Home Feeding Ideas and Solutions Discussion Thread

[Lacy Blues]

You could always sprout your oats. Unless I'm mistaken, they are more nutritious this way and the chickens really go for them. I haven't done it myself but I have many irons in the fire, and that is one of them.

 

[jdeoliveira74]

I have discovered some things that can make a pretty good dent in the feed bill and your reliance on commercial bagged feed.

Kitchen scraps: Keep a bucket next to your kitchen trash can, and any food waste you would normally throw away--peels, bread crusts, vegetable and meat scraps, leftovers no one wants to eat, plate scrapings, whatever--goes in the bucket. Once a day, the bucket goes to the birds.

Duckweed: Everyone's favorite pond nuisance is actually a high protein food source! I don't know how I ran across this on the internet, but apparently duckweed (a small, floating plant that grows on ponds in just about any climate and reproduces quickly, generally considered a pest) is very high in protein and minerals. There have been studies on using it in Asia as a human food source, and over there some places raise it as animal feed already. If you don't have a pond, you can grow it in those little plastic toy swimming pools. It's easy to grow, just put it in some water (add goldfish to provide extra nutrients for the plants and control mosquito larvae if you want) and let it go. Once it really gets going, it can double in size every 24-48 hours. Scoop it up as needed. You can speed its growth by adding some fertilizer to the water or even just household ammonia used for cleaning. (or a little handful of manure every now and then if you don't want to spend money) Chickens take pretty well to eating it. And it doesn't taste too bad at all on a sandwich, use it like bean sprouts in the kitchen (washed, of course).

When I am able to get chickens again, I am going to experiment with mealworm farming, growing mangel beets and collard greens, and growing some raised beds of bermudagrass/alfalfa with a wire cover so that the chickens can graze on the greens without eating them all the way to the ground.


Where to we get the seeds to start duckweed?? or will it happen naturally

 

[MonsterClucker]

I have a pond I'm front of my house growing duckweed. How do you collect te stuff?

 

[furbabymum]

I got my duckweed from the local pond. Just grabbed a handful and it's like tripled since then.

 

[Lacy Blues]

I have a pond I'm front of my house growing duckweed. How do you collect te stuff?

basket, stick, long handled garden cultivator? Anything that will hold it.

 

[ArcticFowl]

I feed store bought food but also

lots of barley and whole oats along with tons of grass and wild raspberries on a daily basis the summers are short here so gotta get them fed with as much wild stuff as possible..

also planted a plot of oats and barley to hopiing they will eat the plants once I let them in that area.

 

[ducklucky]

We stored our pumpkins, squash, etc. in the cool basement on a shelf, and they kept for a good 4 months. As long as there is air circulation around them, i.e., not stacked on top of each other, they should keep in a cool, dark place for most of the winter.

 

[ducklucky]

Just throw your whole oats in the garden, or even your duck and chicken bedding if you feed them oats, they will grow. Also covering the area where you have thrown the oats with used duck bedding helps. Grow like crazy, even sunflowers from them eating the whole seed, they never digest it all, and it seems to "season" in their bellies, so you don't have to sprout anything first. A little miracle of nature. Wild birds have this trick and have populated the earth with all kinds of different plants.

 

[armorfirelady]

We stored our pumpkins, squash, etc. in the cool basement on a shelf, and they kept for a good 4 months. As long as there is air circulation around them, i.e., not stacked on top of each other, they should keep in a cool, dark place for most of the winter.

Great thanks !!

 

[ducklucky]

Buy the biggest bags of frozen peas or corn. Thaw and hand feed as a treat and tamer. You can get cases at the big box stores, get the cheapest. They love this! Personally, in winter especially, we mix 1/4 whole oats, 1/4 cracked corn (corn produces body heat for the birds), and 1/2 layer pellets. They get treated with leftover pasta and rice, and the frozen/thawed veges, they LOVE spaghetti. Just think what you want your eggs to taste like. You want to stay away from strong things like garlic and onions and broccoli. They do love the pasta, but only do it as a treat, they will fill up and ignore their good food. And yes, they will eat it with the tomato sauce! They're pretty smart, aren't they?