How to become self-sufficient (kinda) with chickens.

[ecopepper]

I didn't get to read all the post but I thought I would mention a great book to get. It is about the mountian people and how the survived and got by. I got it at Dillard house in N.C.

Firefox by Eliot Wigginton and his students


The students interview many people who lived off the land and It goes into making log cabins and rocking chairs and all sort of other stuff including ghost stories and midwifing!! There are about 12 different books. Gotta get it!!

 

[wombat]

For the original poster:

If you live on sloped land, try terracing with raised beds. You can grow a lot of vegetables in small, high-density plots this way. It does help to improve the soil with composting as well. There's a bit of a cost to get started if you have to go to a garden center and buy timbers, but if you've got logs and rocks and don't mind a rustic look, you can terrace with natural materials. Look into how terraced gardening is done in Japan, and also look at some of the "squares methods" for high density vegetable gardening and adapt that to terraces. A friend of mine with a small, sloped yard has about ten small vegetable gardens ... each is wide enough to reach across, no wider ... and only as long as he can fit into a given spot ... most are about 3' x 12' or so, and he grows more than his family can eat during the growing season.

If you are lucky enough to have a slope that faces south, and gets plenty of sunlight, you can do very well with terraced garden plots once you've invested the initial work of building the beds and improving the soil.

Yes, chicken manure is good for composting. If you are tight for space, research using barrel composters. There are plenty of options on the internet. We run barrel composters, and they cook down compost fairly quickly. Getting compost to a good temperature is the best thing for ensuring clean compost.

 

[ecopepper]

Composting chicken Poop
Darn quote didn't work.


I put chicken poop in a seperate composter and will use it next spring...they say to let it "cook" for a year...So hopefully this will do...I also have the bedding in that same composter to add to the mix!! I will probably use it in a test spot first. I live in Florida so it should cook well!!! As for dog poop I don't know but they eat food that has meat by product usually right? But if you keep them vegan then maybe that is the difference??

 

[Eggs4Sale]

"Someone mentioned canning lids and this has always bothered me about canning. What did people do before commercially made lids? The only thing I can think of is a cork seal or something. "

They melted paraffin wax and poured it right on top of the food in the jar, pretty thick, like an inch. Then they could put a scrap of fabric over it and tie that on, but I don't know if they all did that.

Some large clay jars were found in the mountains here in the AZ deserty, in a small cave/ dugout. They were sealed with a clay/ mud material. Inside were mustard seeds, lots and lots of mustard seeds, still viable after more than a hundred years.

 

[mylilchix]

I just finished reading "Animal Vegetable Miracle." It was awesome and really opened my eyes to how we could be eating. We live in the foothills outside of Denver. We have 4 acres, and so far I just have chickens and llamas on the property. (Despite the fact that the neighbors behind us don't like them, oh well.) Next year we'll finally put in the veggie garden. I have plenty of llama manure for that.

I've really enjoyed the book "Home Cheese Making" by Ricki Carroll. I've actually started making my own cheese using it. A local woman has a cow, so we're getting milk from her weekly. I've found this website very helpful for freezing and canning. http://www.pickyourown.org/index.htm I've also been making my own bread and jam for a while now, too.

I would like to feed my chickens more cost effectively though. I can't let them free range because of the raccoons, fox, hawks, coyote, bear, and mountain lions that live nearby. I do pick the grass, dandelions, and clover that are near the coop and feed it to the girls. I feed their egg shells back to them. I'd really like to find a way to stop using commercial feed and maximize the chickens health.

Sonja

 

[country lady]

Did anybody read a letter to the editor in one of the country magazines, maybe Countryside, that said she was allowed to raise meat chickens but had to take them to a slaughter house to be processed? The lady was from southern NJ. Wonder if this is a practice any where else.

 

[becky3086]

Sorry I did not read the whole thread.I have been running a self sufficient group for 8 years now. One thing I do know is that most people aren't nearly as self sufficienct as they think they are. Yup, I have chickens, quail and ducks, I can kill them all and use them without a lot of waste. There are a lot of them that go broody so could hatch out their own chicks. We live here by the lake and my other half hunts. I have a small garden, fruit trees and vines, nut trees, berry bushes etc. I have a small vegetable garden. I know some of the wild edibles that are good to eat here and how to cook them. I can my food, knit, sew, and do all sorts of other crafts, including things like soapmaking.
But I don't kid myself into thinking it would be easy for me to be completely self sufficient. For every one self sufficient thing I do know, there are a million things I couldn't do. As mentioned, what would I can without canning jar lids, how do you make another jar when one breaks, what happens when the canner seal goes? I could never feed all these chickens, fish are only catchable on this lake, if you have some hooks and a fishing pole or at least a line(I can make line or roap yet). I could never sustain this many chickens without buying feed. Heck, I can't even make a fire without a lighter, lol.
If anything like this did happen, the knowledge I have would only give me a slight edge and having a few chickens and knowing what to do with them isn't going to save anyone.
Just my thoughts.

 

[rebecca100]

I really like this thread. I had the Encyclopedia of Country Living 10th and 10th revised. It is a wonderful book. My goal is self-sufficient living. I am young and I realize that there is a lot to learn that I don't know. I wish there was a school or something here that i could go to. I am trying to teach myself to can etc. I feel the need to be prepared, but for what I don't know. i realize that if there ever was truly disasterous time that all the preparation in the world could be useless. Until then I want to learn what I can to be prepared for whatever comes my way. I just learned about catfish in a barrel. Not much for a disaster, but certinaly sounds like a fun experiment. Please let me know about any links, etc. that might have good learning info! Thanks P.S. as for composting and gardening I am learning a lot about right here!!!

 

[tasymo]

I don't think anyone here is kidding themselves that being self-sufficient will be EASY, and I know that life "as we now know it" couldn't be preserved without the society that currently supports it. The scary thing to me, is how few people have even considered how they would survive without all the modern conveniences they now enjoy. The majority of Americans would be helpless if the "worst" should happen. I, for one, don't intend to be helpless. Our ancestors managed to survive, but they had a multitude of skills that have been allowed to fall by the wayside as modern life has progressed. That knowledge and those skills are still available to anyone who truly desires to possess them and that, I think, is what this wonderful thread is all about.

I suggest anyone who is on a tight budget and is looking for good information on preserving food- check out the book section of your local thrift store. I have found numerous vintage cookbooks and how to books on things like cheese making, drying food, canning, bread making, etc. for less than a dollar each. I've accumulated quite an impressive collection of these types of books, so at least I won't be totally lost if we were to lose the Internet.

Back to chickens. My six Girls vastly prefer to freerange my yard. Since I only allow them out when I can be out there to keep track of them, their freerange time varies depending on my availability. On days they are out most of the day, the barely touch their store bought feed. If they are confined to their run all day, they clean out the feeder. I love to observe them, finding their behavior fascinating, and have noticed that they don't eat any one thing for long. The move all over the various areas of the yard, sometimes eating grass, or mulberries, or comfrey, or bugs, or seed heads off taller grasses, or my petunias... you get the picture. I believe that as long as you offer them lots of choices, especially by planting stuff just for them, they will naturally eat a balanced diet. It would, of course, be more difficult to provide a balanced diet in the Winter, but I'm sure it can be done.

 

[mylilchix]

I've planted grass in small cages in our run. That way the chickens can get to grass, but they don't destroy the root system. I built a wooden rectangle, covered it with chicken wire, and threw grass seeds in. The girls love it! I also give the flock lots of kitchen scraps. Since I make our bread and some cheeses they get those scraps as well as leftover veggies. I've given them leftover bits of meat too. I have a friend who can get mixed grains very inexpensively, so I'm hoping that will keep them through the winter.

Sonja