough and disappear, in the case of live soldier grubs). I feed twice a day, and let them clean up all the feed. Also, mine aren't free-ranging anyway, and the seasonal differences aren't that great besides. I thought it was an intriguing notion though, and could be really useful for some....