HYPOTHETICAL DISCUSSION: What to feed your chickens when we can't buy chicken feed anymore

[Goodegg1]

I'm new to the thought of raising chicks, but NOT ONLY AS A GOOD SCOUT. being prepared in all forms makes for better survival. The people who have been growing chicks for years probably have the knowledge for what to feed chickens in every stage of growth.

Goodegg1

 

[manureet]

http://theelliotthomestead.com/2013/06/homemade-chicken-feed-organic-and-soy-free/

 

[WHmarans]

Subscribing

 

[WHmarans]

I'm training the girls to free range for Zombies........

lol awesome. Best plan I've heard. Haven't read the whole thread yet. My current feeble attempt at this (aside from the usual garden scraps and fodder) is going to be meal worms and black soldier fly larvae. If I had a couple milk goats I would be giving the girls some goats milk too. Maybe someday.

 

[WHmarans]

It is still very much a numbers game.  Landscape can support only so many animals.  I have at least 50 dogs in 1 mile radius of my house, well in excess of what the land could support.  I could support maybe a dozen using that amount of area if had exclusive hunting rights to it.  Having any number of cats would put a dent in the number of rabbits and squirrels as they already do.  To me, it is not just a numbers game, I need my companion / partners to be in good form so they can get work done and periodically replace themselves.  They might be able to live to be 15 years of age but most are not productive after 10 so supporting older will limit what I can produce food-wise for self.

This is an important concept. Except system efficiency changes the answer about how much of any animal a certain landscape can support (per acre) and finding better ways to use the same stuff (or using more of what's available) is where all the interest comes in for me. I'm really considering an aquaponic system because they're water efficient and pretty nutrient efficient. But I definitely don't know some (many) of the details I'm going to need to learn for that. I'm not totally sure how chickens will work into the system but I'm trying to work that out. I could certainly feed chickens vegetables and fish. But i could eat those myself! But i like variety. duckweed sounds like a good supplemental food source for chickens that grows fast in an aquaponic system. I haven't worked out if I think that's the best use of the nutrients or not. I don't think duckweed fixes atmospheric nitrogen. It would add more benefit in this instance if it did.. Seems to me. One way or the other the concept hinges on having enough minerals (like iron and calcium) from some source to start with. You can tell I'm just thinking out loud now so ill stop!

 

[hildar]

We grow our own field corn here for the chickens. However as warm as it is here in NC they can pretty much forage around the yards all year long. Only in the winter months do we feed them field corn. However they also get plenty of scraps from us, and all in all it works out. Like tonight they will be getting scraps from the cooked sweet potato, and the bread scraps, along with most likely some small pieces of ham fat. Last night they had cooked yellow rice and left over beans.

It all depends on the size of your flock. most folks could still hatch out babies in the spring and then cull in the fall and have plenty of food left over. Just keep enough hens and 1 or 2 roosters so you will have more the next year and so on.

Remember chickens will even eat cooked rice and pastas. I call one of my boys the Italian man, he loves spaghetti and lasagna. They will even eat those romain noodles if you cook them up, believe me there are tons of things that chickens will eat that are cheap.

 

[centrarchid]

This is an important concept. Except system efficiency changes the answer about how much of any animal a certain landscape can support (per acre) and finding better ways to use the same stuff (or using more of what's available) is where all the interest comes in for me. I'm really considering an aquaponic system because they're water efficient and pretty nutrient efficient. But I definitely don't know some (many) of the details I'm going to need to learn for that. I'm not totally sure how chickens will work into the system but I'm trying to work that out. I could certainly feed chickens vegetables and fish. But i could eat those myself! But i like variety. duckweed sounds like a good supplemental food source for chickens that grows fast in an aquaponic system. I haven't worked out if I think that's the best use of the nutrients or not. I don't think duckweed fixes atmospheric nitrogen. It would add more benefit in this instance if it did.. Seems to me. One way or the other the concept hinges on having enough minerals (like iron and calcium) from some source to start with. You can tell I'm just thinking out loud now so ill stop!

What the landscape can support varies greatly as a function of soil quality, topography, existing plant cover and especially weather. Drought severely limits what I can support nutritionally while in wet years parasites are more of a problem. System needs to be flexible.

 

[Missa Chickabee]

I'm going to try to revive this discussion, but I believe the hypothetical could rather be the very probable.

This idea of putting leaves and composting materials into the run sounds very feasible. Easy of any of us to do.

Many of us on these sites do not have fields of grain,corn.etc. Many of us have smaller lots and fewer resources. Our grandparents had a much greater advantage than we do. Technology has hindered our practical imaginations and made us dependent upon things that could go away in a blink.

I think I'll go out now and start throwing some leaves into the run. It's a start!

 

[missnu01]

Here's a thought; could we not easily raise BUGS to give us the bulk of the feed? This is what chickens eat in the wild to start with...

Earthworms. 30 small buckets (5 gallon) with drainholes set up on them, 500 worms in each. They reproduce in 90 days, low maintainence, easy to collect too all you need is a tarp on a sunny day. Feed one half bucket (250 worms, ish) every three days. Infinitely replenishing source of high protein, can eat just about any waste we have, even some from our chickens and provides us with great compost. Can be watered with rain water and fantastic garden benefits.

Crickets. Very easy to feed and maintain. Very easy. Can have a similar setup, just count out several dozen crickets each day for your penned chooks.

I think I would also keep and feed a fast-breeding fish. Doesn't take a big, appetizing, fish... Goldfish are fine, maybe mollies because they breed faster. Catfish are probably one of the best if you can manage them.

Offal from butchered animals for the packed vitamins and eggshells and crushed bones for calcium.

Green stuff can come easy from grass and weeds, but you could also dry whole grains and sprout them, especially in the winter.

In a societal collapse I just want people to think for a moment. We have seven MILLION cats and dogs going into shelters country-wide each year. That's with serious efforts to STOP over-breeding and with FREE spay/neuter facilities and 3-4 million being euthanized every year. We still get 7 million each year. What happens to those animals in the first year of societal collapse? Probably seven million cats and dogs out on the streets. The majority of those are breeds people were unprepared to care for. And the next year? And the next? You really think that with a few LGDs you will protect a free-ranging flock from a pack of half-wild feral pitbulls? Sorry. Not happening. Much like coyotes which can kill LGD, these dogs will team up in packs and tear your dog to shreds. The difference is they're not scared of people, unlike coyotes, which means they will NOT be deterred. Cats will sneak into small places to steal chicks and are almost as nimble as raccoons at opening doors, and are barely domestic even in their domestic form.
And what happens when some nitwit with a poorly managed exotics collection releases a dozen unfixed human-raised tigers and lions and bears (oh my) into the north American forests?

You may want to rethink your plans to simply let the hens loose. Before long we'll be making bomas like they do in Africa!

I like the idea of the insects but I wouldn't suggest earthworms as they can easily pass blackhead disease onto your chickens.  I'd instead suggest meal worms which many on this forum already raise very successfully.  As to the other, well, I don't know...but should whatever it is, be it a feral dog, cat, or whatever, decide to come after my animals, it will get shot just like any other wild animal will today.  I have a pellet gun to use for a non-lethal deterrent but if that doesn't work, there's my .22 to start and if that doesn't work, I can move up to the 12 gauge...and just keep going up until I reach the appropriate caliber.

Pretty sure that blackhead only affects turkeys, and only lives in certain areas... If you have blackhead in your area you won't see turkeys around so there is your answer...do you have wold turkeys? Then your area doesn't have blackhead... not to mention no matter what disease is about not every individual is susceptible to it...so only the resistant would survive if left to nature eventually stamping out said diseases. Nature finds a way...If worms killed all poultry there wouldn't be a chicken duck or turkey alive anywhere.

 

[missnu01]

And for everyone that is worried they don't have the land or space to have a garden in the event the world is doomed research aquaponics. For real. Then you have fish to eat and feed the chickens as well as fruits and veggies to eat and feed the chickens. Can take as much or as little space as you wish to use. So look into it if you live in one of those places where gardening isn't practical. No need for pumps or anything. The fish keep the plants alive and the plants keep the fish alive. It's an amazing excerpt of unrelated species symbiosis.