Home Feeding Ideas and Solutions Discussion Thread

[furbabymum]

Anyone posted about ants? We have a huge red ant problem here. I've been digging up the red ant hills and dumping them into the chicken run. The chickens eat the ants. Win win!

 

[RaZ]

No ant problem here, but I found a snack for the hens...

 

[furbabymum]

Oh gross. What are those??
It seems to be a moth year for us. I'm wishing our chickens were older so they could catch and eat the moths. Just waiting for grasshopper season now. I'll have very fat chickens when the grasshoppers start taking over our 40 acres.

 

[Beekissed]

Right now my birds are getting roughly 50% of their nutrition from the good forage of bugs and worms here and the other from the fermented feed I'm using. Fermenting has definitely stretched the feed and the CX are getting amazingly fat on just feeding it once or twice a day. They are better able to utilize the nutrition in the feed due to the fermentation and the increased intestinal health from feeding these types of feeds.

I'm very pleased with how well they are doing on it and how much money it is saving me.

I am growing BOSS this year to add to the FF this winter. I'm also building a large raised bed on which to house my fall CX, after which I will pile leaves there, cultivate it a little and then plant winter wheat and oats. Early in the spring I will put some more meaties in there to eat the wheat and oats and add their poop to the bed. I'll use leaves for their bedding and old straw after they have depleted the greens there and do a deep litter. Then I will turn under the fresh bedding and turn up the composted richness underneath and will start my bedding plants there, covering the bed with a plastic covered frame.

I'll also plant lettuces there and will fill the whole bed with greens when the bedding plants are transferred to the garden. In the fall I'll do it all again, thus raising two kinds of food in the same space, with the meaties getting the benefit of the garden leftovers, the winter greens, etc.

 

[LazyBee]

About the duckweed, I see it growing all over our local ponds, and some of them are off our public walking trails. Can I just grab a baggie of that stuff or do I need to buy it from a grower?

 

[IcyOldHen]

Grab a baggie full! Grab one for me too!

I'd rinse it really well because you'll need a couple of fish in your duckweed container to provide fertilizer for the duckweed and I'd try to reduce the chance that some parasite from the pond will affect the fish. I purchased a couple of cheap cold water fish (i.e. goldfish) so I wouldn't have to heat the aquarium.

Get your container set up before collecting your duckweed as you'll want to allow the chlorine to dissipate if your water is chlorinated and allow the temperature of the water to stabilize.

After your container has been set up for a day or two add your fish. I like gold fish because they'll eat the duckweed. I figure add an insect here & there and hopefully the need for supplemental food for the fish will be minimal.

I waited another day before adding my duckweed. There still isn't a lot of nourishment in my water for the duckweed yet so it's multiplying slowly. I'll likely add another goldfish or two to try to dirty up my tank.

Also it will take time for the bacteria to get extablished to convert the raw fish waste into a useable form for the duckweed. Or you can buy a starter culture to jumpstart the process.

I think bacteria to convert the ammonia into nitrates to feed the duckweed is what you want. It's said that goldfish produce 3 times the ammonia as other tropical fish of the same size. So they're a good source of raw material for feeding your duckweed. And the fish will eat some duckweed so a good circle of life.

Good luck!

 

[RaZ]

About the duckweed, I see it growing all over our local ponds, and some of them are off our public walking trails. Can I just grab a baggie of that stuff or do I need to buy it from a grower?

I would make certain that any duckweed collected is from a pond that hasn't been contaminated. Do you know for certain that the public trails are pesticide free?

 

[LazyBee]

I won't swear to it, but it's off the big rail road trail that's biking/horse/people. I don't think they can afford to spray the whole thing, and this area is all farms.

 

[MomsGoneMild]

I am absolutely LOVING this thread. Thank you all sooo much for sharing your feeding strategies. WOW! Most useful topic yet. THANK YOU! xoxo Annmarie

 

[Lacy Blues]

ok, note to me: I've read through page 21 and I need to go to bed!

This is INTENSELY interesting and I will finish reading it tomorrow.

How to implement some of this stuff though, I'm not sure. I live in the desert. Lots of farmers around me with irrigation grow alfalfa and corn. I don't have irrigation. I have to find out what can be grown here for my birds. Someone mentioned amaranth loves heat and is drought tolerant so that might be a possibility. I've read about duckweed before and forgot. But a kids pool with goldfish and duckweed might be just the thing... til winter anyway. We're zone 5 here. Gets bitterly cold in the winter with horrendous winds! The soil is alkaline and the water probably is too.

Several people around this hole in the wall town have stately cottonwood trees. I've considered finding out if I could have their leaves in the fall. I think composting on the coop floor is definitely something to try and do as it will provide warmth in the winter months. Most of our roosters, last winter, suffered frost bite to their comb points. Poor boys!