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

[CheerfulHeart2]

I would like to see that house!

 

[Eggs4Sale]

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Yeah, me too. I haven't heard any mention of it for 20 years. I don't even know how my parents knew about it in the first place...

 

[country lady]

There was a canning lid shortage about the mid 1970s. My mother told me that her sister, a country woman, was reusing lids. I have no idea if that worked or not. I don't know the reason, but there was also a gas shortage in the 70s decade. I always buy some lids late summer for the next year.

The book some you like about cellars was written by Nancy Bubel, who wrote articles in Rodale's Organic Gardening magazine for many years. She is a whiz at gardening.

 

[RioLindoAz]

I haven't been giving the chickens their regular for for about 4 months. (It heats them up) I'm feeding them anything I think they could eat, like any table scraps, grass clippings from the yard, some old leaves under the tree, (they do eat them completely dry - they like them crunchy) all of the garden scraps, and if I can't find anything to feed them, I let them graze on the lawn to eat bugs. Feeding my chickens more greens really cools them off.

I currently have only two broody hens with their two fully-feathered chicks. I only have two layers to supply my family with the eggs we need and use every day. If we keep any more, our expences will become higher than the amount we are saving not buying eggs. ---But this is for only half the year... September is when 4-H season starts, when I start buying pure breeing stock and when the hobby begins!



As you can probobly tell by now, I'm one of those people who buy animals so that they can work for me...and for food.

I think I'm a pretty self-sufficient chicken farmer, no?

 

[Kismet]

There was a canning lid shortage about the mid 1970s. My mother told me that her sister, a country woman, was reusing lids. I have no idea if that worked or not. I don't know the reason, but there was also a gas shortage in the 70s decade. I always buy some lids late summer for the next year.

You must never reuse lids! That is a sure way to get deadly botulism in your canned goods. Because the lid has already been cracked to open the jar the first time, it can never be resealed to completely shut out air, even if it looks pristine.

There was a canning lid shortage in the 70's because there were so many of us who grew up in the sixties going back to the land, growing and preserving our own food, doing then what everyone in this thread is doing now. Perhaps for different reasons, but many the same. Our planet is small and fragile - the Vietnam War contributed to this insight. The movement coincided with the inauguration of Earth Day and our realization that because we were dependent on foreign oil (thus the gas shortage brought on by political manipulations), our livelihoods were vulnerable. In New Jersey for a wedding, my DH and I waited in line at a gas station for an hour and a half (engines off, of course) for a rationed five gallons of gas. It took us a long time to get back to New England.

We are still dependent on foreign oil. Imagine how much progress we could have made if people had put on their sweaters, turned down their thermostats and continued research on alternative energies (sun, solar, geothermal, etc.). Now we are doing what we should have done forty years ago, and many in congress are still fighting conservation.
I don't get it.

 

[LittleFeat]

I hope this is ok to post here but I just thought it was toooo cute and tied in so well to this topic. I hope I've resized ok too!

 

[mylilchix]

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Thank you!!

Sonja

 

[OrpingtonManor]

Thanks! I needed that!

 

[Monk]

We are still dependent on foreign oil. Imagine how much progress we could have made if people had put on their sweaters, turned down their thermostats and continued research on alternative energies (sun, solar, geothermal, etc.). Now we are doing what we should have done forty years ago, and many in congress are still fighting conservation.
I don't get it.

I read somewhere a programable thermostat is one of the best conservation item to buy. We run ours, 60° at night, 68° for one hour when we get up in the morning and a hour in the evening after dinner, the rest of time 64°. A consistant saver, it's great!
I am very much interested in a windmill, it's in the planning...​

 

[LaSombra]

Quote:
I read somewhere a programable thermostat is one of the best conservation item to buy. We run ours, 60° at night, 68° for one hour when we get up in the morning and a hour in the evening after dinner, the rest of time 64°. A consistant saver, it's great!
I am very much interested in a windmill, it's in the planning...

I'd like a windmill also. It would be nice to generate your own electricity. I don't know why something hasn't been invented yet where your exercise bike powers your TV